Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

Citation

Miller, D. (2003). Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

This is one of the shortest books in the course: seven chapters in about 130 pages of text, followed by suggestions for further reading arranged by chapter and an index. The chapters are of almost equal length (roughly 18–20 pages each) and are organised by topic, not by thinker. The publisher describes the book as assuming no previous knowledge, and its stated aim is to help readers think clearly and critically about the leading political questions of the day. Miller writes in the first person and takes positions as he goes, while setting out the main alternatives. The book is illustrated, opening with Ambrogio Lorenzetti's frescoes of good and bad government in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, an image Miller returns to later in the book.

Chapter 1: Why do we need political philosophy?

The opening chapter uses Lorenzetti's frescoes to introduce three ideas at the heart of the subject: that good and bad government profoundly affect the quality of human lives; that the form of government is not predetermined but a matter of choice; and that we can know what distinguishes good government from bad. Political philosophy is accordingly defined as an investigation into the nature, causes and effects of good and bad government.

Chapter 2: Political authority

Miller asks when, if ever, states wield legitimate authority and how far citizens are obliged to obey their laws. He considers whether a society could do without the state, including a discussion of market anarchists who propose private protection agencies, and argues from the provision of public goods and from fairness (not taking advantage of others who bear the costs) rather than from consent. Against the claim, associated with Hobbes, that authority collapses without strict obedience, he observes that in practice states function as long as people are generally, not universally, disposed to comply.

Chapter 3: Democracy

This chapter traces how the case for democratic authority gathered momentum from the mid-nineteenth century and asks what role the people as a whole should play: direct participation, as Rousseau argued in The Social Contract, or authority exercised through elected representatives. Miller discusses the position of minorities that repeatedly lose votes, whether some groups should have special rights, and whether politicians have any special knowledge of political principles. He ends by urging citizens to hold fast to the idea that authority rests with the whole body of citizens, invoking Locke's warning about being devoured by the lions who rule us.

Chapter 4: Freedom and the limits of government

Starting from the historical growth of religious freedom into a wider claim for personal freedom, the chapter distinguishes the external conditions of freedom, which governments can secure, from the internal capacity to make genuine choices, sometimes called positive liberty. Its central text is Mill's On Liberty: Miller presents the idea of a self-regarding sphere where liberty should be inviolable and then asks whether the line Mill wanted to draw can actually be drawn, since conduct that seems to affect only the agent may have longer-term effects on others.

Chapter 5: Justice

Justice concerns punishment and reward as well as equality. Miller asks what principles decide when outcomes are fair, rejects the view that all justice is a form of equality, and shows how need and desert give reasons for treating people differently. He discusses inequalities of income justified by desert or incentives, Rawls's principles of equal liberty, fair equal opportunity and the requirement that inequalities benefit the worst off, and how social justice can regulate a market economy rather than replace it. His conclusion is that what counts as giving someone their due is largely determined by context.

Chapter 6: Feminism and multiculturalism

Miller treats feminism and multiculturalism, which shape many debates in Western democracies about the position of women and minority cultures, as posing the long-standing questions of political philosophy in new ways rather than displacing them. The feminist challenge draws its force from the fact that men, in the past and to some extent today, have exercised power over women, partly by keeping them economically dependent. The chapter also takes up the debate over positive discrimination, where the disagreement is not about the principle of equal opportunity but about the best way of achieving it.

Chapter 7: Nations, states, and global justice

The final chapter asks why nations have become the natural units of government and whether multiculturalism and transnational co-operation will change this. Miller examines how people's sense of justice is shaped by belonging, the arrangements of multinational states such as Belgium, global problems that require constraints on states (such as quotas for greenhouse gas emissions or fishing), and, finally, whether a world government is either likely or desirable.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2: Why do we need political philosophy?; Political authority

• Good and bad government: the starting point of political philosophy, the claim that government shapes human lives and can be chosen and judged.
• Legitimate authority: the right of a state to make laws that citizens have reason to obey.
• Public goods and fairness: goods provided to everyone whether they pay or not, and the obligation not to free-ride on others' contributions.

Chapters 3–4: Democracy; Freedom and the limits of government

• Direct and representative democracy: whether citizens should decide for themselves or choose representatives to exercise authority.
• Minorities and rights: the problem of groups that repeatedly lose votes and the case for rights that majorities cannot override.
• Positive and negative liberty: freedom as the capacity to make genuine choices versus freedom as the absence of interference.
• Self-regarding conduct: Mill's category of actions that harm no one but the agent and so fall outside legitimate government control.

Chapter 5: Justice

• Equality, need and desert: three principles of distribution, with need and desert justifying different treatment.
• Social justice and the market: using principles of justice to regulate rather than abolish a market economy.

Chapters 6–7: Feminism and multiculturalism; Nations, states, and global justice

• Positive discrimination: preferential policies for disadvantaged groups, defended and criticised as means to equal opportunity.
• Nationality and justice: the role of national belonging in motivating people to treat one another justly.
• Global justice: obligations that extend beyond borders and the question of world government.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Topic-based structure. Organising the book by problem (authority, democracy, freedom, justice, feminism and multiculturalism, nationality) lets readers see how the main questions connect, rather than meeting them one thinker at a time.
• Balance of classic and contemporary. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Mill appear where they illuminate a problem, alongside Rawls on justice and recent debates on gender, culture and global justice, so the book links the canon to current argument.
• Concrete anchors. The Siena frescoes, the household example of taking one's turn at a shared chore, minorities in a club vote and emissions quotas show abstract issues in familiar settings.
• Argued, not just surveyed. Miller takes clear positions, for instance on the fairness basis of political obligation and on the role of nationality, which gives readers something definite to agree or disagree with.

Limitations

• Very compressed. Each topic gets about twenty pages, so major theories such as Rawls's are presented in outline only, and readers wanting the arguments in detail need a fuller textbook.
• A definite view of nationality. In the publisher's description the final chapter explains why nations are the natural units of government before asking whether that will change. Readers who want the cosmopolitan case against that starting point should look elsewhere.
• Not revised since 2003. The book has not appeared in a new edition, so its examples and further-reading lists reflect the state of the field at the start of the century.

Where It Fits in the Course

In a political philosophy course, this is the quickest way to get an overview of the field before tackling longer books. Michael Sandel's Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? covers some of the same ground through cases and argues for a virtue-based view of its own; Jonathan Wolff's An Introduction to Political Philosophy is a fuller textbook organised around a sequence of central questions about the justification and limits of state power. Miller's chapters on authority, democracy, freedom and justice can serve as a first pass over questions that Wolff treats at greater length.

The specialist books on the list build on particular chapters. Chapter 4 on freedom prepares for Philip Pettit's Republicanism, which argues for freedom as non-domination as an alternative to negative and positive liberty. Chapters 3 and 5 introduce the issues of democratic legitimacy and justice that Rawls's Political Liberalism addresses for societies divided by reasonable disagreement. Chapters 6 and 7, on membership and the boundaries of political community, are the natural background for Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka's Zoopolis, which extends ideas of citizenship and sovereignty to animals.

How to Use This Book

No background is needed. Read it straight through early in the course, in two or three sittings; the chapters are short enough that each can be read before the corresponding seminar. Chapters 1–5 are the core for most courses. Chapters 6 and 7 are essential if the course covers feminism, multiculturalism, nationalism or global justice, and optional otherwise.

After each chapter, write down the question it poses (for example, "why should I obey the law?") and the answer Miller favours, then note one argument against it. Use the chapter-by-chapter further reading at the end of the book to find primary texts: Mill's On Liberty with Chapter 4, Rawls with Chapter 5, Rousseau with Chapter 3. Returning to the book at the end of the course is also useful as revision, since it states each problem compactly.