PHIL 729

Political Philosophy 2


Please note: this is archived course information from 2017 for PHIL 729.

Description

This course has a special focus on complicity with global injustice.

We currently face many forms of global injustice. As one example consider how much of our contemporary consumption has a tainted production history. Cellphones are produced by exposing workers to toxic substances known to cause high rates of leukemia. Many popular brands of clothing involve child or sweatshop labour. Natural resources such as oil and minerals are necessary ingredients for much production and yet acquiring many of these staples involves trading with some of the most authoritarian and oppressive contemporary governments. These considerations might suggest that ordinary consumers, through their everyday shopping, are complicit in certain injustices. For consumers in high-income countries at least three questions arise about purchases with such tainted histories: (1). Are we complicit in injustices when we purchase such products? (2). If we are complicit, is this complicity morally culpable? (3). If so, what ought we to do to avoid or make amends for morally culpable complicity?

Three important recent books in political philosophy have a bearing on answering these questions and we will read selections from these in this course, along with other materials. The books are:

Chiara Lepora and Robert Goodin On Complicity and Compromise (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Leif Wenar Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Iris Marion Young Responsibility for Justice (Oxford University Press, 2011).

The books raise concerns about several kinds of global injustices and these will also feature in our discussions.  

View the course syllabus

Availability 2017

Semester 1

Lecturer(s)

Coordinator(s) Professor Gillian Brock

Reading/Texts

Chiara Lepora and Robert Goodin On Complicity and Compromise (Oxford University Press, 2013).

 

Leif Wenar Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World (Oxford University Press, 2016).

 

Iris Marion Young Responsibility for Justice (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Recommended Reading

Further reading recommendations to be advised in the course.

Points

PHIL 729: 15 points