This notice is from the archives of The Notice Board. Information contained in this notice was accurate at the time of publication but may no longer be so.
Please note there was an error with the prerequisite(s) required for this course.
PHIL4404 A: Advanced Topics in the Philosophy of Law: The Rule of Law
PREREQUISITE MISTAKE: Currently, you are required to have taken PHIL3404 in order to take this course. This is a MISTAKE. You only need third-year standing; previous courses about political theory/political philosophy or law are helpful but not necessary.
Please contact katharina.stevens@uleth.ca for a prerequisite waiver.
Course Description: The law is supposed to be just, guiding judges to decide cases as they should be decided, from a moral point of view. But justice is not the only important value that the law has to fulfill. For the law also needs to be predictable, stable, knowable. The law may not ask things of people that they cannot do. And it should not be so vague that legal officials, like judges or police officers, have direct personal power over individual people. All these additional, morally important requirements are summed up under the idea of the “rule-of-law” value. Most of the time, the rule-of-law value and justice pull in the same direction. But they can come into conflict. And when they do, deeply troubling questions arise.
Contact:
Bev Garnett | bev.garnett@uleth.ca | (403) 380-1894