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Nov 21, 2024
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PHIL 3374 - Philosophy of Law
Credits: 3
This course explores some central and interrelated issues in philosophy of law, or jurisprudence, with a particular emphasis on the role that morality plays in our understanding of law and in the interpretation and application of the law. Here are some of the questions we will consider: When and why does the content of law - what the law is - depend on the content of morality - on what is right and wrong, just and unjust, fair and unfair, etc.? When and how does interpreting and applying laws (statutes, precedents, etc.) involve making value judgments, including moral judgments? Does the United States Constitution enact the “original understanding” of freedom of speech, due process of law, equal protection of the laws, and so on? Or does it, instead, direct us to apply our own, perhaps quite different, understandings of these concepts? (The latter view is called “the moral reading” of the Constitution.) Is there a moral obligation to obey the law? When and why is punishing those who break the law morally justified? Satisfies elective requirements in the following majors and minors: philosophy, ethics, human rights, and law and legal reasoning.
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