Theories of Justice

The course will introduce students to the contemporary philosophical debate about justice, paying special attention to questions of social and global justice. It will address general questions about the validity of our opinions about justice, the status of theories of justice, and the relation between justice and equality, and specific problems of justice concerning the social division of labour and wealth, the value of individual freedom and its limitation, the public treatment of disagreements about morality and happiness, the protection of human rights and the fight against world poverty.

By the end of the course students should have acquired:
- knowledge and understanding of the main philosophical conceptions of justice and of their implications for legislation and public policies;
- the capability to apply acquired knowledge to elaborate and defend in a public debate a personal normative position on specific problems of justice.