The central question of political philosophy can be stated in the following way: What constitutes a just society? The various answers to this question proposed by political philosophers are intertwined with the answer they give to a closely related question: (2) Why should the individual members of society follow the requirements of their society? In this course, we shall take a sustained and critical look at three alternative views of a just political society: (i)A society is just if its members gain some mutual benefit from living together. (ii)A society is just if all of its members can accept the distribution of benefits and responsibilities of their society as the product of a rational choice. (iii)A society is just if its benefits and responsibilities are distributed in proportion to what its individual members contribute. Our examination of these three views will draw upon arguments of several of the most influential contemporary political philosophers as well as those from selected figures in the history of political thought.