PHIL 273.001 – Justice, Rights, and the Common Good: Philosophical Perspectives on Social and Economic Issues

Instructor: Alex Marcoci. This course meets TR 8:00 – 9:15 a.m. in MU 105.

This course engages with complex contemporary policy debates by analysing the normative questions about justice that underlie them. Topics covered in this course include: inequality, free speech, multiculturalism, immigration and privacy. Our discussions will be informed both by contemporary texts in political philosophy (e.g. Rawls, Young, Kukathas, Crenshaw), as well as by classical readings from the history of political thought (e.g. Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Mill, Arendt). By the end of the course, you will attain a clear grasp of key theories and concepts in the philosophical literature on justice, and an ability to deploy these theories and concepts so as to critically analyse major contemporary policy debates.