PHIL 205

Community, Society and Rights


Please note: this is archived course information from 2012 for PHIL 205.

Description

This course covers a range of topics including: cultural claims, the relevance of ethnicity and culture to group rights,  problems accommodating cultural claims in a multicultural society, the theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as to the existence of a "state of nature" and the emergence of the political state, as well as the concept of sovereignty, social contracts and political amalgamations between sovereign units. There will be detailed discussion of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Availability 2012

Semester 1

Lecturer(s)

Coordinator(s) Professor Gillian Brock
Distinguished Professor Stephen Davies

Recommended Reading

Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship a Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Assessment

Coursework + exam

Points

PHIL 205: 15 points

Prerequisites

30 points in Philosophy, or 30 points in Political Studies