Fall 2010/Pasadena
ET848/548
Stassen
ET848/548: PHILOSOPHY OF JUSTICE IN AN AGE OF INTERACTION. Glen Stassen.
DESCRIPTION: This is a CATS doctoral seminar that is open to a very limited
number of master's students. We shall confront some constraints and
constructive directions suggested by a postmodernist and communitarian
criticism of Enlightenment influences on modern ethics. We shall analyze
Michael Walzer's argument for how to make ethical arguments in the postmodern
context, and use him as a comparison basis for analyzing other approaches. We
shall seek to develop a constructive, historically situated understanding of
justice that gives concrete guidance to community-formation and to the
presently changing global economic environment and its impact on local
communities.
SIGNIFICANCE FOR LIFE AND MINISTRY: Church members and outsiders East and West
are anxious about the impact of the global economy on their lives and on the
future. Love, justice, and community are central to Biblical faith, and are
pivotal to ministry to the lives of persons inside and outside the church. But
in the modern cultural context, they have been either neglected, rendered vague
and abstract, or set on a base that no longer holds.
COURSE FORMAT: Seminar discussions, in which we help each other understand,
analyze, compare, and assess different understandings of love and justice in
community. The seminar will meet weekly for three-hour sessions.
REQUIRED READING:
- Bounds, Elizabeth. Coming Together/Coming Apart: Religion,
Community, and Modernity. Routledge, 1997. ISBN: 978-0415912624. $39.95.
OR: Lebacqz, Karen. Six Theories of Justice. Augsburg Fortress, 1987. ISBN:
978-0806622453 $16.95.
- Walzer, Michael. Arguing About War. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2006. ISBN: 978-0300109788 $18.00.
- _________. Interpretation and Social Criticism. Harvard University
Press, 1987. ISBN: 978-0674459717. $22.00.
- _________. Obligations. Harvard University Press, 1970. ISBN:
978-0674630253. $28.00.
- _________. Politics and Passion. New Haven: Yale University Press,
2004. ISBN: 978-0300115369 $16.00.
- _________. Revolution of the Saints. Harvard University Press,1982.
ISBN: 978-0674767867. $29.50.
- _________. Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality.
Basic Books, 1984. ISBN: 978-0465081899. $26.00.
- _________. Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad. Univ.
of Notre Dame Press, 1994. ISBN: 978-0268018979. $15.00.
- West, Cornel. Democracy Matters. Penguin, 2005. ISBN:
978-0143035831. $15.00.
- Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Princeton
University, 2010. ISBN: 978-0691146300 $24.95.
- Selected essays on biblical understandings of justice, and by and about
Walzer, on reserve.
ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT: Attend all seminar sessions prepared to analyze
the readings of the day, with five brief reflection papers. A term paper that
compares the understanding of the writer you choose with Walzer's understanding
of justice. At the 500 level, five brief reflection papers; no term paper.
PREREQUISITES: For masters students: one prior course each in Christian
ethics, one in Christian philosophy, and one in either ethics, philosophy, or a
topic closely related to the seminar's theme.
RELATIONSHIP TO CURRICULUM: Elective for masters students.
FINAL EXAMINATION: Instead of a final exam, we will meet to hear from those
who are writing papers.
This ECD is a reliable guide to the course design but is subject to modification. (Revised August 20, 2010)