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This Political Philosophy Reader was developed as an Open Textbook (OER, Open Educational Resource) for use in a lower-level Philosophy course at Golden West College (a California Community College). It contains many of the classic and important works in Political Philosophy (or Political Theory) as well as some historical and biographical information. All of the works contain licenses that allow this work to be used and distributed freely and openly and may be printed (even for commercial purposes). Please contact the editor for comments, feedback, or suggestions. This work is effectively an anthology of many important works in Philosophy that are freely available. It meets accessibility requirements as well. The Table of Contents is listed below: UNIT ONE: THINKING ABOUT AND JUSTIFYING THE STATE 1. Introduction to Political Philosophy and The Allegory of the Cave 2. John Rawls’ “Veil of Ignorance” 3. Crito (Plato) 4. Politics, Books I & II (Aristotle) 5. The Prince (Niccoló Machiavelli) 6. Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes) UNIT TWO: NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE STATE: OBLIGATIONS TO AND FROM THE STATE 7. The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith) 8. Manifesto of the Communist Party (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels) 9. Three Types of Democracies: Classic Republicanism, Liberal Democracy, and Deliberative Democracy 10. Speech to the Electors of Bristol (Edmund Burke) 11. Perpetual Peace (Immanuel Kant) 12. Considerations on Representative Government (John Stuart Mill) UNIT THREE: BALANCING NATURAL RIGHTS, HUMAN NATURE, AND THE STATE: CONTRACTS(?) 13. Second Treatise on Government (John Locke) 14. Letter Concerning Toleration (John Locke) 15. Of the Social Contract, Part 1 (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) 16. Of the Social Contract, Part 2 (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) 17. A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume) 18. Of Parties in General; Of the Original Contract (David Hume) UNIT FOUR: LIBERTY & JUSTICE 19. The Republic, Book I (Plato) 20. The Republic, Book II (Plato) 21. On Liberty, Part 1 (John Stuart Mill) 22. On Liberty, Part 2 (John Stuart Mill) 23. The Subjection of Women (John Stuart Mill) 24. A Theory of Justice (John Rawls) UNIT FIVE: RULING THE STATE: AUTHORITY, POWER, AND EQUALITY 25. Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Robert Nozick) 26. The Constitution of the United States of America 27. The Federalist Papers, Part 1 (Alexander Hamilton and James Madison) 28. The Federalist Papers, Part 2 (Alexander Hamilton and James Madison) 29. The Origins of Totalitarianism (Hannah Arendt)

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