| Moral Reasoning 22: Justice |
This blog was inspired by Moral Reasoning 22: Justice by Michael J. Sandel
September 24th, 2007
The feel of 2,000 eyes on you is an unnerving thing, especially when you're trying to justify why you want to push a fat man on some train tracks to save the lives of 5 people. But that's where Michael Sandel and his course on moral reasoning put you; right between the cross hairs of your own convictions...
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September 27th, 2007
Week's Reading:
The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens (1884)
http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~phils4/dudley.html
Summary:
The famed 19th century law case still debated in classrooms today talks of a shipwrecked crew that decided to to kill and eat one of its crew members in order to survive. After...
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September 27th, 2007
Jeremy Bentham and His Embalmed Head on Display at the University College of London
Reading:
Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, Ch.I & IV
Summary:
Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation begins with the assumption that pleasure and pain are humankind's sovereign...
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September 28th, 2007
Reading:
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianismm
http://www.thefinalclub.org/work-overview.php?work_id=31
J.S. Mill, whose father was a disciple of Jeremy Bentham, offers an alternative conception of Utilitarianism that tackles the problem of the "heartlessness" of the philosophy. Models such as...
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October 5th, 2007
Review:
When we last left off, we had examined JS Mill's argument for a more humanitarian theory of utilitarianism. People cannot simply be numbers, Mill argues. Efficiency is not always the highest principle of morality when it infringes upon the rights of the individual. This week, we turn to the...
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October 17th, 2007
Reading:
Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, ch. 6
Summary:
Lecture:
The minimal state:
Sandel argues that the ideal state of Libertarianism is that of the minimal state, a societal structure which allows for the government to play a barely minimum role, if any, in an individual's...
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October 18th, 2007
Reading:
John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, ch. 1, ch.2, ch. 3, ch. 4, ch.5
Summary (Ch 1- 5 Only):
"The State of Nature has a Law of Nature which obliges everyone: and Reason, which is that Law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent,...
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October 29th, 2007
- The Tennis Court Oath, Jacques-Louis David (1791, pen and brown ink)
Reading:
Locke, Second Treatise of Government:
ch.7 - Of Political or Civil Society
ch. 8 - Of the Beginning of Political Societies
ch. 9 - Of the Ends of Political Society and Government
ch.10 - Of the Forms...
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October 29th, 2007
Reading:
Guido Calabresi and Phillip Bobbit, Tragic Choices, pp. 158-65
James Munroe McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 600-11
James Traub, All Go Down Together NYT, 16 March 2003
Lecture:
We ended our last session with the question of moral consent. What does it do? What does it...
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October 29th, 2007
Reading:
In the Matter of Baby ‘M’ (1987)
In the Matter of Baby ‘M’ (1988, N.J. Supreme Court)
Anderson, "Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?" (available through JSTOR)
Lecture:
Last lecture examined the free-market exchange of military conscription vis-a-vis Locke's theory of civil...
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November 6th, 2007
"...Perception tells us that on your your finger, he's a puppet, and on your fridge, he's a magnet, but the magnetic Kant puppet remains unknowable in itself..." - The Unemployed Philosopher's Guide
Reading:
Emmanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, (Section 1 & Section 2)
Links...
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November 6th, 2007
Reading:
Emmanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (Section 3)
Lecture:
Today we're going to answer the biggie: What is the supreme principle of morality? And (How is freedom possible?)
To break this question down and make it easier, let's keep in mind the binaries that...
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November 7th, 2007
(About.com)
Reading:
Immanuel Kant, "On the Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns"
Lecture:
Last time we explored the lights and shadows of Kant's theory on morality. We came up with three dualisms we...
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November 20th, 2007
"See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak no Evil"
Reading:
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, ch. I (sec. 1-6), II (sec. 11-14, 17), III (sec. 20-24), IV (sec. 40)
Lecture:
Leaving Kant (with a brief recap)...
Let's look quickly at Kant's political thought as a background to John Rawls. An...
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November 20th, 2007
Reading:
Rawls, Ch. V (sec. 41), VII (sec. 48, 68), IX (sec. 79, 84, 87)
Last time, we saw how Rawls' principles of justice derive from a hypothetical contract. Actual contracts, we discovered, are not as morally powerful, because they don't justify the terms they produce. Whether a private...
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November 20th, 2007
Diego Rivera, "Detroit Industry, North Wall," Detroit Institute of Arts, (1932-33)
Reading:
Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (excerpt)
Theories of Distributive Justice:
1) Libertarian View - Free Market, "Formal Equality" - Every person should be free to strive or work...
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November 26th, 2007
Lecture 17
"Arguing Affirmative Action"
Reading:
Bernstein, "Racial Discrimination or Righting Past Wrongs?"
Hopwood v. State of Texas (1996)
Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)
Dworkin, "Bakke’s Case: Are Quotas Unfair?"
Morley, "Double Reverse Discrimination"
Brus, "Proxy War: Liberals Denounce...
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November 26th, 2007
Reading:
Aristotle, The Politics, Bks. I, III (ch. 1-13)
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Bks II (ch. 1-3), X (ch. 1-3)
Lecture:
In our previous lecture, we tried to understand what moral right was being violated through Hopwood v. Texas. Was it Hopwood's individual right which was violated...
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November 27th, 2007
Reading:
Presley, "A Safety Blitz; Texas Cheerleader Loses Status"
Sandel “Honor and Resentment”
Ryan, "Sorry, Free Rides Not Right"
Kite, "Keep the PGA on Foot"
PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin (2000)
Lecture:
Last time, we discussed the distributive justice issue of "giving people their...
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December 5th, 2007
Deciding between the Right and the Good is like deciding between the Chicken or the Egg: Which comes first?
Reading:
Review: Aristotle, The Politics, Bks. I, III (ch. 1-13)
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Bks II (ch. 1-3), X (ch. 1-3)
Lecture:
Last lecture, we reviewed Aristotle's teleological...
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December 11th, 2007
Spencer Tunick in Neuchatel, Switzerland
Reading:
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, ch. 15
Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent, pp. 7-17
Lecture:
Today, we turn to Kant's response to Aristotle and examine the basis of neo-Aristotelian thinking vis-a-vis Alasdair MacIntyre and communitarianist...
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December 11th, 2007
Reading:
Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice, pp. 6-10, 86-91, 312-314
Lecture:
Last lecture, we compared two moral versions of the self using MacIntyre and Rawls. The voluntarist perception, based upon liberal egalitarian-rights theorists, conceives of the self as an autonomous being whose...
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December 12th, 2007
Reading:
Rawls, Political Liberalism, pp. 3-15, 29-35, 144-58
Sandel, "Political Liberalism"
Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health (2003)
Lecture:
This lecture, Sandel takes the stage and advances his own arguments in favor of the narrative conception of self.
Lecture breakdown:
1. Defense...
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© 2008 TheFinalClub.org, All rights reserved.
TheFinalClub.org has no affiliation with Harvard University.
User-generated content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.