POL 302 Machiavelli v. the World (3 credits)

Machiavelli challenged political theorists to look at politics "as it is" rather than "as it ought to be." He asserted that rulers needed virtue – literally "manliness" – rather than Christian virtue or morality. This course investigates how Machiavelli’s ideas challenged (and threatened!) those of the Reformation and the Jesuits – and affected democratic and liberal theorists as they sought to reinvent the world. The course examines the political thought of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau Wollstonecraft, Mill, Marx, and Rawls – as well as 20th and 21st century writers who continue to debate the nature of politics, gender, and political leadership. It includes a simulation of Rousseau’s General Will and Rawls’s Original position.