Government 262 - EARLY MODERN POLITICAL THEORY

A study of Machiavellian power-politics and of efforts by social contract and utilitarian liberals to render that politics safe and humane. Topics considered include: political behavior, republican liberty, empire and war; the state of nature, natural law/natural right, sovereignty, and peace; limitations on power, the general will, and liberalism?s relation to moral theory, religion, and economics. Readings from Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Smith and others; also novels and plays.