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PHIL 280.001 – Morality, Law, and Justice: Issues in Legal Philosophy

Instructor: Nevin Johnson. This course meets MTWRF 1:15 – 2:45 p.m. via remote synchronous (RS) instruction.

This course will examine the intersection of law and morality through the discussion of three main topics:

  1. We will discuss whether the concept of law itself bears some (important) relation to the concept of morality.
  2. We will discuss whether the fact that an action is immoral is a sufficient reason to regulate it with the law (especially the criminal law).
  3. Finally, we will discuss debates over the proper theory of legal interpretation, especially the debates between Antonin Scalia on the one side and those who reject textualism and originalism on the other.