Unit 4: Social and political philosophy

Anarchism. Covers the core claim that the state is illegitimate and unnecessary, the difference between philosophical and social anarchism, key thinkers such as Godwin, Proudhon, Kropotkin and Wolff, the main objections, and how to build an evaluative answer.

Kantian ethics. Covers the good will and duty, the categorical versus hypothetical imperative, the formula of universal law and the formula of humanity (treating persons as ends), and major objections including conflicting duties and rigidity.

Libertarianism. Covers self-ownership, property rights, Nozick's minimal state and entitlement theory, the roles of Hayek and Friedman, the main objections, and how to evaluate the limits of governmental power in a written response.

Sources of knowledge. Covers the rationalist appeal to reason and innate ideas (Descartes, Leibniz), the empiricist appeal to experience (Locke's blank slate, Hume's impressions and ideas), the analytic-synthetic and a priori-a posteriori distinctions, and Kant's synthesis.

Philosophical scepticism. Covers global versus local scepticism, Descartes's dream and evil-demon arguments, the cogito and his attempted escape, the modern brain-in-a-vat version, and responses including Moore's proof and contextualism.

Social liberalism. Covers its commitment to individual liberty alongside social justice, positive and negative liberty, key thinkers such as Mill, T. H. Green, Rawls and Dworkin, the main objections, and a model evaluative response.

Socialism, including communism as a form of socialism. Covers collective ownership, the critique of capitalism, Marx and Engels, democratic socialism, the main objections including incentives and knowledge problems, and how to write an evaluative response.

Utilitarianism. Covers Bentham's principle of utility and hedonic calculus, Mill's higher and lower pleasures, the act and rule versions, and major objections including justice, demandingness and the separateness of persons.

Free will. Covers the determinist thesis, hard determinism, libertarian free will, compatibilism, the consequence argument, and the implications for moral responsibility, with reference to Hume, Frankfurt and the challenge from neuroscience.

Distributive justice. Covers Rawls's justice as fairness, the original position and difference principle, Nozick's entitlement theory and libertarian critique, the utilitarian approach, and the contrast between patterned and historical theories of a fair distribution.

Personal identity. Covers the persistence question, the body and soul criteria, Locke's memory or psychological-continuity theory, the duplication and circularity objections, Reid's brave officer case, and Parfit's claim that identity is not what matters.

Mind-body problem. Covers Descartes's substance dualism and the interaction problem, physicalism and identity theory, functionalism, and the hard problem of consciousness including qualia and Jackson's knowledge argument.

Virtue ethics. Covers Aristotle's eudaimonia and function argument, virtue as a state of character, the doctrine of the mean, the role of practical wisdom and habituation, and objections including the guidance problem and cultural variation.

Analysis of knowledge. Covers the distinction between knowledge and belief, the justified true belief (JTB) analysis, Gettier's counterexamples, and proposed repairs including the no-false-lemmas, reliabilist and defeasibility responses.

Metaethics. Covers the difference between normative and metaethics, cognitivism versus non-cognitivism, moral realism, cultural relativism, subjectivism, Ayer's emotivism, and Hume's is-ought gap, with objections to each.

A QCE Unit 4 comparison of anarchism, libertarianism, social liberalism and socialism. Provides a comparison table across authority, liberty, property and equality, shows where they agree and clash, and sets out a method for answering extended-response questions on two philosophies.

Rights. Covers the distinction between legal and moral rights, natural and human rights, negative and positive rights, the Hohfeldian analysis of claims, liberties, powers and immunities, and the will and interest theories of what rights are for.

Social contract theory. Covers the state of nature, why the contract is needed, and the contrasting accounts of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, plus Rawls and standard objections, as a basis for justifying state authority.

Individual liberty and the limits of state power. Covers Mill's harm principle, the distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding acts, negative and positive liberty after Berlin, paternalism, and objections such as offence and harm to self.