Today, Tuesday, Thursday

Today, we will focus on learning about the outreach project and practicing the skills of inquiry and interview and reporting necessary to do well on the outreach project.

On Tuesday, we will engage with The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens.

So, in advance of class on Thursday, September 18, please read:

Sandel, Justice, chapter 2

Excerpts from Utilitarianism by J.S. Mill

Excerpt from The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. LeGuin


In addition, for extra credit:

On Wednesday, September 17, 10am-12:45pm, in D-lounge, BHCC will be celebrating Constitution Day with a marathon reading of the U.S. Constitution.  Constitutions are an important idea in moral and political philosophy.

If you want to earn extra credit, please do the following:

Go to the Constitution Day reading and take part in it, either by reading aloud or by being an attentive audience member, or both.

Read the U.S. Constitution on your own.

Write a comment of 200-300 words on this post addressing ONE of the following prompts:

• The U.S. Constitution was written in the eighteenth century.  Until slightly more than a century before it was written, people in the English-speaking world imagined a "constitution" to be something that was implicit and changing and based on precedent and tradition over time, not something that was explicit and set down in writing at some specific time.  What are the advantages and disadvantages to having a written down constitution?
• Select a "section" of the Constitution, or an amendment to the Constitution, and "excavate" the moral and political philosophy behind it.  What sorts of ideas about authority, personal and community well-being, property, loyalty, the common good, and/or the rights of the individual, can you see in the section or amendment you have chosen?
• This week we are learning about utilitarianism.  Based on what you know about the young United States, when the U.S. Constitution was written, was it "good for the greatest number"?  What about now--is the U.S. Constitution "good for the greatest number" of people in the United States today?