Marion Smiley 330 Rabb Graduate Center

1

Marion Smiley 330 Rabb Graduate Center

Department of Philosophy Phone: (781) 736-2792

Brandeis University email:

Fall 2012

Philosophy 111A: What is Justice (and Injustice)?

Philosophy 111A explores a variety of ways in which the notion of justice has been understood over the centuries and zeroes in on a series of philosophical controversies about both the nature of justice and its implications for the value of particular laws, practices, and policies. The course begins with a series of questions about what particular individuals and groups deserve -- distributive justice – and then moves on to explore the source of justice itself. (Does justice have its source in natural law? the state? convention? the idea of rationality?) The next part of the course is devoted to questions of social and political justice and to the nature of injustice, as well as to the boundaries of justice in general. (Can we legitimately talk about justice in the family? in love? At what point does misfortune or bad luck give way to injustice?) The course concludes with a series of controversies about justice in the context of international relations, ranging from whether global justice requires the transcendence of national boundaries to whether transitional justice is really justice at all to how, if at all, restorative justice (as practiced, for example, in South Africa) jibes with more conventional retributive theories of law.

The course has a prerequisite of either Philosophy 1A (Introduction to Philosophy), Philosophy 17A (Introduction to Ethics) or Politics 10A (Introduction to Political Theory).

Course Requirements: Two 7-8 page papers and a final exam. Class attendance is mandatory. Participation in class discussion is greatly encouraged.

The following books, all of which are required, can be purchased at the Brandeis University Bookstore:

Jonanthan Westphal, ed., Justice (Hackett)

Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (Basic).

Judith Shklar, The Faces of Injustice (Yale).

All other readings will be in two coursepacks (CP I and CP II) that can be purchased (at lower than cost) in class during the first week of class and thereafter in the Brandeis Philosophy Department Office.

ATTENTION: If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately after class or in my office hours.

READINGS

Note:: The course will closely track the selections listed below. Hence, it is very important that you read these selections by the date cited.

Sept. 6: Introduction to the Course

Sept. 11: J. R. Lucas, “Unfair” (CP I).

Sept. 13 “Universal Declaration of Rights” (CP I).

J. R. Lucas, “Rights and Interests: (CP I).

Sept. 18: J. R. Lucas, “Distributive Justice” (CP I).

Robert Nozick. “A Theory of Entitlement” (CP I)

Sept. 20: Gregory Vlastos, “Justice and Equality” (CPI).

Sept. 25: Stanley Benn, “Egalitarianism and the Equal Consideration of Interests” (CP I).

Hugo Bedau, “Radical Egalitarianism” (CP I).

Sept. 27: J. R. Lucas, “Punishment” (CP I).

Oct. 3: G. Cupit, “Punishment and Reward” (CP I).

James Rachels, “Desert and Punishment” (CP I).

Oct. 4: Elizabeth Wolgast, “Intolerable Wrong and Necessary Punishment” (CP I).

Oct. 9: Thomas Hobbes, selections, Leviathan (CP II).

Oct. 11: Martin Luther King, “Letter from Birmingham” (CP II).

(Recommended but not required:

J. R. Lucas, “Justice and the Law” (CP II).

Oct. 16: David Hume, selections, Justice, ed. Westphal, pp. 133-148.

Oct. 18: J. S. Mill, selections, Justice, ed. Westphal, pp. 157-177.

Oct. 23: John Rawls, selections, Justice, ed. Westphal, pp. 22-36.

Oct. 25: Iris Young, selections, Justice and the Politics of Difference (CP II).

Oct. 30: Elizabeth Wolgast, “Why Justice Isn’t an Ideal” (CP II).

Judith Shklar, The Faces of Injustice, Chapters 1 and 2.

Nov. 1:. Shklar, The Faces of Injustice, Chapter 3.

Bernard Yack, “Putting Injustice First” (CP).

Nov. 6: Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice, Chapters 1, 2 and 3.

Nov. 8: Walzer, Spheres of Justice, Chapters 4 and 5.

Nov. 13: Susan Okin, ” Justice and the Family” (CP II).

Nov. 15: Michael Freeman, “Universalism, Particularism, and Cosmopolitan Justice”

(CP II).

Nov. 20: Peter Jones, “International Justice – Among Whom?” (CP II).

Andreas Follesdal, “Global Justice as Impartiality: Whither Claims

to Equal Shares?” (CP II).

Nov. 22: Onora Oneill, “Agents of Justice” (CP II)

Nov. 27: Ruti Teitl, selections, Transitional Justice (CP II).

Nov. 29: Elizabeth Kiss, “Moral Ambition Within and Beyond Political Constraints:

Reflections on Restorative Justice” (CP II).

Kent Greenwalt, “Amnesty’s Justice” (CP II).

Dec. 4: Conclusions