Time Schedule:
Harald Stelzer
PHIL 410
Seattle Campus
An examination of topics pertaining to social structures and institutions such as liberty, distributive justice, and human rights.
Class description
The course focuses on the ethical dimension of the liberalism-communitarianism-debate. In his Theory of Justice Rawls draws on the construction of the original position. This allows him to (re)construct those fundamental principles of a just society to which people would agree under a 'veil of ignorance' (under the condition of ignorance about their own position in society, their own desires, commitments and obligations). From the communitarian perspective such an attempt of abstraction is not only typical of the methodological design of a pre-social state of nature, but also the foundation of modern ethics (utilitarianism, Kantian deontological ethics in general). The different forms of liberal universalism all rest in one way or another on the methodological fiction of a pre-social individual as a subject, which is independent of all individual empirical circumstances and seems to lie behind the contingent individual with its current beliefs, desires, ambitions, interests, goals and commitments. Form the communitarian perspective this idea of an autonomous self constitutes a distortion of the reality of human life, because it gives too little attention to the embedding of the individual in the community. Communitarians emphasize that this common background is not contingently associated with the person, but forms an integral part of the self and is therefore constitutive of its moral identity. In the course we will critically reexamine the communitarian critique of the liberal position and their own answers with regard to moral identity and the importance of shared moral standards.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
