PHIL 196 - Seminar in Ethics and Value Theory

FDR: HU
Credits: 3 credits in fall-winter-spring, 4 in spring

Fall 2021, PHIL 196A-01: First-Year Seminar: Free Markets, Private Property, and Economic Justice (3). Prerequisite: First-year class standing only. We will consider philosophical questions surrounding the value of free markets and the justification of private property rights, along with other economic rights and liberties, in the history of liberal thought. Liberal political philosophy takes liberty to have fundamental importance as a political value, and some individual liberties as basic to live as free persons (for example, liberty of conscience and freedom to choose one’s occupation). However, liberal thinkers disagree on whether economic liberties, such as extensive rights of private ownership of land and scarce resources, and laissez-faire freedom of contract, are basic or secondary. Liberal philosophers, such as Locke, Smith, and Mill, have competing views on the nature and scope of economic rights and liberties, and the government’s role in regulating markets, on this basis. As private property rights within a system of free markets lead to situations of gross material inequality and poverty, we will think about how these institutions can conflict with claims of social or economic justice. (HU) Zapata.