Loyola University Chicago

Department of Political Science

plsc 100: political theory

PLSC 100: Political Theory
Mr. Bretton
MWF 9:20am / LSC

Government is force used in conformity with principles. Yet all governments are partial. One part of society gets to use force and others do not. Certain human goods are selected as justifications for the use of force; others are rejected. Fascinating controversies have raged over who governs and to what purposes. This course is an introduction to political theory. Our first aim is to understand positions taken in classic disputes over the fundamental issues of politics. Our second is to learn how to develop informed opinions about politics.  This course is an option in the "Philosophical Knowledge" section of the core curriculum.

PLSC 100: Political Theory
Ms. Skowronski
MWF 9:20am / LSC

Assessments of public policy and government are inextricably bound to a vision of the public good.  The goal of this course is to examine and make explicit our own visions of the public good.  We will accomplish this through reading and discussing historical political theorists: Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, and the American Founders, as well as some more recent authors.  The goal in our discussions will be threefold: to understand, criticize, and apply the arguments of each theorist.  This course is an option in the "Philosophical Knowledge" section of the core curriculum.

PLSC 100: Political Theory
Professor Engeman
MWF 9:20am / LSC

This course examines the theoretical and practical approaches to the politics in the ancient, Christian, modern, and contemporary periods. This course is an option in the "Philosophical Knowledge" section of the core curriculum. 

PLSC 100: Political Theory
Mr. Has
MWF 9:20am / LSC


This course will center around a fundamental moral and political concept: justice. What is justice? Is it the same as obedience to the existing laws and moral conventions of a given society? Is justice reducible in its form to legal rights, or is it something that transcends the latter? Are there different modes of justice that belongs to different spheres of human existence (e.g. public vs private, political vs social)? What kind of equality does justice presuppose? Does it demand a special kind of political community? These are some of the important questions we will be discussing in this course on the basis of certain fundamental texts by the following authors: Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau, J. S. Mill, Rawls. Marx. This course is an option in the "Philosophical Knowledge" section of the core curriculum.

PLSC 100: Political Theory
Mr. Yoksas
MWF 9:20am / LSC

The history of mankind is the history of political relationships.  The most fundamental of these relationships is the one between the government and the governed.  This course is designed to examine this relationship between leaders and the citizens they serve.  We will examine the ends of the political relationship, and the means by which the relationship is maintained.  We will also examine the factors that cause the relationship to weaken or dissolve completely.  Students will read a variety of perspectives from the history of political thought from ancient Greece to twentieth century America.  They bring up controversial, thought provoking, and important issues that every member of a political community has pondered at one time or another. This course is an option in the "Philosophical Knowledge" section of the core curriculum.