GV316      Half Unit
Advanced Issues in Applied Political Theory

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Additional requisites:

A foundational course in contemporary political theory (such as GV262 or equivalent) is recommended.

An investigation of contemporary questions in applied political theory. Taking as a starting point a pressing social and political challenge, the course instructs students to systematically apply different political theories to approach the problem, to understand and critically discuss different normative viewpoints, and to develop and defend their own position in these debates.

Examples of such themes include environmental and climate change, free speech, multiculturalism and toleration, poverty and global justice, colonialism, or surveillance and privacy. The topics are selected each year to reflect current debates and the interests of the course convener. The course gives students the opportunity to experience research-led teaching, as the course convener will typically create a syllabus to reflect their current research projects.

In 2025-26, the focus of the course will be on political-philosophical questions in the context of environmental change, especially climate change. It draws primarily on contemporary analytical political philosophy, political theory, and environmental ethics, but with cross-disciplinary input from the natural and social sciences. Some key questions will be abstract and theoretical, including: What kind of problem is climate change? How do we value nature? How ought we to distribute the costs of climate? How are the injustices of climate change related to other historical injustice? What do we owe future generations? At the same time, the course also challenges us to think about the application of theories from philosophy and the social sciences, leading to questions like: How can we improve the knowledge about climate change? How do we motivate citizens and states to reduce emissions? How do we decide what to preserve for future generations? Is civil or uncivil disobedience a promising route to bring about social change? Which democratic institutions might support effective climate policies?

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Essay

One short formative essay in the WT.

• John Broome (2012) Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World, New York (W.W. Norton);
• Stephen Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson and Henry Shue, eds. (2010) Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, Oxford (Oxford University Press);
• Denis G. Arnold, ed. (2011) The ethics of global climate change, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press);
• Stephen M. Gardiner (2011) A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change, Oxford (OUP);
• Jeremy Moss, ed. (2015). Climate Change and Justice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
• Simon Caney (2020). “Climate Justice”, in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-climate/;
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021-2) Sixth Assessment Report, Available at www.ipcc.ch.

Course participation (25%)

Essay (75%, 3000 words) in Spring Term Week 1