PHIL 295 - Seminar on Philosophical Topics

FDR: HU
Credits: 3 credits in Fall or Winter; 4 credits in Spring
Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

A consideration of selected issues in philosophy. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Fall 2014 topics:

PHIL 295: Seminar: Moral Dimensions of Power (3). This class examines how power works, both in theory and in everyday practice. Many political philosophers have distinguished license (the ability to do as one wishes) from liberty (the legitimate right to so act); yet, there has been little in the way of discussion about the way in which power serves to make license appear to be liberty. We draw on the philosophical analyses of power provided by various philosophers, among them Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. Subsequently, we apply the insights of these philosophers to various contexts, beginning with a discussion of wealth, a highly concentrated form of power and examining the way uses of wealth (America’s classic form of license) are morally constrained. We also consider philosophical accounts of more subtle and diffuse forms of power, including some familiar contexts and some perhaps surprising ones. (HU) Burstein.