Current Course Offering

“Politics: The Art of Living Life Together”

A Hood Theological Seminary Online Educational Engagement

How should we live together in society?

Why do we need government? What is its purpose?

What is justice? How is it established?

Discussion Text: Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press)
Author: David Miller, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford

Facilitator: Trevor Eppehimer
Academic Dean, Hood Theological Seminary

Week 1 (September 28-October 1): Why do we need political philosophy? and Political authority

“It is easy to get swept away by the political topics of the moment and lose sight of basic issues that underlie politics everywhere. ”

“The real choice is not whether to have political authority or not, but what kind of authority to have, and what its limits should be .”

Week 2 (October 5-8): Democracy

“Democracy, we discover, is not an all-or-nothing matter, but a continuing struggle to give people as a whole final authority over the affairs of the state.”

Week 3 (October 12-15): Freedom and the limits of government

"We balance freedom against other values, and sometimes freedom has to give way. But how far should this balancing go?

Is there a sphere of personal freedom that we are never justified in infringing, no matter how good the consequences of restricting freedom might appear to be?”

Week 4 (October 19-22): Justice

“Justice is fundamental to the institutions that turn a mass of individuals into a political community.”

Week 5 (October 26-29): Feminism and multiculturalism

"It becomes a matter of great political concern if one section of society enjoys only a smaller area of personal freedom, or receives less than equal treatment at the hands of existing social and political institutions.”

Week 6 (November 2-5): Nations, states, and global justice

“Can we think in terms of global justice, and if so are the principles that apply at this level fundamentally different from the ones that apply within national political communities?”