https://at-ceu.studyguide.timeedit.net/modules/POLS5153?type=COREThis course introduces MA students to the most fundamental questions of political philosophy, with a special but not exclusive focus on debates surrounding justice and equality. From Aristotle to Rawls and Dworkin, many philosophers thought that justice was the "sovereign virtue". But what is justice? In particular, what does it mean to give everybody their due - that is, to enact distributive justice? In the first weeks we zoom into the various conceptions of distributive justice, paying special attention to the role of equality and to the different ways of interpreting it. We then move on to ask the question of what agents, if any, have the authority to implement justice as well as, possibly, other aims. Do states have a moral permission to use coercion against their citizens? Do we have a duty to obey the law? And what makes democracy desirable? We end with discussions about the more applied issues of sweatshops, affirmative action, basic income and effective altruism. Discussing these topics will allow us to consider what is required by justice, other than distributions: what are the wrongs of discrimination, domination, and exploitation?As this brief description indicates, the course combines discussions of very abstract issues, such as the metric and principle of justice, the grounds of political authority and the value of democracy and discussions of more applied issues of wide political interests. The intention is to make it appealing to students of various intellectual temperaments, and allow all of you to excel in at least one kind of approach.