WEBVTT

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Prof: This course
presumes no prior knowledge of

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its subject matter.

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That is to say you can take
this course without having done

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any political philosophy before.

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The materials we're going to
look at in this course can be

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approached at a number of levels
of sophistication.

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Indeed you could teach an
entire course on just John

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Stuart Mill,
or John Rawls,

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or Karl Marx,
or Jeremy Bentham,

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and this means that some of you
who may have had some prior

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acquaintance with some of these
texts will be able to explore

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them in a different way from
newcomers.

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But the course is designed,
as I said, to be user-friendly

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to people who are doing this for
the first time.

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There are a few parts of the
course in which I make use of

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technical notations or diagrams.

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Now, it is true,
it's just as fact about human

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beings that if you put a graph,
or a chart, or a curve up on a

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diagram there are certain
people,

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some subset of the population
that get a knot in their

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stomach,
they start to feel nauseous,

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and their brain stops
functioning.

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I can totally relate to it
because I'm actually one of

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those people by disposition.

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And what I can tell you about
our use of charts,

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and diagrams,
and notations in this course is

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they're simply shorthand for
people who find it useful.

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But I will do nothing with
diagrams and charts that I don't

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also do verbally.

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So if you don't get it the one
way you'll be able to get it the

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other way.

01:52.900 --> 01:59.690


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So you should never feel
intimidated.

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As I said, for people who find
graphs and charts useful they're

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a form of shorthand,
but obviously if they

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intimidate somebody and they
make what's being said opaque

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then they're being
self-defeating.

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And as I said,
I will always walk verbally

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through anything that I also do
with charts and diagrams.

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Secondly, related to that
point, it's my commitment to you

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that this is a course that's
done from first principles and

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everything is explained from the
ground up.

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I might forget that contract
sometime and use a term that you

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don't understand.

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I might use a word like
"deontological,"

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and you'll sit there and you'll
be thinking,

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"What does that mean?"

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And the high probability is
that if you don't know what it

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means there are probably seventy
other people in the room who

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don't know what it means either.

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And so if you put up your hand
and ask what it means you'll be

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doing those sixty-nine people a
favor because they wanted to

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know what it means as well.

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So we shouldn't have any
situation in this course in

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which I'm using some term and
you can't follow what I'm

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talking about because you don't
understand what it means.

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It is a rather embarrassing
fact about political

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philosophers that they don't say
in words of one syllable what

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can be said in words of five
syllables.

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But part of my job here is to
reduce them to words of one

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syllable.

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That is, to take complex
theoretical ideas and make them

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lucid and intelligible to you.

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And I see that as a big part of
what we're doing here so that

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your takeaway from this course
three months from now will

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include feeling very comfortable
with the language of political

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philosophy and the central
terminology in which it's

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conducted.

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So hold my feet to the fire on
that if you need to.

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If I use words you don't
understand put up your hand and

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stop me.

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I will from time to time throw
out questions and we'll have a

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microphone that we can pass
around so that people can answer

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the questions.

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It's one of the ways in which I
gauge how well the communication

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between us is going,
so you should expect that.

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So this is a course about the
moral foundations of politics,

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the moral foundations of
political argument.

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And the way in which we
organize it is to explore a

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number of traditions of
political theorizing,

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and these are broadly grouped
into a bigger distinction that I

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make between Enlightenment and
anti-Enlightenment thinking.

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That is to say we're going to
start of by looking at the

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Enlightenment.

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Now you might say,
"Well, what is the

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Enlightenment?

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How do you know it when you
trip over it?"

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and that is a subject I'm going
to get to on Wednesday and

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Friday.

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But for right now I'll say just
dogmatically,

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and I'll elaborate for you
later, that the Enlightenment

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revolved around two ideas.

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The first is the idea of basing
our theories of politics on

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science--
not on religion,

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not on tradition,
not on superstition,

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not on natural law,
but on science.

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The Enlightenment was born of
an enormous optimism about the

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possibilities of science.

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And in this course we will look
at Enlightenment theories that

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put science at the core of
political argument.

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The second main Enlightenment
idea is the idea that individual

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freedom is the most important
political good.

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And so if you wanted to get the
bumper sticker version of the

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Enlightenment account of
politics,

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it is, "How do you
scientifically design a society

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to maximize individual
freedom?"

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Now, within that,
we will look at three

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Enlightenment traditions.

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We'll look at the utilitarian
tradition, the Marxist

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tradition, and the social
contract tradition.

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And again, I'll just give you
the one-line version now and

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then we're going to come back to
all of these,

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of course, in much greater
detail later.

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The utilitarian tradition says
that the way in which you create

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a scientifically organized
society is you maximize the

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greatest happiness of the
greatest number.

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This is the slogan of
utilitarianism.

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Maximize the greatest happiness
of the greatest number.

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You'll find there're huge
disagreements among utilitarians

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about how you measure your
happiness,

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and how you maximize it,
and how you know when you've

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maximized it and so on,
but the utilitarians all agree

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that that's the goal,
and if you can do that you will

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do more to maximize human
freedom than anything else.

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The Marxist tradition has a
very different theory of

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science,
what Marx called the science of

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historical materialism,
but it too was based on this

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idea that we can have impersonal
scientific principles that give

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us the right answer for the
organization of society.

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One of Marx's famous one-liners
was that we will eventually get

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to a world in which politics is
replaced by administration,

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implying that all forms of
moral disagreement will have

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gone away because we will have
gotten technically the right

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answers.

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Another formulation of that
same idea actually comes from a

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different Enlightenment thinker
who we're not going to read in

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this course,
David Hume, who said,

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"If all moral
disagreements were resolved,

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no political disagreements
would remain."

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So that's the idea of a
scientific solution to what

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appear to be the moral dilemmas
that divide us.

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So for Marx we'll see a very
different theory of science,

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but for him too,
he thinks that freedom is the

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most important good.

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That might surprise you.

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Most people think,
"Well, Marx was about

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equality.

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He was egalitarian."

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We'll see that that's only true
in a somewhat derivative sense

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because in the end what was
important for Marx was that

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people are equally free,
that they are in a situation of

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not being exploited,
and he too, therefore,

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is an Enlightenment thinker.

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Then the social contract
tradition says that the way we

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get a scientific theory of
society is to think about what

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agreement people would make if
they were designing society for

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the first time.

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If society was going to be
based on a contract,

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what would it look like?

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And this is what gives us the
right answer as to what is--

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rational scientific principles
tell us how we should organize

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society,
and it's a world in which

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people's freedom is preserved
because it's what they choose to

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do.

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Again, as in these other
Enlightenment traditions there's

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massive disagreement about who
makes the contract,

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how they make it,
what the content of it would

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be,
but it's the metaphor of a

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social contract that shapes all
reasoning about the way in which

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you can organize society
scientifically in order to

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preserve freedom.

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So in the first two-thirds of
the course we're going to work

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our way through those three
Enlightenment traditions.

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But every current has it
undertow, and even though the

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Enlightenment was this
enormously energetic and

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captivating tradition that
really starts in the seventeenth

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century and gathers steam in the
eighteenth century,

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there was always resistance to
the Enlightenment,

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both it's preoccupation with
science and its view that

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individual freedom is the most
important good.

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And so after we're done looking
at the Enlightenment,

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we're going to look at
anti-Enlightenment thinking,

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and the tradition that resists
the idea that there are

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scientific principles around
which society can be organized,

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and resist the idea that the
freedom of the individual is the

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most important good,
and we'll explore that

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tradition.

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And then in the last part of
the course we will turn to the

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democratic tradition which
tries,

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at least in the way I will
present this to you,

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to reconcile the
anti-Enlightenment critique of

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the Enlightenment with those
elements of the Enlightenment

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that survive the
anti-Enlightenment critique,

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if you see what I'm saying.

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So democracy becomes the
resolution, at least in the way

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I'll describe democracy in this
course.

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Thereby hangs another tale that
I want to tell you about this

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course.

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The course is introductory and
presented in a user-friendly way

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to newcomers,
but it also is an argument.

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That is, I'm presenting an
argument,

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a point of view,
which some of you will be,

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"I'm persuaded by,"
and that is totally fine.

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The idea is not to make you
think what I think or what your

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teaching assistant thinks.

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It's rather to make you
understand the logic underlying

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your own views better than you
have before,

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and perhaps see the appeal of
views you have hitherto rejected

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more clearly than you have
before.

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So the idea is to enhance the
sophistication of your own

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understanding of politics,
not to have you parrot my

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views, or teaching fellows'
views,

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or anybody else's views.

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It's rather to understand the
nature of your own views and how

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they might connect or live in
tension with the views of

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others.

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One thing you're going to find,
I should also say just as a

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matter of truth in advertising,
we're going to look at a number

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of what I would call
architectonic theories of

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politics,
the theories that try to give

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the whole answer.

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This is Jeremy Bentham.

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This is his scientific theory.

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These are all the pieces.

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This is how they fit together
and this is what it means for

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the organization of schools,
and prisons,

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and parliaments,
and all the rest of it.

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He's got an architectonic
theory of the whole thing.

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John Rawls, as well,
you'll see an architectonic

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theory of the whole thing.

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One of the takeaway points of
this course is going to be that

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architectonic theories fail.

14:59.029 --> 15:02.879
There is no silver bullet.

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You're not going to find a
takeaway set of propositions

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that you can plaster onto future
political dilemmas.

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What you're going to find
instead, I think what's going to

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help you in this course,
what's going to be the useful

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takeaway,
is rather small and medium

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sized insights.

15:25.970 --> 15:30.710
You're going to find things to
put in your conceptual bag of

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tricks and take and use
elsewhere,

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and they're going to be very
helpful to you in analyzing a

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whole variety of problems.

15:40.100 --> 15:45.370
I think if you talk to other
students who've taken this

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course that tends to be the most
useful takeaway that you get,

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that you'll find.

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When somebody brings up an
argument,

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say, about what people are
entitled to you'll have a whole

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series of questions you would
ask about that argument that you

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wouldn't have asked if you
hadn't taken this course.

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So you'll find a lot of small
and medium sized bits and pieces

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that you can take and use in
other contexts,

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but you're not going to find a
one-size fits all answer to the

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basic dilemmas of politics.

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Let me say one other thing
about this course as being an

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argument, that the argument's
presented from a particular

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point of view.

16:37.529 --> 16:41.199
You might say,
"Well,"

16:41.201 --> 16:48.191
looking through this syllabus,
"Hmm, this guy is pretty

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arrogant.

16:49.730 --> 16:53.090
I mean, here we have John
Locke, John Stuart Mill,

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Jeremy Bentham,
and he's got his own,

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some of his own work here on
this syllabus.

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Who does he think he is?

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I mean, these are the greats of
the tradition and he's putting

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his own work here?

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It takes a lot of chutzpah to
do that."

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And let me tell you a little
vignette that I think will give

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you the spirit in which my work
is on this syllabus.

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When I was an undergraduate
there was a great Kant scholar

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called Stephan K�rner
who was here in the Yale

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Philosophy Department for many
years and also taught at the

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University of Bristol in
England.

17:36.910 --> 17:39.960
And I attended his lectures on
Kant,

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and he stood up in the very
first lecture and he said,

17:44.730 --> 17:50.170
"Kant was a great
philosopher,

17:50.170 --> 17:55.920
und I am a minor philosopher,
but with me you have the

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advantage that I am alive."

17:59.608 --> 18:05.298
So this is the spirit in which
my work is there,

18:05.298 --> 18:10.188
and it's not remotely intended
to be a suggestion that 200

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years from now or 300 years from
now people will be reading it or

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that it stands on a par with the
classic works of the tradition.

18:21.519 --> 18:26.559
But one of our agendas in this
course is not just to get you up

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to speed in the great text of
these different traditions,

18:31.440 --> 18:36.120
but to give you some sense of
how people who currently do this

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for a living argue about these
ideas.

18:39.108 --> 18:42.978
So in each one of the five
traditions that we look at,

18:42.979 --> 18:46.629
we're going to begin with a
classic formulation.

18:46.630 --> 18:51.180
So Jeremy Bentham is the
locus classicus of

18:51.181 --> 18:53.691
classical utilitarianism.

18:53.690 --> 18:59.000
He's the major formative
statement of that view.

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So we'll start with Bentham,
but then we will bring

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utilitarianism up to the present
day.

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We'll explore how the
utilitarian tradition evolved

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since the eighteenth century and
we will bring you up to

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contemporary considerations
about utilitarianism,

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what people argue about in the
journals today,

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and the book literature,
and so on.

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Likewise with Marxism,
we'll start with Marx and

19:26.087 --> 19:31.467
Engels themselves and then bring
you up to contemporary debates

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about Marxism.

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Social contract tradition,
we'll start with John Locke who

19:36.809 --> 19:40.389
has famously formulated the
social contract idea in the

19:40.391 --> 19:44.031
seventeenth century,
but we'll bring it up to modern

19:44.026 --> 19:47.466
contract theorists like Robert
Nozick and John Rawls.

19:47.470 --> 19:50.300
The anti-Enlightenment
tradition we go back to Edmund

19:50.299 --> 19:53.149
Burke,
the great anti-Enlightenment

19:53.146 --> 19:56.066
thinker,
an opponent of the French

19:56.067 --> 19:58.427
Revolution,
but we'll bring

19:58.425 --> 20:03.445
anti-Enlightenment thinking up
to contemporary thinkers like

20:03.446 --> 20:05.316
Alasdair MacIntyre.

20:05.318 --> 20:08.978
And finally with the democratic
tradition,

20:08.980 --> 20:12.830
we'll go back to the Federalist
Papers,

20:12.828 --> 20:18.228
which is in many ways one of
the most important statements of

20:18.234 --> 20:22.384
what's at issue with democratic
principles,

20:22.380 --> 20:26.250
if not a defense of democracy
we'll see later,

20:26.250 --> 20:29.620
and bring that up to the
contemporary literature on

20:29.616 --> 20:33.116
democracy which is where my own
thinking comes in.

20:33.118 --> 20:35.368
But as I say,
you should remember

20:35.367 --> 20:39.157
Stephan K�rner's
admonition that you're getting

20:39.157 --> 20:43.137
the benefit of the fact that I
happen to be around in the first

20:43.141 --> 20:45.841
decade of the twenty-first
century,

20:45.838 --> 20:52.098
not that I'm attempting to put
myself on that kind of a

20:52.095 --> 20:53.365
pedestal.

20:53.368 --> 20:58.828
Now, I want to say a few more
general things about the course

20:58.828 --> 21:04.288
just to give you a sense of the
flavor of what we do here.

21:04.289 --> 21:07.629
You might say, "Well,
what is distinctive about this

21:07.632 --> 21:11.722
course as compared with other
introductory political theory

21:11.718 --> 21:15.798
and political philosophy courses
that you could take around

21:15.803 --> 21:16.933
here?"

21:16.930 --> 21:20.620
And I think there are four
senses in which this course is

21:20.622 --> 21:24.382
distinctive, not necessarily
better but just different.

21:24.380 --> 21:29.010
And so that you can give you
some sense of what it is that

21:29.012 --> 21:32.592
you would be letting yourself in
for here.

21:32.588 --> 21:36.738
The first is what I've just
mentioned that with each of

21:36.736 --> 21:41.336
these five traditions we really
are going to take them from a

21:41.343 --> 21:45.723
classical formulation up to
contemporary discussions.

21:45.720 --> 21:49.630
So you'll have a,
at least, working sense of how

21:49.626 --> 21:54.616
these traditions have evolved
over the course of two or three

21:54.615 --> 21:59.765
hundred years and what form
debates about them today take.

21:59.769 --> 22:05.359
The second is that this course
is really going to mix the

22:05.363 --> 22:08.463
theoretical with the applied.

22:08.460 --> 22:12.240
We are going to look at first
principles.

22:12.240 --> 22:15.700
I use the terms foundations
advisedly in the title of the

22:15.701 --> 22:16.631
course there.

22:16.630 --> 22:22.420
It's something of a loaded term
in that there are some people

22:22.420 --> 22:28.790
who think we should do political
philosophy without foundations.

22:28.788 --> 22:31.898
And I'll have something to say
about those arguments later in

22:31.903 --> 22:34.523
the course,
but I do want to signal with

22:34.516 --> 22:38.556
that term we will be interested
in foundational questions,

22:38.558 --> 22:42.818
the most basic questions you
can ask about politics,

22:42.818 --> 22:49.038
but we will never limit our
intention to those questions.

22:49.038 --> 22:54.238
We will work these doctrines
through a huge array of

22:54.243 --> 22:59.043
contemporary problems ranging
from abortion,

22:59.038 --> 23:03.168
to affirmative action,
to the death penalty,

23:03.170 --> 23:10.020
to all kinds of other things
that are of concern to you as we

23:10.016 --> 23:11.496
go through.

23:11.500 --> 23:16.580
So it's very much a part of
what we do in this course is to

23:16.578 --> 23:22.008
look at how these doctrines
actually play out on the ground.

23:22.009 --> 23:26.169
So we go back and forth from
particular examples to general

23:26.167 --> 23:30.897
arguments and back to particular
examples a lot in this course,

23:30.900 --> 23:35.690
and in that sense it's more of
a course,

23:35.690 --> 23:40.280
I'd say, in applied political
philosophy than many courses one

23:40.277 --> 23:46.257
might take,
here or elsewhere.

23:46.259 --> 23:51.649
A third distinctive feature of
the course is that I'm going to

23:51.652 --> 23:55.632
organize it centrally around one
question,

23:55.630 --> 24:00.240
which seems to me at the end of
the day to be the most important

24:00.244 --> 24:01.934
question of politics.

24:01.930 --> 24:06.190
And that is the question that I
put in the first sentence of the

24:06.190 --> 24:07.340
syllabus there.

24:07.338 --> 24:11.638
When do governments deserve our
allegiance and when should they

24:11.638 --> 24:12.678
be denied it?

24:12.680 --> 24:19.220
When and under what conditions
should we obey the government,

24:19.220 --> 24:24.010
when are we free to disobey the
government,

24:24.009 --> 24:28.029
and when might we even have an
obligation to oppose the

24:28.030 --> 24:29.000
government?

24:29.000 --> 24:31.700
Another way,
if you want to translate this

24:31.702 --> 24:35.462
into the jargon of political
theory, what is it that makes

24:35.460 --> 24:37.240
governments legitimate?

24:37.240 --> 24:40.480
What is the basis for
legitimate government?

24:40.480 --> 24:44.510
That is going to be the core
organizing idea or question with

24:44.510 --> 24:48.740
which we're going to interrogate
these different traditions that

24:48.743 --> 24:50.773
we examine,
utilitarian,

24:50.767 --> 24:54.717
Marxist, social contract,
anti-Enlightenment and

24:54.722 --> 24:56.632
democratic traditions.

24:56.630 --> 25:00.860
We're going to look at how does
each one of those traditions

25:00.862 --> 25:05.022
answer the most basic questions
about the legitimacy of the

25:05.021 --> 25:05.741
state.

25:05.740 --> 25:10.670
As I say, I think it's
ultimately the most important

25:10.666 --> 25:12.886
question in politics.

25:12.890 --> 25:15.480
It's not the only question in
politics.

25:15.480 --> 25:18.760
It's not the only way to
organize a course in political

25:18.759 --> 25:22.219
philosophy, but it is the way in
which we'll organize this

25:22.221 --> 25:22.891
course.

25:22.890 --> 25:29.450
We'll focus our questions on
legitimacy, and it'll provide

25:29.452 --> 25:35.212
the template for comparing
across these traditions,

25:35.208 --> 25:36.358
right?

25:36.358 --> 25:38.918
We will be looking at how
utilitarians,

25:38.920 --> 25:42.400
or social contract theorists,
or democratic theorists look at

25:42.404 --> 25:45.604
this basic question of what it
is that makes governments

25:45.599 --> 25:49.049
legitimate,
how we know that when we fall

25:49.049 --> 25:53.459
over it,
and what we should do about it.

25:53.460 --> 26:00.010
So that's the third sense in
which the course is distinctive,

26:00.009 --> 26:04.509
and the fourth one I want to
mention is that we're going to

26:04.513 --> 26:09.413
go back and forward between two
modes of analysis which for want

26:09.405 --> 26:13.285
of better terms I call internal
and external,

26:13.288 --> 26:17.868
and let me explain what I mean
by those terms.

26:17.868 --> 26:24.018
When you look at an argument
that somebody puts forward,

26:24.019 --> 26:26.629
and you look at in the way that
I'm describing as internal,

26:26.630 --> 26:29.900
what you're basically saying is
does it make sense?

26:29.900 --> 26:31.120
Is it persuasive?

26:31.119 --> 26:35.339
Are the premises plausible?

26:35.338 --> 26:37.528
Do the conclusions follow from
the premises?

26:37.529 --> 26:40.419
Are there contradictions in
what the person's saying?

26:40.420 --> 26:41.900
Does it all hang together?

26:41.900 --> 26:43.260
Should I believe it?

26:43.259 --> 26:45.069
Is it a good argument?

26:45.068 --> 26:48.858
That's what internal analysis
is about, okay.

26:48.858 --> 26:55.748
External analysis is looking at
the argument as a causal force

26:55.753 --> 26:57.453
in the world.

26:57.450 --> 27:02.060
What social and political
arrangements is this argument

27:02.060 --> 27:05.820
used to justify,
or what social and political

27:05.818 --> 27:08.978
arrangement is it used to
attack?

27:08.980 --> 27:13.440
How does this operate as a
political ideology in the world

27:13.440 --> 27:14.380
out there?

27:14.380 --> 27:19.440
What effects does it have if I
embrace this argument?

27:19.440 --> 27:21.970
So it's not a question about
whether or not it's a good

27:21.967 --> 27:23.697
argument or you should believe
it,

27:23.700 --> 27:27.590
but a question about how this
argument is efficacious in the

27:27.592 --> 27:28.122
world.

27:28.118 --> 27:32.048
Because there could be terrible
arguments that are nonetheless

27:32.048 --> 27:34.558
very efficacious in the world,
right?

27:34.558 --> 27:38.488
And there might be very good
arguments that nobody takes

27:38.489 --> 27:40.989
seriously in day-to-day
politics.

27:40.990 --> 27:45.640
And one of the great
aspirations of the Enlightenment

27:45.644 --> 27:50.754
is to produce arguments that
both make good analytical and

27:50.749 --> 27:54.419
philosophical sense on the one
hand,

27:54.420 --> 27:57.990
and can be influential in the
world on the other,

27:57.990 --> 28:01.250
but those things don't
necessarily go together.

28:01.250 --> 28:07.370
And we're going to ask a
question, why,

28:07.368 --> 28:11.508
in the context of exploring all
of these traditions,

28:11.509 --> 28:15.739
if there are good arguments
that are not efficacious,

28:15.740 --> 28:16.930
why that is?

28:16.930 --> 28:20.980
If there are bad arguments that
are efficacious,

28:20.981 --> 28:22.191
why that is?

28:22.190 --> 28:26.530
But in any case we're going to,
even if we can't answer that

28:26.531 --> 28:29.531
why question,
which is a very hard question

28:29.534 --> 28:32.464
to answer,
we're going to look at these

28:32.455 --> 28:37.325
arguments and these traditions
both internally and externally.

28:37.328 --> 28:40.058
You're going to look at them as
arguments and you're going to

28:40.056 --> 28:45.286
look at them as ideologies,
as systems of thought that get

28:45.287 --> 28:49.797
trafficked in the political
world.

28:49.798 --> 28:55.128
And I think that that is
another feature of this course

28:55.127 --> 29:00.557
that differentiates it from
other introductory political

29:00.555 --> 29:02.425
theory courses.

29:02.430 --> 29:07.520
So I think that gives you
something of a flavor of what is

29:07.515 --> 29:10.455
distinctive in what we do here.

29:10.460 --> 29:13.920


29:13.920 --> 29:16.850
Any questions about any of that?

29:16.848 --> 29:21.188
If any of it's puzzling to you
it's probably puzzling to

29:21.188 --> 29:22.448
somebody else.

29:22.450 --> 29:29.220


29:29.220 --> 29:37.030
So in the spirit of getting us
going we're going to start with

29:37.026 --> 29:39.966
a real world problem.

29:39.970 --> 29:44.790
We're going to start with the
problem of Adolf Eichmann,

29:44.788 --> 29:51.858
who was a lieutenant colonel in
Nazi Germany,

29:51.858 --> 29:58.598
who was responsible for
organizing the shipment of Jews

29:58.595 --> 30:01.335
to Nazi death camps.

30:01.338 --> 30:08.438
And at the end of the war,
he was captured along with a

30:08.442 --> 30:15.022
lot of other former Nazis,
and he was inadvertently

30:15.019 --> 30:16.729
released.

30:16.730 --> 30:21.590
They didn't realize that he was
a significant player in the

30:21.590 --> 30:26.620
organization of the so-called
final solution of the Jews,

30:26.618 --> 30:30.698
and they released him and he
escaped.

30:30.700 --> 30:35.310
And like many other former
Nazis who escaped he went to

30:35.305 --> 30:40.245
Argentina and he lived under an
assumed name for many years

30:40.251 --> 30:45.201
until the late 1950s when the
Israeli Secret Service,

30:45.200 --> 30:50.000
the Mossad, figured out that he
was there and figured out who he

30:50.001 --> 30:50.461
was.

30:50.460 --> 30:54.200
And they sent a group of people
who,

30:54.200 --> 31:01.630
essentially commandos,
who captured him,

31:01.630 --> 31:06.540
spirited him out of Argentina,
took him to Israel where they

31:06.538 --> 31:11.448
brought back the death penalty
which had not existed at that

31:11.449 --> 31:17.469
time in Israeli law,
tried him for crimes against

31:17.471 --> 31:21.481
humanity,
which was the same concept that

31:21.480 --> 31:25.770
had been employed at the
Nuremberg Trials of his cohort

31:25.766 --> 31:29.016
after World War II in the late
1940s,

31:29.019 --> 31:32.109
crimes against humanity and
crimes against the Jewish people

31:32.112 --> 31:33.372
and they executed him.

31:33.368 --> 31:37.478
And at that time young
political theorist,

31:37.480 --> 31:44.010
not particularly well known,
called Hannah Arendt,

31:44.009 --> 31:46.659
covered the trail for
The New Yorker

31:46.663 --> 31:50.143
magazine in a series of
articles which were subsequently

31:50.142 --> 31:54.342
published as a book called,
Eichmann in Jerusalem,

31:54.336 --> 31:58.866
which is what I'm having you
read for Wednesday's class.

31:58.868 --> 32:05.658
And we're going to use this
Eichmann problem as a way into

32:05.662 --> 32:10.312
the central conundrum of the
course,

32:10.308 --> 32:17.008
which I said is what is it that
gives states legitimacy?

32:17.009 --> 32:20.859
When should we obey the
government, when are we free not

32:20.864 --> 32:25.004
to, and when should we perhaps
even be obliged to oppose the

32:24.998 --> 32:26.048
government?

32:26.048 --> 32:32.418
Because this problem was thrown
into sharp relief by the conduct

32:32.421 --> 32:35.861
of Eichmann during World War II.

32:35.858 --> 32:45.128
And I want you to think about
two questions while you read

32:45.128 --> 32:48.558
this,
which is essentially,

32:48.555 --> 32:54.215
this book is essentially a
compilation of Arendt's New

32:54.221 --> 32:56.551
Yorker articles.

32:56.549 --> 32:57.879
The first is up here.

32:57.880 --> 33:03.060
What I want you to do is to
think about what the two things

33:03.064 --> 33:07.984
are that make you most
uncomfortable about this man,

33:07.980 --> 33:11.900
who you'll get know quite well
through reading this book.

33:11.900 --> 33:14.870
What is it about him that is
unnerving?

33:14.868 --> 33:19.108
What is it that makes your
flesh crawl about this guy?

33:19.108 --> 33:24.508
What are the two things that
are the most appalling about

33:24.510 --> 33:25.090
him?

33:25.088 --> 33:30.768
And then the other question I
want you to address is the

33:30.767 --> 33:32.107
second one.

33:32.108 --> 33:38.478
What two things make you most
uncomfortable about the events

33:38.484 --> 33:43.134
surrounding his apprehension,
and his trail,

33:43.132 --> 33:46.592
and his execution in Israel?

33:46.588 --> 34:19.558
Those are your reading
questions for Eichmann in

34:19.563 --> 34:41.993
Jerusalem,
and write them down,

34:41.985 --> 35:14.955
and bring them with you to
class on Wednesday.

35:14.960 --> 35:20.000