Unit name | What is democracy, and how should it work? |
---|---|
Unit code | PHIL20057 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Professor. Pettigrew |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
N/A |
Co-requisites |
N/A |
School/department | Department of Philosophy |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
What’s so great about democracy? Why are democratic institutions valuable? Voting seems to be part of the story. But how? Why is the ability to vote so important? And what makes a good voting system anyway? In this unit, we will explore a number of different voting systems and investigate their role in democracy. We will ask a range of philosophical questions about voting: Do we have a moral duty to vote? Is it rational to vote? What sorts of voting systems are good or bad for different purposes? When is a voting system fair? Whose vote should count anyway? We will also explore important results about what sorts of voting systems are even possible, such as Arrow’s theorem and the Condorcet Jury Theorem, and consider their implications for how to structure democratic institutions. Along the way, we will examine the subtle (and not so subtle) ways in which democracy is often undermined.
On successful completion of the unit students will be able to:
11 two-hour lectures and 11 one-hour seminars.
All assessment is summative:
Group presentation: designed to test ILOs 1-5 (25%)
Short executive summary (500 words - each student will provide an executive summary for policy-makers of their contribution to group project): designed to test ILOs 1-4 (25%)
Essay (1,500 words): designed to test ILOs 1-4 (40%)
Weekly Journal entries (10x 300 words): designed to test ILOs 1-4 (10%)
Michelle Alexander (2012) The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Revised edition) (The New Press)
Eric Pacuit (2011) Voting Methods in Zalta, E. (ed) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voting-methods/
Amartya Sen (2017) Collective Choice and Social Welfare (2nd edition) (Penguin)
Iris Marion Young (2002) Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford University Press)