POLS 250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: English Civil War, Secular Ethics, Eudaimonia

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Political Studies
• Course: POLS 250
• Professor: Colin Farrelly

Document Summary

The social contract: appeal: agreement=legitimacy, making sense of political obligation is not a problem, different contractarians use the device in the different ways to justify political regimes . Two kinds of contract theories: interest-based contract theories. Agreement is premised on non-moral premises (i. e. self-interest) [not individual rights] Lived in time of english civil war, so lots of moral instability. Provide theory of social contract that everyone can accept even if disagree on moral(religious) opinions: right-based contract theory. Provide justification to moral sceptic: locke, rousseau, kant, agreement is based on an assumption of prior individual rights(moral premises) Topics: background, the state of nature, the prisoner"s dilemma, the laws of nature, critical assessment of hobbes"s argument. 1. background: born in 1588 (early due to the arrival of the spanish armada, lived during time of political instability, conflict between royalists and parliament, bbc timeline of civil war{google bbc history civil war timeline}