Philosophy and the Law

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Law structures our lives and the world we inhabit in myriad ways. It regulates how we interact with others, how we treat our bodies, what kinds of things we can own and sell, and how we can be sanctioned if we act outside the law. In this course we will consider a variety of philosophical questions raised by life within a legal system. The first portion of the course will consider questions in “analytical jurisprudence” about the nature of law and its relation to morality. In the second portion we will consider philosophical questions in “normative jurisprudence,” which asks not “what is law?” but “what should the law be?” We will look at real life cases and the philosophical questions raised by them within substantive areas of law in both private law (property law, tort law, and contract law) and public law (constitutional law, criminal law, and administrative law). In the final portion, we will look at the ethics of actors in the legal and political sphere and how their individual everyday ethical decisions shape the character of law