Week 4 — Readings & Resources · Political Theory & Philosophy

Course: Introduction to Political Science (POLS 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Halloran
Objectives covered: Objective 3 (normative political theory: justice, liberty, equality, rights; Mill's harm principle; Rawls vs. Nozick).

How to use this page

Everything here is a link to an external resource — open it in your browser, the same way you'd open a YouTube link. Nothing needs to be downloaded, and there is nothing to buy.

This week's load is deliberately light: 2 short readings + 1 video + the primary text you'll use in the workshop, grouped by the ideas from the lecture, plus a couple of optional references. Read or watch one item per group and you're ready for the quiz; do all of them and you'll be very comfortable. Total time is roughly 45–55 minutes if you do everything, far less if you pick one per group.

Order that matches the lecture: ① justice, liberty, equality, and rights → ② Mill's harm principle and Rawls vs. Nozick → ③ the week's primary text (for the workshop).

A habit to start now: before you trust any chatbot's summary of a philosopher's position — this week or any week — ask the questions from class: is that the philosopher's exact position, or a loosened, mixed-up version of it? Would the source itself confirm this wording?

① Justice, Liberty, and Equality — the Core Vocabulary

Maps to Lecture Segment 2. Justice, negative vs. positive liberty (Berlin), equality of opportunity vs. outcome, rights, the common good.

Reading — "Political Values: Individualism, Freedom, and Equality" (OpenStax, Introduction to Political Science)
🔗 https://openstax.org/books/introduction-political-science/pages/1-introduction
Why it's assigned: OpenStax's Introduction to Political Science devotes its early chapters to exactly this week's vocabulary — the core political values that normative theory argues over. Use the book's contents page to navigate to the chapter on political values and ideas; treat the linked page as your entry point into the text. (Section slugs shift between editions — confirm the exact chapter from the contents page rather than guessing a deep link.)
⏱ ~12 min

Reading — "Liberty" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
🔗 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/
Why it earns the click: the authoritative reference on negative vs. positive liberty — Isaiah Berlin's distinction, explained carefully by philosophers who work on it professionally. Read the introduction and the section outlining Berlin's two concepts; the rest is optional depth.
⏱ ~10 min

② Mill's Harm Principle & Rawls vs. Nozick

Maps to Lecture Segments 3 and 5. The harm principle, stated exactly; Rawls's original position and difference principle; Nozick's entitlement theory and minimal state.

Reading — "John Rawls" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
🔗 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/
Why it's assigned: the authoritative, freely accessible summary of Rawls's theory of justice — the original position, the veil of ignorance, and the two principles (including the difference principle) — written and maintained by philosophers. This is also the source this course's own materials paraphrase from; read the sections on the original position and the two principles of justice.
⏱ ~12 min

Video — Crash Course Philosophy (CrashCourse, YouTube — full playlist)
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNgK6MZucdYldNkMybYIHKR
Why it earns the click: browse this free playlist for the episodes on liberty, justice, and political philosophy — a brisk, accessible on-ramp to the liberty-and-paternalism debate this week's lecture and workshop dig into. (Search the playlist for "liberty," "justice," or "freedom" and open the episode that fits, before you meet Mill's exact wording.)
⏱ ~10 min

③ The Week's Primary Text (for the Workshop)

You'll analyze this in Political Analysis Workshop 4. Read it once before the workshop so you arrive ready to source it and take its argument apart.

Primary text — John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter I (1859)
🔗 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34901 (Project Gutenberg — full text, multiple formats)
Why it's assigned: Chapter I sets up the whole book's argument and contains the harm principle in Mill's own exact words — one sentence that has organized two centuries of arguments about the proper limits of law. This week you read it closely enough to catch a chatbot quietly loosening it.
⏱ ~15 min (Chapter I only; the book is longer)

Corroborating reference — "John Rawls," §"The Original Position" and §"The Two Principles of Justice" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
🔗 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/ (same link as above — used in the workshop to contrast Rawls's fairness frame with Mill's harm principle)
Why it's assigned: the workshop asks you to contrast Mill's liberty-first framework with Rawls's fairness-first framework using this same authoritative entry — no long quotation needed, just an accurate paraphrase you can check against the source.
⏱ ~5 min (re-visit, if you already read it in group ②)

Optional one-stop references (free online)

• OpenStax, Introduction to Political Science — the free survey text this course's link set returns to; a solid reference for any week.
  🔗 https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction-political-science
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — full entry index. The most reliable single source for any philosopher or concept this course names factually.
  🔗 https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
• Khan Academy — US Government and Civics. Short explainers you'll find linked again in Weeks 10–12.
  🔗 https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-government-and-civics

Pick-one quick path (≈25 min total)

In a hurry? Do exactly these and you'll be ready for the quiz:
1. Read Mill's On Liberty, Chapter I (group ③) — slowly, and find the exact harm-principle sentence yourself.
2. Skim the Rawls entry's original-position and two-principles sections (group ②) — for the workshop's contrast and the quiz's Rawls-vs-Nozick items.

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell Prof. Halloran and use the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's contents index or the OpenStax contents page above in the meantime.