PHILOSOPHY: Comprehensive Exam Reading List
City University of New York Graduate Center

Social and Political Philosophy Comprehensive Exam Reading List

(An asterisk* indicates that the work is available, in whole or suitable abridgment, in Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy, ed. Steven M. Cahn (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.) Two asterisks** indicate that the work is available, in whole or suitable abridgment, in Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology, eds, Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1997.) Three asterisks*** indicate that the work is available in Morality and Public Policy, eds. Steven M. Cahn and Tziporah Kasachkoff (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003.))

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  1. Classical Readings in Social and Political Theory
    1. Plato, Defence of Socrates,* Crito,* Republic,* Statesman*
    2. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,* Politics*
    3. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Qs. 90, 95-97*
    4. Machiavelli, The Prince*
    5. Hobbes, Leviathan*
    6. Locke, Second Treatise of Government*
    7. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality,* Of the Social Contract*
    8. Hume, Of the Original Contract*
    9. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, The Federalist Papers*
    10. Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals*
    11. Hegel, Philosophy of Right,* The Philosophy of History*
    12. Marx and Engels, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,* The German Ideology*
    13. Mill, On Liberty*
  2. Contemporary Readings in Social and Political Theory
    1. Rawls, A Theory of Justice,* "The Domain of the Political and Overlapping Consensus"**
    2. Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia*
    3. Michael J. Sandel, "The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self"**
    4. Carole Pateman, "The Fraternal Social Contract"**
    5. Martha Nussbaum, "The Feminist Critique of Liberalism"*
    6. Joshua Cohen, "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy"**
    7. Ronald Dworkin, "Taking Rights Seriously"**
    8. Will Kymlicka, "Justice and Minority Rights"**
    9. Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty"**
    10. Charles Taylor, "What's Wrong with Negative Liberty"**
    11. Bernard Williams, "The Idea of Equality"**
    12. Jean Bethke Elshtain, "Moral Woman and Immoral Man: A Consideration of the Public-Private Split and Its Political Ramifications"**
  3. Contemporary Issues in Social and Political Philosophy
    1. Helen E. Longino, "Pornography, Oppression, and Freedom: A Closer Look"***
    2. Joel Feinberg, "The Feminist Case against Pornography"***
    3. Ernest van den Haag, "In Defense of the Death Penalty"***
    4. Hugo Adam Bedau, "Capital Punishment"***
    5. The Affirmative Action Debate, Second Edition, ed. Steven M. Cahn (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), #1-13.

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