Undergraduate - UnitATS3869 - Political philosophy

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	Philosophy
Offered	Clayton Second semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Dr John Thrasher

Synopsis

This unit aims to give students with a background in philosophy or politics a strong foundation in political philosophy. The central question of the unit is: what makes a society just or unjust? The first part of the course examines this question from the perspective of mainstream economics and of liberal political thought. The second part of the course looks at some important critiques of liberalism, focusing especially on underlying beliefs about the concepts of freedom and desert. In the final part of the course we use the ideas introduced earlier in semester to analyse the topic of justice in crime and punishment.

Outcomes

Students successfully completing this subject will have an understanding of current debates over political concepts such as justice, freedom and equality. Students will be able to apply their understanding of these debates to practical issues, such as inter-cultural tolerance in a pluralistic society, taxation for redistributive purposes, law and order debates, and more.

Students at third year level will also have developed skills in independent research in political philosophy; a deeper and more thorough understanding of the issues covered in the unit; and a familiarity with a wider range of literature in political philosophy.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.