Unit information: What is democracy, and how should it work? in 2018/19

Unit name	What is democracy, and how should it work?
Unit code	PHIL30131
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Professor. Pettigrew
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	N/A
Co-requisites	N/A
School/department	Department of Philosophy
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

What’s so great about democracy? Why are democratic institutions valuable? Voting seems to be part of the story. But how? Why is the ability to vote so important? And what makes a good voting system anyway? In this unit, we will explore a number of different voting systems and investigate their role in democracy. We will ask a range of philosophical questions about voting: Do we have a moral duty to vote? Is it rational to vote? What sorts of voting systems are good or bad for different purposes? When is a voting system fair? Whose vote should count anyway? We will also explore important results about what sorts of voting systems are even possible, such as Arrow’s theorem and the Condorcet Jury Theorem, and consider their implications for how to structure democratic institutions. Along the way, we will examine the subtle (and not so subtle) ways in which democracy is often undermined.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the unit students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge and understanding of the philosophical issues surrounding value and nature of democracy,
2. Demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge and understanding of the core literature in philosophy, economics, and political theory on the value and nature of democracy,
3. Demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge and understanding of the philosophical issues surrounding the ethics of voting and the advantages and disadvantages of various voting systems,
4. Demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge and understanding of the philosophical issues surrounding the arguments for and against different extensions of suffrage,
5. Work together collaboratively with others to analyse philosophical ideas and arguments, using the key tools of analytic philosophy, and to present these collaboratively as a group in an oral presentation.

Teaching Information

11 two-hour lectures and 11 one-hour seminars.

Assessment Information

All assessment is summative:

Group presentation: designed to test ILOs 1-5 (25%)

Short executive summary (1,000 words - each student will provide an executive summary for policy-makers of their contribution to group project): designed to test ILOs 1-4 (25%)

Essay (2,000 words): designed to test ILOs 1-4 (40%)

Weekly Journal entries (10x 300 words): designed to test ILOs 1-4 (10%)

Reading and References

Michelle Alexander (2012) The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Revised edition) (The New Press)

Eric Pacuit (2011) Voting Methods in Zalta, E. (ed) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voting-methods/

Amartya Sen (2017) Collective Choice and Social Welfare (2nd edition) (Penguin)

Iris Marion Young (2002) Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford University Press)