[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Nicholas Smith

Prerequisite: One from PHIL 1101, 1102, 1103, 1104, 1105, 1106 or 1107.

How can we best live together? Does living well with others require individuals to give up some of their freedom? Or does social life enable individuals to realize their freedom more fully? Is the exercise of power by some over others ever justified? What, if anything, justifies power exercised by the State? Under what circumstances, if any, is civil disobedience or rebellion against the State called for? We examine such questions through a reading of some the key thinkers of modern social and political philosophy, including Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Arendt and Rawls.

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