PLSC 118: The Moral Foundations of Politics (Spring 2010, Open Yale Courses): Lecture 22

PLSC 118: The Moral Foundations of Politics

Lecture 22 - Democracy and Majority Rule (I). Professor Shapiro transitions to the third and final section of the course, an in-depth look at democracy and its institutions. According to him, democracy is the most successful at delivering on the mature Enlightenment's twin promises to recognize individual rights as the ultimate political good and to base politics on some kind of commitment to objective knowledge. And interestingly, democracy as a tradition was not made famous by its champions, but rather by its critics. Professor Shapiro guides the class through the writings of Plato, Tocqueville, Madison, and Dahl. He zeroes in specifically on American democracy and such concepts as tyranny of the majority, factionalism, and checks and balances. (from oyc.yale.edu)

Lecture 22 - Democracy and Majority Rule (I)

Time	Lecture Chapters
[00:00:00]	1. Introduction and Last Class Recap
[00:02:39]	2. Democracy and Fear of Majority Tyranny
[00:16:19]	3. Madison and the Constitution: Majority Tyranny and Factions
[00:38:03]	4. Veto Points

References

Lecture 22 - Democracy and Majority Rule (I)
Instructor: Professor Ian Shapiro. Resources: Notes: Democracy [PDF]. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov].

Go to the Course Home or watch other lectures:

Lecture 01 - Information and Housekeeping

Lecture 02 - Introductory Lecture

Lecture 03 - Natural Law Roots of the Social Contract Tradition

Lecture 04 - Origins of Classical Utilitarianism

Lecture 05 - Classical Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice

Lecture 06 - From Classical to Neoclassical Utilitarianism

Lecture 07 - The Neoclassical Synthesis of Rights and Utility

Lecture 08 - Limits of the Neoclassical Synthesis

Lecture 09 - The Marxian Challenge

Lecture 10 - Marx's Theory of Capitalism

Lecture 11 - Marxian Exploitation and Distributive Justice