BLHV-275 Justice: Domestice and Global Perspective

Snell, Steven

The course is designed to provide students with an overview of political theory relating to both domestic and global justice. First, it will examine various theories of domestic justice – including utilitarianism, possessive and choice-based libertarianism, and John Rawls’s theory of “justice-as-fairness”. The political theories contained in the readings express diverse (and in some cases highly controversial) concepts; these readings will comprise the first two parts of the course. In the third portion of the course, the focus shifts to global justice. Under what circumstances does a sovereign state have duties – negative or positive – to citizens of other nations? The course examines cosmopolitan theories of Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge, critiques of these cosmopolitan theories by Thomas Nagel and Matthias Risse, and Rawls’s reasons for not extending his “two principles of justice” from the domestic context into the global context. Finally, the course will address practical proposals for holding multinational corporations responsible for complicity in abuses of human rights.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: None

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Fall '13: Snell S (file download)

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• 2012-2013 Fall and Spring

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