19. Contract & Commonwealth: Thomas Hobbes
Description
In the opening part of the lecture, Professor Gendler concludes her discussion of punishment by exploring how Alan Kazdin’s research on effective parenting provides insights about techniques for rehabilitating individuals who violate societal norms. She then moves to the third large unit of the course: the question of the legitimacy and structure of the state. One answer to the question of state legitimacy--that of Thomas Hobbes--is presented. Hobbes argues that life without a government, in a “state of nature,” would be “nasty, poor, solitary, brutish, and short” as a result of violent competition for resources. To avoid this situation, Hobbes contends that rational individuals should lay down some of their rights in order to receive the benefits of a centralized state, to the extent that others are also willing to do so.
Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://oyc.yale.edu
This course was recorded in Spring 2011.
Professor Gendler begins with brief introductory remarks about the course’s methodology, explaining the approach that was taken to reading and presenting various articles. She continues with a discussion of Cass Sunstein’s work on social norms, looking particularly at his account of the...
Published 01/24/14
After introducing Plato's Republic, Professor Gendler turns to the discussion of Glaucon's challenge in Book II. Glaucon challenges Socrates to defend his claim that acting justly (morally) is valuable in itself, not merely as a means to some other end (in this case, the reputation one gets from...
Published 01/17/14
Professor Gendler explains the interdisciplinary nature of the course: work from philosophy, psychology, behavioral economics, and literature will be brought to bear on the topic of human nature. The three main topics of the course are introduced--happiness and flourishing, morality, and...
Published 01/17/14