Political Philosophy

Thom Brooks is Reader in Political and Legal Philosophy at the University of Newcastle. He is the author of Hegel's Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right (Edinburgh UP, 2007), Punishment (Routledge, 2008), Global Justice (Blackwell, forthcoming), and more than thirty articles in political and moral philosophy in journals, such as Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, Georgia State University Law Review, History of Political Thought, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Journal of Social Philosophy, Philosophy, Ratio, Rutgers Law Record, Utilitas, and several others. Brooks is editor of the Journal of Moral Philosophy and several books, including Rousseau and Law (Ashgate, 2005), The Legacy of John Rawls (with Fabian Freyenhagen, 2005, 2nd ed 2007), Locke and Law (Ashgate, 2007), The Global Justice Reader (Blackwell, 2008), and Hegel's Political Philosophy (Blackwell, forthcoming). He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Association's Committee on Philosophy and Law, the Hegel Society of Great Britain's Council, and the executive board of the Political Studies Association.

• Preface.Introduction: What is political philosophy?.Chapter I: Freedom.Chapter II: Rights.Chapter III: Justice.Chapter IV: Democracy.Chapter V: Punishment.Chapter VI: Feminism.Chapter VII: Global Justice.Chapter VIII: Environmentalism.Conclusion.Bibliography.Index..Introduction: What is political philosophy?.The book will begin with a general essay meant to introduce the reader to the subject of political philosophy and offer a clear picture of the kinds of questions political philosophy asks and how it aspires to provide answers. In general, my focus will not be exclusively on contemporary political philosophy. Instead, my focus might be best characterized as on contemporary political philosophy, but informed by its history..Chapter I: Freedom .The first chapter will examine the topic of freedom. My main focus will be on the debate between those who hold negative views of freedom (e.g., Hobbes, Berlin), those who hold positive views of freedom (e.g., Green, Nussbaum), and alternative views (e.g., MacCallum, Mill, Frankfurt). First, that I am highly sympathetic to the 'positive' view of freedom and I will offer a defence of this view. Secondly, I will include a discussion of Sen's and Nussbaum's capabilities approach (in my view, too often neglected in books of this kind) and include it as one variant of positive freedom..Chapter II: Rights.The second chapter will focus on rights. It will begin by discussing the beginning of rights theorizing, arising with natural rights theorists (e.g., Hobbes, Locke) and its development and connection with modern human rights. Other important figures, such as Wesley Hohfeld, will be discussed leading to a sympathetic view of Leif Wenar's several functions theory of rights. Following Wenar, my argument will be that there is way out of the interest theory versus will theory debate. This way out is a recognition that rights have more than one function, an insight we can find in earlier writers, such as Hegel and T. H. Green, and developed much further since by Wenar. Throughout the chapter, I will raise several questions: Why are rights important? How do we know a right when we see one? Are there too many rights?.Chapter III: Justice