Winter 2017 Courses
TR 11-12:15pm, SCI 42, Dr. Jennifer Kling
In this course we will explore and evaluate a number of important concepts in the ethics of peace, war, and defense. Specifically, we will look at four paradigmatic approaches to international relations (realism, just war theory, democratic peace theory, and pacifism) as well as at a number of specific issues, including the discrimination requirement, military privatization, torture, terrorism, supreme emergency, intervention, refugees, and post-war restitution and rebuilding. Throughout the class, we will be reading both historical and contemporary political texts. However, our efforts will not be merely an academic exercise where we will only study what others have thought. Instead, in this course you will be joining in an active and ongoing effort to better understand a world shot through with international conflict and wartime injustice, and how we should act in response to it.
PHI 210: Symbolic Logic
MWF 1-1:50pm, NHC 108, Dr. Patrick Mayer
PHI 340: Ancient Philosophy
MW 9:30-10:45am, SCI 31, Dr. Patrick Mayer
PHI 362: Social and Political Philosophy
TR 9:30-10:45am, SCI 42, Dr. Jennifer Kling
In this course, we will explore and evaluate some of the most influential figures in western political thought, including Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Rawls. In particular, we will investigate their use of the social contract (actual, hypothetical, or conceptual) to justify the political authority and sovereignty of the state. Then, we will turn our attention to some of the most influential critiques of social contract theory, critiques that focus on various axes of oppression, such as race, class, gender, and ability. Throughout the course, we will consider whether and how philosophy can help us think about contemporary US political issues, such as police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, the wage gap and the feminist movement, and labor unions and the so-called populist movement.