The head of any political science department whose course structure does not begin with a serious study of Hayek’s ‘Constitution of Liberty‘ shall be shot.
In the book’s introduction, Hayek sets out a threefold purpose to its creation, the first two of which being,
1. to show why we want liberty and what it does.
2 . and to present an examination of the institutions that Western man has developed to secure individual liberty.
Before studying philosophies requiring the infringement of individual liberties, is it not logically imperative to first understand what those philosophies urge us to destroy (or infringe upon) and why we might wish not to destroy (or infringe upon) it?
While it’s possible to engage in arguments against (some) individual liberties, it is inconceivable to do so without liberty first having had the opportunity to speak on its own behalf.
As per the introduction, Hayek, in this book at least, intentionally avoids basing his arguments on moral platitudes or natural ‘rights’, as he finds that line of argumentation unpersuasive to any but the already persuaded. The (first part of the) book is a purely practical argument for individual liberty.
The book is one of only a handful of modern treatises worthy of being labeled a classic.
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So you would deny Political Science teachers the liberty to structure their course as they saw fit?
Dave Justus’s last blog post..Micahel Yon in the Wall Street Journal
Ok, so maybe we don’t shoot him.
As a degree-holder in Poli-Sci, I think this is a terrible idea. Any good lower division course in POL starts with a definition of politics, and from there moves inevitably to Plato and begins to move chronologically. If we started with Hayek, no one would have a clue what he was talking about…
Furthermore, most of POL has been developed since 1812, the beginning of the modern world. I am unpersuaded that Hayek should be taught before Locke, Jefferson, or any of the other Enlightenment thinkers– let alone the classic thinkers.
Of course, it’s only on the 3rd reading that I begin to understand– your title gives you away. You’ve set this suggestion out as a monstrously bad idea and we should all have a giggle at it. I’m sorry I didn’t see that right away…
I took a two-course sequence from the philosophy department at Cal Poly. The first course was Ethics, and the second was Political Philosophy. The latter class was designed to use the tools of formal Ethics (Kantian and Utilitarian analysis) to examine the tradeoffs proposed by any political philosophy. I though it worked quite well, much better than the lower division political philosophy class I had taken at another school, which was based around chronological readings of Plato, Augustin, Roussou, Locke, Hegel, and Marx.
I agree with Naftali’s core point that theories of liberty have a very important place in political science and political philosophy, although I also feel there are a lot of potentially successful ways of structuring the class. The main flaw I see with the traditional model Punning Pundit is talking about is that it often stops with Locke and Jefferson when talking about liberty, while continuing on to Hegel, Nitchze, Marx, etc when talking about other areas of political philosophy. There are real flaws with classical thinkers’ arguments which have become apparent in the intervening centuries, and to do an intellectual tradition justice you also need to touch on the modern (in this case, Hayek, Friedman, and Nozick) as well as the classical thinkers.
On the other hand, there really is only so much time in any one class, and most people only take one or two POL classes, so you do have to pick your battles, and what you include depends on the goals of the class.
As it happened, I spent 20 lovely weeks (2 quarters of 10 weeks each) studying Hayek, Friedman, Nozick and Rawls.
But it was all upper division stuff– we had to have the language down before we could understand what those guys were talking about.
As I said, priorities depend on the class. If it’s a survey class that’s intended to be the only PoliSci class a non-PoliSci major takes, you don’t have time for in-depth study of Hayek, Friedman, and Nozick. I do think that in most cases, a survey class should touch on at least one of them, even if it means skimping on Plato. My Political Philososphy class at Cal Poly did this by covering the Rawls vs. Nozick debate, and I think it was quite successful and very valuable. The R v. N debate is much more applicable to the current political debate in first world countries than most of the classical and enlightenment thinkers.
Punning, the language barrier can be overcome with a good teacher. I understood every word and I did not go to college.
It ain’t ‘rocket science’. Come to think about it, rocket science ain’t ‘rocket science’.
naftali,
try rocket science sometime and then tell me that.
“try rocket science sometime and then tell me that.”
Fuck you,
If you wish to discourse, don’t tell me what to do.
make your point; flesh it out without rhetoric orders.
or carry on.
Naftali,
whoa, dude…take a joke once in a while. i was kidding around, man.
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