Seeking the Just Society.

Catalog description

How should we live together? This fundamental political question arises because human beings cannot live alone, yet--unlike other animals--we have no fixed mode of organizing our common life. To answer it, we must determine what is fixed and what is malleable about human nature. We must weigh tradeoffs between security, liberty, and justice. We must determine how to distribute honor, power, and resources, and we must confront the horrors of war, violence, and oppression. This course explores these problems through engaging in conversation with great works of philosophy, literature, history, and rhetoric across human history and cultures.