UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF LAW THEORIES OF JUSTICE SEMINAR PROF. SYLVIA WAIRIMU KANG ARA SPRING 2011

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1 Page 1 of 5 THEORIES OF JUSTICE A566A Spring 2011 Syllabus Please link here to the syllabus in Word or the syllabus in PDF Office: Assistant: William Gates Hall Room 311 (206) skangara@uw.edu Ruth Beardsley William Gates Hall Room 325 (206) giaconi@uw.edu Office Hours: Mondays, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF LAW THEORIES OF JUSTICE SEMINAR PROF. SYLVIA WAIRIMU KANG ARA SPRING 2011 Sessions: Class: Tuesdays & Thursdays 1:30-2:45 pm, Room 217. Writing Seminar: Tuesdays & Thursdays 2:55-3:20 pm, Room 217 or 311. Attendance and Decorum: Disability- Related Needs: To promote an atmosphere conducive to learning, you should attend class regularly and punctually, switch off your cell phones and beepers before class begins, put your laptops on classroom/note-taking mode, and suspend and internet activity during class. If your attendance falls below 80%, you will be dropped from the course. To request academic accommodations due to a disability, please contact Disability Resources for Students (DRS), 448 Schmitz, (206) (V), (206) (TTY). If you have a letter from DRS, please present the letter to me so we can discuss the accommodations you might need in this class. Primary Text: Michael Sandel, Justice: A Reader (2007). Additional Text: Course Description: Please see schedule of assignments below. All additional material will be posted on the course webpage. This course introduces students to western and non-western theories of societal justice. In addition to reading canonical texts, students will read material that give theoretical treatment to contemporary social problems or evaluate specific events, debates, and practices. The course has three parts. After an introductory sampling of theories of justice, Part I discusses three types of domestic problems that need urgent evaluation today. The first problem will be in the area of tort law and investment. We will discuss the justice question in environmental disasters such as the recent gulf oil spill. The second problem will be in the area of property law and identity-based exclusion. Here, we shall interrogate the idea of the right to property in light of the fact that considerations of gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation remain important obstacles to ownership in

2 Page 2 of 5 our society. The third problem will be in the area of contract law and the human body. We will interrogate the idea of market society to understand where society has drawn the line between what is market alienable and what is not. This year, we shall discuss the care of the human body in the context of surrogacy motherhood contracts and homecare for the elderly. Drawing from conceptual frameworks developed in Part I, Part II will discuss five international justice problems that need urgent attention. These are: Food Security Energy, Security, and Petro-Dictatorships Immigration and Labor Human Trafficking Gender and Sexuality In Part III, we shall discuss a range of western and non-western theories of societal justice. Evaluation: This course is designed to support, inform, and encourage the production of high quality research papers.. To that end, we shall have regular writing seminars. It is important that you take charge of the following in order to meet the requirements of this course: Demonstrate careful reading of assigned text. For each session, please bring to class a 250-word written note responding to the central argument of the day s reading. Your participation in this exercise will account for 10% of your final grade. Develop the ability to make theoretical arguments. You should by the end of the course have the capacity to draw on the theoretical traditions we will cover in this course to intelligently discuss concrete legal and social problems. Come to each class prepared to discuss, explain, critique, or compare the theories of justice we will cover in this course. Your efforts will account for 10% of your final grade. Write a high quality seminar paper. There will be no examination for this course. Instead, I will work with you to produce a seminar paper of publishable quality. Please plan to write a 6-9 page paper if you are taking the course for three credits, and a 9-12 page paper if you are taking the course for four credits. The seminar paper will account for 80% of your final grade. Assignments: Please note that this schedule of assignments is subject to revision. It will be your responsibility to take note of changes. Part I #1: Utilitarianism Tuesday 3/29 #2: Doing the Right Thing, MS 3-8. Bentham: Principals of Morals and Legislation, MS Thursday 4/1

3 Page 3 of 5 Class cancelled. We shall makeup this session by extending the last class (5/31) by 35 minutes. #3: Utilitarianism Tuesday 4/5 Mill: Utilitarianism, MS #4: Libertarianism Thursday 4/7 Friedman: Free to Choose, MS #5: Libertarianism Tuesday 4/12 Nozick: Anarchy, State, and Utopia, MS #6: Libertarianism Thursday 4/14 #7: Hayek: The Constitution of Liberty, MS Tuesday 4/19 Class cancelled. A make-up class will be scheduled. #8: Property Rights Thursday 4/21 Locke: Second Treatise of Government, MS Part II #9: Tort Law and Investment: Liability for Environmental Disasters Tuesday 4/26 Houck: Worst Case and the DEEPWATER HORIZON Blowout: There Ought to be a Law, 24 Tul. Envt l L. J. 1 (2010). Kalen: Lingering Relevance of the Coastal Zone Management Act to Energy Development in our Nation s Coastal Waters? 24 Tul. Envt l L. J. 73 (2010). #10: Property Law and Identity-Based Exclusion Thursday 4/28 Morley: Double Reverse Discrimination, MS Banks and Ford: (How) Does Unconscious Bias Matter?: Law, Politics, and Racial Inequality, 58 Emory L. J ( ).

4 Page 4 of 5 Restrictive Covenants in Seattle (please review documentation in the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project website: #11: Contract Law and the Care of the Human Body Tuesday 5/3 In the Matter of Baby M, MS Anderson: Is Women s Labor a Commodity, MS Shamir: The State of Care: Rethinking the Distributive Effects of Familial Care Policies in Liberal Welfare States, 58 Am. J. Comp. L. 953 (2010). #12: Food Security and Conflict Thursday 5/5 Gonzalez: Trade Liberalization, Food Security, and the Environment: The Neoliberal Threat to Sustainable Rural Development, 14 Transnat l L. & Contemp. Probs. 419 ( ). #13: Energy, International Security, and Petro-Dictatorships Tuesday 5/10 Zweig: China s Global Hunt for Energy, 84 Foreign Aff. 25 (2005). Frei: Extracting Oil from Turmoil: The Iraq Oil Industry and its Role as a Promising Future Player in the Global Energy Market, 4 Rich. J. Global L. & Bus. 147 (2004). #14: Immigration and Labor Thursday 5/12 Santos: Three Transnational Discourses of Labor Law in Domestic Reforms, 32 U. Pa. J. Int l L. 123 (2010). #15: Human Trafficking Tuesday 5/17 Barnhart: Sex and Slavery: An Analysis of Three Models of State Human Trafficking Legislation, 16 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 83 ( ). #7: Gender and Sexuality We will cover this material in a session to be planned to make up for the class cancelled on Tuesday 4/19 Robin West, Universalism, Liberal Theory, and the Problem of Gay Marriage, MS Lama Abu Odeh, Honor Killings and the Construction of Gender in Arab Societies, 58 Am. J. Comp. L. 911 (2010).

5 Page 5 of 5 Part III #16: Freedom as Autonomy Thursday 5/19 Kant: Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, MS #17: Justice as Fairness Tuesday 5/23 Rawls: A Theory of Justice, MS #18: Distributive Justice Thursday 5/26 Rawls: A Theory of Justice, MS Nozick: Anarchy, State, and Utopia, MS Dworkin: Bakke s Case: Are Quota s Unfair, MS Brus: Proxy War: Liberals Denounce Racial Profiling, Conservatives Denounce Affirmative Action What is the Difference? MS #19: Justice and Virtue Tuesday 5/31 (this session will extend to 3:20 pm) Aristotle: The Politics, MS Pressley, A Safety Blitz: Texas Cheerleader Loses Status, MS Sandel: Honor and Resentment, MS Ryan: Sorry, Free Rides Not Right, MS Kite: Keep the PGA on Foot, MS PGA v. Martin, MS Copyright University of Washington School of Law William H. Gates Hall Box Seattle, WA Directions Contact Us