SOC 2075 Models of Social and Economic Justice
This course examines the range of questions about what justice requires and permits, to which alternative and incompatible answers are often offered by contending philosophical, theological, and sociological theories of justice. Among the questions addressed are: Does justice permit gross inequality of income and ownership? Does justice require compensatory action to remedy inequalities which are a result of past injustice, even if those who pay the costs of such compensation had no part in that injustice? Does justice permit or require programs such as affirmative action and acts of civil disobedience to correct past and present injustice? Lectures, readings, research and case studies are used to help students differentiate between and decide among the claims of rival accounts of justice which compete for our moral, social, and political allegiance.
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