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Theories of Law and Justice - LAWS3326

Faculty: Faculty of Law

School: Faculty of Law

Course Outline: See below

Campus: Kensington Campus

Career: Undergraduate

Units of Credit: 6

EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)

Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3

Enrolment Requirements:

Pre-requisite: Crime & Criminal Process (LAWS1021/JURD7121) & Criminal Laws (LAWS1022/JURD7122) OR Crim. Law 1 (LAWS1001/JURD7101) & Crim. Law 2 (LAWS1011/JURD7111). Co-requisite: Litigation 1 [LAWS2311/ JURD7211] OR Res. Civil Disp. (LAWS2371/JURD7271)

Excluded: JURD7236, JURD7336, LAWS2326

CSS Contribution Charge: 3 (more info)

Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule

Further Information: See Class Timetable

View course information for previous years.

Description

Laws 3326 is an Elective Course. Students who want to enrol in Theories of Law and Justice as a Core course should enrol in LAWS2326.

This course seeks to understand the nature of law and justice and, in particular, the relationship between the two in contemporary society. It begins by exploring the question “what is justice”? Since this is an enduring philosophical question, posed differently at different times, it will be approached historically. We examine some of the key thinkers in the philosophical and jurisprudential tradition from the Greeks to the present and how they have understood justice. The focus here will be not only on explaining and critically analysing different general theories of justice, but especially upon determining how these theories articulate the specific relation (or lack of relation) between justice and law. The course will then put these ideas to work through a consideration of a number of contemporary problems concerning law and justice. For example, how in modern circumstances might we ground the criteria of justice? Is it helpful to understand modern law on the model of either distributive or corrective justice? Is any interpretation of law always based on an understanding of legal justice? And what are we to make of various claims to justice, for instance, international justice, intergenerational justice, historical or transitional justice?

Course Learning Outcomes

The student will be able to:

Demonstrate awareness of principles of theories of law and justice and their relationship to the broader context;
Engage in critical analysis of legal institutions and their connection to specific social and cultural institutions;
Engage in critical analysis of the law on one hand and personal and public morality on the other;
Produce scholarly writing that demonstrates: (1) acquaintance with legal and social theoretical terminologies and styles; (2) analysis, synthesis, critical judgment, reflection and evaluation; and (3) cites a range of practical and scholarly interdisciplinary research sources;
Demonstrate effective oral communication skills by discussing and debating course concepts in a scholarly, reflective and respectful manner; and
Demonstrate self-management through self-assessment of capabilities and performance and use of previous feedback received in the course.

Topics

Introduction the problem of Law and Justice via an examination of Plato’s Republic
Aristotle’s theory of justice and its legacy (corrective and distributive justice; questions of justice requiring good judgment)
From theories of law and justice conceived in terms of natural law to natural rights and social contract theory (Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke and Kant and Rawls)
Non-contractualist theories of law and justice: Hume, the Utilitarians and Hegel
Legal justice and justice as interpretation; Dworkin, and Gadamer
Marx’s critique of all prevailing conceptions of legal rights, the rule of law and justice.
Justice in a pluralist society; the just (secular) state; the just multicultural state and Global justice.
The contemporary Frankfurt School’s theories of law and justice in terms of theories of discourse and recognition.
Feminism, the ethic or care and the critique of legal justice.
The post-structuralist deconstruction of law and justice.

Assessment