PHIL2613 Global Justice

2017

4.5

1 x 2-hour seminar weekly

PHIL3604 has been successfully completed

As a second -year level topic in the Philosophy major sequence, this topic assumes a familiarity with the kind of knowledge, conceptual understanding and skill that would be acquired by completion of at least 9 units of 1st year level topics from the Philosophy major sequence.

Assignment(s), Seminar

This topic will address a number of difficult and pressing ethical issues for international ethics and global justice. To what extent can we ethically defend the extreme poverty and inequality that characterises our world, and to the extent that we cannot, who has a duty to do something about them? To we have stronger duties towards people in our own country or are out duties to help equally strong no matter where people live? When is it ethically permissible for countries to use military force against each other? What role should the sovereign state play as a form of political organisation?

This topic will address these and other important questions, and familiarise students with some of the systematic approaches developed by moral and political philosophers for dealing with them.

This topic aims to:

• introduce students to theories of international ethics such as theories regarding obligations to address global poverty, ethical issues regarding immigration, just wars, preventive war and sovereignty

• introduce students to theories of global justice such as global egalitarianism and its critics, political authority in a globally just society, global environmental justice and international criminal justice

On completion of this topic students will be able to:

• identify and appreciate the moral implications of questions arising on the international and global arena

• demonstrate the ability to think systematically and clearly about pressing and difficult such issues

• outline the main theories relevant to each such issue and demonstrate the capacity to engage in critical discussion of some of them

• communicate their ideas and arguments clearly in writing