Theories of Justice
POT4621 (Fall 2012)
Florida International University
M, W, F 4-4:50pm
Academic Health Center 3-215
Joaquin A. Pedroso
Office Hours: Monday 3-3:50pm (and by appointment)
Academic Health Center 3 (downstairs)
jpedr002@fiu.edu
Course Description
The idea of justice has pervaded social, cultural, and political discourse since antiquity.
It is an idea that has been conceived in terms of freedom, equality, social contract, the greater
good, free association, harmony, divine command, human nature, utility, class struggle and
countless other ideas and principles. It is an idea which has been used in reactionary as well as
radical ways. It has served to defend power and privilege as well as challenge the status quo and
inspire social change. In this course we will study a few of the major modern contributions to
the discourse on justice and will examine issues with the main ideological underpinnings of those
contributions.
Course Mechanics
This is an advanced undergraduate course in political theory/philosophy. We will be
delving into abstract theoretical and philosophical issues which require sustained engagement
with the texts (this may require reading hundreds of pages, in other words whole books, every
week) and active participation in class. Students will be evaluated on a midterm paper (7-8 page)
due July 19th (worth 30% of the final grade), a final paper (12-15 page) due August 9th (worth
60% of the final grade) and daily participation in class (worth 10% of the final grade).
2
Academic Misconduct
The point of an education is often misunderstood by college students. Academic integrity
and doing your own work is often times seen as an occupational hazard in a student’s endeavor
to score an “A” rather than integral to the purpose of education. By doing our own work rather
than relying on the work of others we cultivate valuable research skills and learn how to better
think and express ourselves. Plagiarism and academic misconduct are counter-productive to this
endeavor.
All of the following are considered plagiarism:






Turning in someone else’s work as your own.
Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit.
Failing to put someone else’s words in quotation marks.
Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation.
Changing words, but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit.
Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your
work, whether you give credit or not.
These descriptions were taken from http://online.fiu.edu/faculty/resources/plagiarism (accessed
06/11/2012)
For a more detailed explanation of academic misconduct and its consequences please see
http://undergrad.fiu.edu/academic_misconduct/index.html.
Required Papers
As mentioned above, there are two required papers. One is a 7-8 page paper (30% of
final grade) due July 19th and the other is a 12-15 page paper (60% of the final grade) due August
9th. The first paper will be a comparison between Utilitarianism and Liberalism. The student
will be asked to answer whether Utilitarianism in Mill and Liberalism in Locke are based on the
same moral and political principles. And if not, how they differ and what possible implications
would this have for justice in society.
For the final paper students will have 3 choices. Though the detailed final prompt will be
available a few weeks before the paper is due, the options will be 1) whether a notion of “justice”
can ever come to be known. 2) Whether Anarchism is coherent as a political philosophy and
feasible as an effective system of administering justice, and 3) Student choice (with my
approval). Students are encouraged to think about this final paper throughout the semester and to
ask questions in class which they think will aid their paper writing endeavors.
These papers are supposed to be analytic papers and NOT opinion pieces or book
reviews. You are not simply to summarize readings or give your opinion about the readings but
rather to provide an argument and take a position. The student should be sure to provide a clear,
concise, and coherent argument for the position they take and not engage in demagoguery or
3
political activist grandstanding. The reader will not care about the student’s political views or
which positions s/he takes, but rather how well that position is argued. Finally, all papers should
cite properly. APA or Chicago style is usually appropriate for the humanities and social sciences
but any recognized style will do.
Required Books
All required texts are available at the University Bookstore. All recommended texts are easily
available online (Amazon, EBay, etc.) and in your local bookstore (though not necessarily in the
University Bookstore) or the library.
Required:
Michael Sandel, Justice (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2009)
ISBN: 978-0-374-53250-5
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. George Sher (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001)
ISBN: 978-0-87220-605-2
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C.B. Macpherson (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980)
ISBN: 978-0-915144-86-0
Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed. Lawrence H. Simon (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994)
ISBN: 978-0-87220-218-4
Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature
(New York: The New Press, 2006) ISBN: 978-1-59558-134-1
Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)
ISBN: 978-0-520-21573-3
Recommended:
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002)
ISBN: 978-0-226-26421-9
Noam Chomsky, Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order (New York: Seven Stories
Press, 1999) ISBN: 978-1-888363-82-1
Terry Eagleton, Why Marx was Right (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011)
ISBN: 978-0-300-16943-0
Noam Chomsky, Chomsky on Anarchism (Edinburgh, AK Press 2009) ISBN: 978-190485920-8
Daniel Guerin, Anarchism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970) ISBN: 978-0-85345-175-4
4
*A note on recommended readings.
The recommended readings are meant to supplement the required readings (that is,
students do not need to buy or read these books but it would not hurt to do so). These readings
will build on the required readings and tie them in to contemporary policy debates as well as aid
discussion in class by deepening student understanding of the philosophical issues at hand
through their application to the “real world.”
Schedule
Week 1
Monday (8/20): Introduction
Wednesday (8/22): “Doing the Right Thing”
Michael Sandel, Justice (Chapter 1)
Friday: (8/24): “Utilitarianism”
Sandel, Justice (Chapter 2)
Week 2
Monday (8/27): “Utilitarianism” (cont.)
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (all)
Wednesday (8/29): “Utilitarianism” (cont.)
Friday (8/31): “Liberalism and Libertarianism”
Sandel, Justice (Chapters 3 and 4)
5
Week 3
Monday (9/3): Labor Day (University Closed)
Wednesday (9/5): “Liberalism and Libertarianism”
John Locke, Second Treatise on Government (all)
Friday (9/7): “Liberalism and Libertarianism” (cont.)
Terence Ball, “Imagining Marketopia” (available on JSTOR or online)
Week 4
Monday (9/10): “Liberalism and Libertarianism” (cont.)
Thomas Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (recommended)
Wednesday (9/12):“Liberalism and Libertarianism” (cont.)
-Screening of “Atlas Shrugged”
Friday (9/14): “Liberalism and Libertarianism” (cont.)
-Screening of “Atlas Shrugged”
Monday (9/17): “Liberalism and Libertarianism” (cont.)
-Finish screening of “Atlas Shrugged” and discussion
Wednesday (9/19): “Motives and Outcomes”
Sandel, Justice (Chapters 5-7)
6
Friday (9/21): “Motives and Outcomes” (cont.)
Noam Chomsky, Profit over People (recommended)
Week 5
Monday (9/24): “Desert” (cont.)
Sandel, Justice (Chapter 8)
Wednesday (9/26): “Desert” (cont.)
Karl Marx, Selected Writings (Introduction)
Friday (9/28): “Desert” (cont.)
Marx, Selected Writings (pp. 27-156)
Week 6
Monday (10/1): “Desert” (cont.)
Marx, Selected Writings (pp.1-26, 209-213)
Terry Eagleton, Why Marx was Right (recommended)
*Paper 1 Due (Utilitarianism v. Liberalism)
Wednesday (10/3): “Desert” (cont.)
Marx, Selected Writings (pp. 157-208)
Eagleton, Why Marx was Right (recommended)
Friday (10/5): “Desert” (cont.)
Marx, Selected Writings (pp. 214-333)
Eagleton, Why Marx was Right (recommended)
7
Week7
Monday (10/8): “Anarchy and Justice”
Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (all)
Wednesday (10/10): “Anarchy and Justice” (cont.)
Noam Chomsky, Chomsky on Anarchism (recommended)
Friday (10/12): “Anarchy and Justice” (cont.)
Noam Chomsky, Chomsky on Anarchism (recommended)
Week 8
Monday (10/15): “Anarchy and Justice” (cont.)
Daniel Guerin, Anarchism (recommended)
Wednesday (10/17): “Anarchy and Justice” (cont.)
Friday (10/19): “Anarchy and Justice” (cont.)
Week 9
Monday (10/22): “Anarchy and Justice” (cont.)
Screening of “The Take”
Daniel Guerin, Anarchism (recommended)
8
Wednesday (10/24): “Anarchy and Justice” (cont.)
Finish screening of “The Take”
Friday (10/26): “Anarchy and Justice” (cont.)
-Discussion of “The Take”
Week 10
Monday (10/29) “Power vs. Justice”
Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature (Ch1)
Wednesday (10/31): “Power vs. Justice” (cont.)
“Chomsky and Foucault on Human Nature and Politics: An Essential Difference?” (Available at
http://www.kyoolee.net/Chomsky_and_Foucault_on_Human_Nature_and_Politics__An_Essential_Difference.pdf)
Friday (11/2): “Power vs. Justice” (cont.)
Chomsky and Foucault, The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature (Chapters 2-6)
Week 11
Monday (11/5): “Power vs. Justice”
Wednesday (11/7): “Contemporary and Timeless Issues”
Screening of “The Examined Life”
Friday (11/9): “Contemporary and Timeless Issues”
Finish screening of “The Examined Life”
Monday (11/12): No class (Veteran’s Day)
9
Wednesday (11/14): “Contemporary and Timeless Issues”
Discussion of “The Examined Life”
Friday (11/16): No Class
Work on your final papers!
Monday (11/19): “Contemporary and Timeless Issues”
Sandel, Justice (Chapters 7, 9)
Wednesday (11/21): “Contemporary and Timeless Issues”
Friday (11/23): No Class (Thanksgiving Holiday)
Monday (11/26):
Wednesday (11/28):
Friday (11/30): Open Discussion
*Final Papers Due
10