Syllabus Professor Tom Atchison
Economic Justice Office: 328B St. John’s Hall (St. Paul Campus)
PHIL 354-01 Office hours: by appointment
Fall Semester 2018 Office Phone: 651-793-1493 (rarely checked)
Credits earned = 4 Email: Thomas.Atchison@metrostate.edu
(Email is the best way to get a quick response.)
Catalog course description:
Does the fact that some in the world have more than they need in order to live and others have too little to survive show that the world is unjust? Do people in affluent countries have a moral obligation to help those in impoverished countries? Should material well-being be more equally distributed in a just world? Should people who contribute more get more? Do smart people, beautiful people, and hard-working people deserve to get more than those who are less so? Should the world's bounty be seen as belonging to all equally? These and other questions regarding the controversial issue of economic justice will be addressed through a variety of philosophical materials.
Catalog Learning Outcomes:
Course Description for this year’s version of the course
This class will explore in some depth several approaches to economic justice that have been developed in the last 50 years in mainstream Anglo-American philosophy. These include: a utilitarian approach, John Rawls’ liberal social contract theory; Robert Nozick’s libertarian ‘entitlement theory’, and a conservative approach from the American Enterprise Institute (a right-wing think tank). We will then turn to several critics and alternatives to these mainstream views: A ‘left’ critique from British socialist philosopher G. A. Cohen; a feminist critique from Susan Okun, and a race-focused critique by john a franklin (he does not capitalize his name) that challenges the individualistic sense of self common to the mainstream approaches. Finally we will consider some questions about what personal responsibilities we have in regards to justice, guided by Iris Marion Young’s posthumous book, Responsibility for Justice. One persistent theme will be the claim that the domain of ‘economic justice’ is not limited to how much money people have (or don’t have), but needs to be understood more broadly in terms of opportunities, capabilities, production of goods and services outside the market (where much of women’s traditional labor takes place) and the quality of the relationships into which we must enter to get our more narrowly economic needs met.
Texts:
Wealth and Justice by Peter Wehner and Arthur C. Brooks, AEI Press, 2011
Racing to Justice by john a. powell, Indiana University Press, 2015
Responsibility for Justice by Iris Marion Young, Oxford University Press, 2013
Other readings will be photocopied and handed out in class or will be available on the Internet. Many assignments for this class will require access to the Internet and the ability to read significant amounts of online material. Metro State provides access in its computer labs and library as do public libraries. It is your responsibility to make sure your home access is adequate or to make time to do your reading at school or a library. Occasionally I will ask you to print out an online text and bring it to class. (It was either that or order several more books.)
Class website: I maintain my own website (not part of D2L) where I post course handouts and information at: http://www.woldww.net/classes/. The online course readings will be linked here. Bookmark this site and consult it frequently. It is your best source of up-to-date information about this class.
Please make sure your Metro State email account is working and check regularly for class related emails
Please bring the assigned readings to class each week
Please keep copies of all the work you hand in.
Reading assignments
I expect you to find time (several hours) to do the reading for each class and to come prepared to discuss it. Come to class ready to say what you found interesting, what you found confusing, silly, or just plain wrong, what seemed to you to be the most important claims made, and what arguments or justifications were offered for those claims.
Reading response papers
20 % of your grade will be earned by submitting brief (1-2 pages, typed, double-spaced) responses to the readings for each class. These must be turned in at the beginning of the class period or emailed to me before class to get full credit (email is my preferred way to get these assignments). Late response papers will earn half credit. (If you must miss class, send in your response paper by e-mail.) Each week's paper should contain a (very) concise summary of each of the assigned readings for the week along with whatever questions, objections, observations and/or reactions you have. I will not grade these (or even return them consistently), but I will reject any that do not seem to be based on a reasonably conscientious reading of the assignment for that week. You can miss one or two of these and still earn an ‘A’ for this part of the course work, but missing more will be penalized on the following schedule: 85% completed = A; 70% = B; 60% = C; 50% = D; less than 50% = F. I will also notice and reward particularly perceptive or thoughtful response papers.
Position Papers
At the midpoint and at the end of the semester you will be asked to submit a 6-9 page position paper explaining and defending your position on some ethical question or issue connected to the topics we have studied in the preceding half of the course. See the schedule of assignments for due dates. Detailed instructions for each assignment will be handed out later. Each of these two papers will count for 30% of your grade for a total of 60%.
Class discussion
20% of your grade will be determined by my evaluation of the quality of your participation in class discussions. Just showing up and paying attention earns a C for this component; occasionally making helpful contributions earns a B; regularly making helpful contributions earns an A. Helpful contributions include: asking pertinent questions, answering questions asked by the instructor or by other students, expressing your views about the texts or topics we are discussing, responding (relevantly and respectfully) to the views expressed by others.
Groundrules for class discussion
In my view, high quality class discussion is informed by careful reading of assigned texts, respectful of the other participants, relevant to the issues we are trying to discuss and thoughtful in that points are made or questions are raised that help us move toward greater understanding. I believe the following guidelines help foster this kind of discussion:
Grading criteria
I try hard to base my evaluation of your work on your understanding of the reading, the quality of your reasoning and questioning, and the clarity and effectiveness of your expression of your thoughts, not on whether I agree with your ethical ideas and positions.
Time commitment outside of class
In accordance with Metropolitan State University guidelines, I've designed this course with the expectation that students will do 2-3 hours of course-related work outside of class for every hour spent in class. In other words, you should expect to spend 7-10 hours a week outside of class working on this course.
Needed reading and writing skills
Although there are no prerequisites for this course, it is an upper-division philosophy course. This means I assume you have the following reading and writing skills, and assignments are made with this expectation in mind:
If you do not have these skills, it will be difficult for you to earn a good grade in this class.
Students with disabilities
It is the policy and practice of the university to create inclusive learning environments. If there are aspects of the instruction or design of this course that result in barriers to your inclusion or to accurate assessment of achievement—such as time-limited exams, inaccessible web content, or the use of non-captioned videos—please notify the instructor as soon as possible. Students are also welcome to contact the Center for Accessibility Resources.
The Center for Accessibility Resources is located in New Main, room L223. Phone number is 651-793-1549 and email is Accessibility.Resources@metrostate.edu.
Attendance
I do not require attendance per se, but part of your grade is determined by your participation in class discussion. Students who miss more than a couple of classes cannot earn a good grade for class participation.
University Non-Attendance and Reporting Policy and Procedure
The purpose of the Non-Attendance and Reporting Policy is to ensure Federal Title IV regulations are adhered to with respect to a student’s enrollment level for the purpose of calculating and paying financial aid. While Metropolitan State University is not required to take attendance, Federal Title IV financial aid regulations require a procedure to establish that students have attended, at a minimum, one day of class for each course in which the student’s enrollment status was used to determine eligibility for the Pell Grant Program. In addition, the university needs to determine a last date of attendance for those students who receive all failing grades or unofficially withdraw.
Attendance is defined based on course delivery mode. A student is “in attendance” if he or she meets the following conditions before the end of the second week of the course:
• Classroom Courses – the student is present in the classroom.
• Web-Enhanced (Reduced Seat Time Courses) – the student is present in the classroom or submits at least one academically relevant assignment.
• Online Courses –the student submits at least one academically relevant assignment
• Independent Studies – the student contacts the instructor or submits at least one academically relevant assignment.
Late work
All papers must be turned in at (or before) the beginning of class to receive full credit. Late response papers will receive half credit. In fairness to students who turn their position papers in on time, I will subtract one grade (e.g., B+ to B) for each day that a position paper is late. A paper that is turned in or emailed during or after class on the date due is considered to be late.
Incompletes
I will give incomplete grades only to students who have satisfactorily completed most of the course work and who are unable to finish on time because of circumstances beyond their control.
Plagiarism
All work submitted for this course must be your own. Plagiarism is the academic ‘sin’ of presenting someone else’s work as your own. It is plagiarism if you copy something verbatim (word for word) from a published source, from the Internet, or from another student. It is still plagiarism if you rearrange, paraphrase, condense, or summarize someone else’s work without making clear to your reader what is your contribution and what is taken from your source. If the exact wording comes from your source, then use quotation marks. If the idea comes from someone else, give him or her credit for it. The way to do this is to cite your sources. There is a clear and detailed explanation of various forms of plagiarism and of proper citation practices at http://cmsw.mit.edu/writing-and-communication-center/avoiding-plagiarism. I will give a grade of ‘F’ to any student who submits plagiarized work for this course.
Drop date, Tuition Refunds, and Academic Standing
Withdrawing from courses after the drop deadline (Friday, Aug. 31) will result in a ‘W’ on your record and may bring your completion rate below the ratio required to remain in good academic standing (66.66%). It will also eliminate any possibility of a refund of the tuition you have paid and this may have an impact on your financial aid. My advice is to determine quickly whether or not this is the right course for you and to drop before that deadline (just a few days away), if it is not. This is an academically demanding class with a relatively heavy schedule of reading and writing assignments. In addition many of the readings are relatively difficult. If your reading and writing skills are not up to this challenge, or if you do not have 7-10 hours per week to devote to completing these assignments, I urge you to drop this class before Aug. 31, so you can get your money back.