Course Description
Introduction to the theoretical and philosophical literature regarding the nature, justification and practical implications of distributive justice. The focus is on introducing the major theoretical approaches to justice and designing research questions relating to theoretical and practical aspects of the subject.
Athena Title
THEORY SOCIAL JUST
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students completing Theories of Social Justice will be introduced to an advanced theoretical literature. The course is designed to enable students to read this literature in a critical and intelligent fashion and to employ this literature in order to pursue their own empirical and formal research. The course will focus on the formal and substantive approaches employed to design, justify and implement theories of distributive justice. It will be taught through a mixture of lectures and seminar discussion. Students will be graded on the standard A to F grading scale and will provide end-of-course evaluations on the instruction and course content following established Department of Political Science evaluation procedures.
Topical Outline
I. Introduction Overview of major approaches to distributive justice Overview of substantive research issues in distributive justice Social justice and justification How to conceptualize/formulate valid arguments relating to Social justice II. Substantive Issues Central Issues: Freedom, Equality, Impartiality The status of the market: optimizing approaches and justice General Issues in Justification: political justification in a pluralist society; the problem of political stability; balancing concerns regarding arbitrariness and responsibility; structuring judgments among competing claims III. Designing Research Questions The status of the community’s ethical consensus The problem of competing moral concerns The problem of ethical skepticism Conflicts between liberty and equality The problem of competing rights Conflicts between fairness and liberty