High School Philosophy Unit: What Makes a Fair Government?

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What makes a fair government?

That’s a big question, and it can be a challenging one to answer because we’re always biased toward what makes a fair government for US. If I’m in charge of creating a government, my plans are probably going to focus on the things that matter to me. I might not think about things that are important to other people — maybe because they’re not important to me, but I may also just plain not even know I should be thinking about those things at all.

For this unit study, we’re going to consider some of the things that go into deciding what makes a fair government. We’ll start by looking at some of the big philosophical ideas from the Enlightenment, a time when people thought, hey, what if we used the scientific method to build a better government? Then we’ll look at John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, a 19th century text that introduces utilitarian ideas about the role government should play in people’s lives. Finally, we’ll use a thought experiment created by 20th century philosopher John Rawls to put our ideas about fair ways to organize government into practice.

Pace this unit however you like — I would probably allocate two weeks to each lesson for a total of six weeks.

**All required readings/lectures/other materials are included in this unit.

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