“Morality & The Law” (2014) – 3TU.Ethics and OZSW Graduate Course

The Dutch Research School of Philosophy (OZSW) invites graduate students in philosophy for the course ‘Morality & the Law’, to take place in Spring 2014, co-organized with the 3TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology .

Dates: Monday 24 March up and until Friday 28 March 2014
Location: Delft University of Technology, TBM Faculty, Jaffalaan 5, Delft

Programme to be added on a later date. Probably similar to last year’s programme.
The deadline for application is: Thu. 27 February 2014. Registration form for this course.

Structure & preparation

The course includes five 4-hour lectures in a Socratic style. Students will be expected to read at least some criticisms and comments on Rawls’ Theory of Justice, and seminal works by Austin, Hart, Dworkin, and Nozick. The lectures themselves will cover the entire work A Theory of Justice.

The participants are expected to read all the assigned literature, to actively participate in the discussions and to write a paper at the end of the course. Students will also be expected to give brief presentations (10-20 minutes) describing critiques, responses, and theories of major figures in modern theories of justice in the seminar-style lecture periods.

Course load

The course load is the equivalent of 5 ECTS. Please note that the OZSW does not have the authority to grant credit points to students. What the OZSW can do, is give you a certificate that states that you have succesfully completed this course.  Students who need official acknowledgement, need to take the certificate to the appropriate authority (the “examencommissie”) at their own university.  It may be advisable to check in advance if it is likely that this authority will recognize the course.

About the topic

Justice is a slippery problem for both philosophers and lawyers. Over time, dating from Plato’s forays into the topic with his dialogue The Republic, through Aristotle, Aquinas, and the modern dispute between natural law theory and legal positivism, no generally accepted general account of the relation between law and morality has been universally adopted. The practice of modern law is now largely positivistic in its approach, and philosophers still struggle to devise an account of what makes a law or legal system morally sound. Meanwhile, the demands of practical justice continue, and states enact laws, punish, and even go to war over issues they describe as relating to “justice.”

Among modern thinkers, two noteworthy defenders of modern notions of natural ‘rights’ or at least neo-Kantian deontology have recently passed  away: Rawls and Dworkin. We will focus on Rawls’ seminal work A Theory of Justice because it is comprehensive, both historically and theoretically. Rawls was well versed in both the history of debates about justice, and the legal regimes that try to enact it. One could gain a good philosophical grounding in basic ethics and the various theories of justice that have been debated for millennia just by reading this book. We will start with his text, critiques to it, and some excerpts from other major legal philosophers including the positivists Austin and Hart so that we can grapple with the debate, and see where modern notions of justice in its applied forms are going.

We will work through issues pertaining to the intersection of law and ethics or morality, specifically centering our research on the Twentieth Century’s leading legal philosopher, John Rawls. His work, A Theory of Justice, provides the framework for our investigation of the relations of legal norms with morality, and delves into the broad history of the field from Aquinas through Austin, Hart, Rawls himself, and Dworkin. Primary text will include A Theory of Justice and selections from Dworkin, Hart, and Austin. Rawls forms the basis for the major approach to justice in modern liberal democracies, but he is not the final word, and other approaches are still vying for dominance as institutions for justice continue to globalize. Understanding these historical and theoretical trends will be important for those who intend to work in policy arenas in any context.

Course objectives

Students should gain an understanding of both the history of attempts to define Justice and the theoretical implications and limitations of the various attempts discussed. Students will be able to describe and critique approaches to justice, work with practical examples, and define the problem of justice broadly. Students will present brief summaries and syntheses of major theories of justice and their critiques.

Lecturer/coordinator

Dr. David Koepsell, Delft University of Technology (D.R.Koepsell@tudelft.nl)

Costs

The course is free for:

  • PhD students who are a member of the 3TU.Ethics graduate school;
  • PhD students who are a member of the OZSW;
  • MSc students enrolled in the PSTS master of the University of Twente
  • Research Master students in Philosophy at one of the other Dutch universities

Other participants pay a tuition fee of 250 euro for the course.

How to apply for the course

Please fill out the form at aanmelder.nl and add:

  • your contact details (email address, telephone number and postal address),
  • a brief motivation for taking part in the course.
  • a description of your PhD project (max. 500 words)

In case of too many applications, the coordinator of the course will make a selection.

In case of too little applications, the course might be cancelled (yet based on registrations so far, we expect that this will not be needed for this course). In case of cancellation, the OZSW will inform participants at least one week in advance. The OZSW is not responsible for any (accommodation) costs that students may have made in preparation for the course.

The deadline for application is: Thu. 27 February 2014

More information

For further information related to the contents of this course, please contact the lecturer at the following e-mail address: D.R.Koepsell@tudelft.nl. For practical inquiries, please contact secretariaat@ozsw.nl.