Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN LAW

Department: Politics Law Social Thought

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will trace the development and interaction of the two great concepts of law and justice in Anglo-American legal, political, and social theory with respect to the individual and the state up to the present day. Readings will include primary legal and philosophical texts. We will read what some of the greatest minds in the Western political tradition—particularly the Anglo-American tradition—have thought about the natural condition of man, the justification for a state, the rule of law, the concept of a constitution, and the structure of the institutions and laws of the state to achieve the ends of justice and the common good. We will begin with the foundations of political, constitutional, and legal philosophy in Plato and Aristotle. We will then study the foundations of the common law system, in England, the theory of the social contract, and the foundations of the democratic constitutional republic in England and the United States. We will explore legal reason and contemporary theories of how it should be used to analyze and decide cases justly and to further the common good. If time permits, we may summarize and analyze great constitutional issues as presented in the earliest landmark Supreme Court cases of Chief Justice Marshall. Mutually exclusive with PHIL 373. Credit for PLST 307 cannot be earned if a student has previously taken PHIL 373.