Ethical Dilemmas and Solutions for Social Justice

Catalog description

This course is an introductory survey of the principles and practice of social ethics. Ethics (aka moral philosophy) is one of the branches of philosophy that tries to understand notions of right and wrong as they play out in the affairs of humankind. Social ethics is an application of these ideas to social problems and issues. It concerns itself with questions such as – Should abortion be a crime or a choice? Where lies the line between protecting children, and intruding into the lives of families? Is affirmative action fair to some and unfair to others? Is euthanasia a crime or an exercise of personal freedom? Is poverty an inevitable, or a shameful, feature of wealthy societies? If you find yourself encountering questions like these (these illustrations are all drawn from recent stories in the New York Times), and want to possess some tools that will enable you to think about them, then this course is for you. Resolving these kinds of ethical social problems is a necessary first step in the construction of a just society; ethical inquiry should suggest action that can lead to social justice.