The moral foundations of politics - ian shapiro (resumo)

THE MORAL FOUNDATIONS OF POLITICS by Ian Shapiro (Yale University)
Substance of the course: the moral foundations of politics, of political argument.
Explore some traditions: Enlightenment and Anti- Enlightenment
Enlightenment. Two ideas
1) Basing the theories of politics on SCIENCE.
2) Individual freedom is the most important political good.
Three traditions: utilitarian, Marxist and contratualist.
Utilitarianism: maximize the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Marxism: different theory (historical materialism) but it too was based on this idea that we can have impersonal scientific principles that give us the right answer for the organization of society. We would eventually get to a world in which politics is replaced by administration, implying that all forms of moral disagreement will have gone away because we will have gotten technically r
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Contratualism: What agreement would people would make if they were designing society for the first time.
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Methodological approaching:
The most important question according to Shapiro: what legitimates a government?
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Two types of analysis will be held: internal (analytical and philosophical sense) and external (influence in the world). “Why there are good arguments (internally) there are not efficacious (externally) and bad arguments there are efficacious?”
THE EICHMANN PROBLEM
Hanne Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem”
Reading questions: ->What two things make you most uncomfortable about Eichmann’s actions? He should have been thinking about the consequences of his actions. Even though he didn’t hate jews, he wasn’t transporting ammo, but people. He also had too much loyalty for his superiors.
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-> What two things make you most uncomfortable about the events surrounding Eichmann’s apprehension,