Philosophy 2220 - Philosophy and Law (Spring 2013)

Instructor: Brian Talbot
Office Hours: Tuesday & Thursday 3:15-5:30 and by appointment
Office Location: Hellems (HLMS) 271B
Email: When I put my address on the web, I get tons of spam. So it's a little puzzle... this course is in what department? My email address is the name of that department, @ , and then the name of this website. It's on the syllabus too.

Where what this website says conflicts with the syllabus, trust this site over the syllabus. Safari users might not be able to see updates to the website when they occur. It's a problem with Safari; use Firefox instead. For Firefox users, if the website is supposed to have been updated but you don't see the updates, hit the "reload current page" button.

Schedule
Tuesday, Jan 15:
* Introduction to the class

Thursday, Jan 17:
* Some key vocabulary and concepts

Tuesday, Jan 22:
* Homework: Click here for the homework due today.

Thursday, Jan 24:
* Homework (1 of 2): Click here for the homework due today.
* Homework (2 of 2): Click here for the homework due today.

Tuesday, Jan 29:
* Reading: Oberman, "Regulating Consensual Sex with Minors". Please note: This reading is 80 pages long. But you don't need to read all of those pages. Look at the homework before you read; it says there what you can skip.
* Homework: Click here for the homework due today.

Tuesday, Feb 5:
* Reading: There are many different readings; most are fairly short, and you don't need to read all of the long one. You'll have to do all of them to do the homework.
* Reading 1 of 5: Horselenberg et al, "Individual differences and false confessions" (you can skip the "materials" section on p3)
* Reading 2 of 5: Kopel, "Miranda is not the Problem"
* Reading 3 of 5: Mount, "Strategic Deception Revisited"
* Reading 4 of 5: Gross & O'Brien, "Frequency and Predictors of False Confessions" (just read through page 8)
* Reading 5 of 5: Thomas & Leo, "The Effects of Miranda v. Arizona". (you don't have to read the whole article; please look at the homework to see what pages you have to read)
* Homework: Click here for the homework.

Thursday, Feb 7:
* No reading or homework.

Tuesday, Feb 12:
* Reading: Merriam, The Paradox of Innocence.
* Homework: Click here for the homework due today.

Thursday, Feb 14:
* Handout: Click here for the handout we will use today.
* Homework, before 8 pm: If you are writing the first paper, email an outline today. The link tells you how to do it.
* For class today: Merriam claims that, if we have the death penalty, fewer innocents will be punished than if we don't. These people will be exonerated if we have the death penalty, but would have life sentences if we don't. However, more innocents will be executed. This is supposed to morally justify the death penalty. The argument requires two moral assumptions. First, he assumes that killing an innocent is not too much worse than imprisoning an innocent. If it were too much worse, then the number of people saved from life imprisonment would not justify the number of innocents executed. Second, he assumes that we should think about this issue in terms of good and bad, not in terms of protecting rights. Come to class with a short paragraph discussing whether you agree with these two assumptions and why.
* Optional reading: If you are curious, here is my response to Merriam from the conference where he presented his paper.

Tuesday, Feb 19:
* No homework or reading due today.

Thursday, Feb 21:
* Homework: If you are writing the first paper, bring in a detailed outline of your paper. This should contain all of the arguments you intend to make in part 1, part 2, and part 3, in enough detail that a person could assess their quality. You will turn this in.
* My office hours today will be canceled. I'll have extra office hours next week.

Tuesday, Feb 26:
* Reading for today: Listen to this streaming, hour-long episode of This American Life. Since it is streaming, you will need to be at a computer for an hour to do it.

Thursday, Feb 28:
* Reading for today: Robinson & Darley, "Does the Criminal Law Deter?".
* Homework for today: Click here for the homework.
* Send a draft of the first paper to your partner (if you are working on the first paper), cc me. Subject line 2220 [class time] DRAFT PAPER 1

Saturday, March 2:
* If you got a draft from your partner, send comments back and cc me. Subject line 2220 [class time] COMMENTS PAPER 1. At the very least, the comments must consist of the following: send a document that, for every entry in the grading standards, says whether or not the paper met that standard, and if not, why not. Please be as specific as possible. In addition, please point out specific places where the paper is unclear, or misses any important arguments, or says something that needs more support or is implausible.

Monday, March 4:
* Email the first paper to me by 8pm, subject line 2220 PAPER 1 FINAL.

Tuesday, March 5:
* Reading: Boonin, The Problem of Punishment (excerpts).
* Homework: Click here for the homework due today.

Thursday, March 7:
* Paper two outline due, 8pm: Click here for the assignment. Email your outline to me (not your partner) at my bigfatgenius email address. Please put your outline in the body of the email, not as an attachment. Subject line: 2220 [YOUR CLASS TIME] OUTLINE PAPER 2.

Tuesday, March 12:
* No reading or homework.
* Optional short paper on Moral Dilemmas, the first two pages review stuff that we covered in class about what a dilemma is and ought implies can, the rest gives an argument in favor of moral dilemmas.

Thursday, March 14:
* Homework: If you are writing the second paper, bring in a detailed outline of your paper. This should contain all of the arguments you intend to make in part 1, part 2, and part 3, in enough detail that a person could assess their quality. You will turn this in.

Monday, March 18:
* Second paper draft due, 10pm: email it to your partner and cc me (at my bigfatgenius address), subject line 2220 [class time] DRAFT PAPER 2

Tuesday, March 19:
* Reading (1 of 2): Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience".
* Reading (2 of 2): Plato, "Crito". For some context, this is a dialog between Socrates and Crito; Socrates has been sentenced to death by an Athenian court and is waiting in prison to be executed, and Crito comes and offers to help him escape.
* Homework: Click here for the homework.

Wednesday, March 20:
* If you got a draft from your partner, send comments back and cc me. Subject line 2220 [class time] COMMENTS PAPER 2. At the very least, the comments must consist of the following: send a document that, for every entry in the grading standards, says whether or not the paper met that standard, and if not, why not. Please be as specific as possible. In addition, please point out specific places where the paper is unclear, or misses any important arguments, or says something that needs more support or is implausible.

Tuesday, April 2:
* No reading or homework.
* Handout: Click here for the handout used in class today.

Thursday, April 4:
* Reading for today: Brand-Ballard, "Are Judges Obligated to Obey the Law".
* Homework for today: Click here for the homework.

Tuesday, April 9:
* No homework or reading due today.

Thursday, April 11:
* Reading: Anonymous, "Why Criminal Lawyers Defend the Guilty" and Asimow & Weisberg, "When the Lawyer Knows the Client is Guilty" (for this last one, only read 229-248).
* Homework: Click here for the homework.

Tuesday, April 16:
* No homework or reading for today.

Thursday, April 18:
* Homework, before 8 pm: Email me an outline today. The link tells you how to do it.

Tuesday, April 23:
* Reading: Devlin, Morals and the Criminal Law.


Papers
* Here is a review sheet for the final paper.
* The first paper assignment is here. It explains what the assignment is, and when it will be due. It also explains how to choose the first or second paper assignment.
* The second paper assignment is here.
* The THIRD paper assignment is here.
* The grading standards for both papers are here.
* Here is one sample paper and here is another. Note that we covered slightly different material that semester, so some of what they discuss we haven't covered yet, and some of what we have covered, the don't discuss (specifically, they don't talk about how to deal with conflicts between goodness and wrongness as much as you should).


Things that might be on quizzes from this point forward
Please note: Questions on quizzes will often ask you to combine ideas from multiple of the categories below. So you may be asked to falsify a conditional about the connection between consent and moral wrongness, for example. When studying, you should ask yourself how every concept in each of these categories does and does not relate to every concept in every other category, and you should see if you can give a conditional showing the relationship, or if you can given an example that falsifies a conditional claim about the relationship.

* Conditionals: Be able to identify what conclusions you can draw from conditionals and what you can't, and be able to show that a given conditional is false.

* Standpoints of evaluation: know the difference between the three different standpoints we have discussed, what sorts of things count as reasons from each standpoint, be able to identify whether something is plausibly right or wrong from various standpoints. Be able to give your own examples of things that are right, acceptable, and wrong from each standpoint (i.e. give examples we did not discuss in class).

* Right/wrong/acceptable: know that these are exclusive of each other, and plausibly distinct from good and bad. Be able to talk about whether things are right or wrong or acceptable (from different standpoints) and why. Know what "duty" and "obligation" and "having a right" mean.

* Good/bad: understand difference between partly and overall good/bad, and how to derive overall goodness/badness from partial goodness/badness. Be able to discuss the partial/overall goodness/badness of things and defend these points.

* Consent: know what morally relevant and superficial consent are, be able to give examples, be able to identify if examples I give are or are not each.

* Strict liability & mens rea: Be able to define mens rea, to give your own examples of cases where it is present or absent, and be able to recognize when and why someone in an example I give does or does not have mens rea. Know what strict liability laws are, be able to give some examples, be able to identify whether or not an example I give is or isn't a strict liability law.

* Types of rights and duties: Know what a prima facie and absolute right or duty is; be able to give examples of each (examples not discussed in class); be able to explain what it means for duties to override one another; know what a moral dilemma is, and be able to give a plausible example of it.

* The problem of punishment: 1. Be able to explain who you think it is morally right or obligatory to punish (the legally guilty? the morally guilty? only those both legally and morally guilty? some other group entirely?), whether this is right or obligatory, and why. 2. Whatever your view here is, be able to provide counter-examples to the other views: you should be able to give an example of someone who would deserve punishment according to another view, but who you think clearly does not deserve punishment OR someone who would NOT deserve punishment according to the other view, but who clearly does (e.g. if you believe that all and only the morally guilty deserve punishment, then be able to give an example of someone who is legally but not morally guilty who clearly does not deserve punishment, and someone who is morally but not legally guilty who does deserve punishment). 3. Be able to explain who, according to your view, would be morally wrong to punish. 4. For each of the main reasons for punishment we discussed in class - retributivism, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, be able to explain what, according to the view, is the reason for punishment; if given an argument for punishing a specific person, be able to identify which of these views it is most consistent with. 5. Be able to explain what "the problem of punishment is;" in other words, why do we have to justify punishment at all and what criteria should this meet? 6. Be able to define and use the term "morally justified."

* Value: Know the definitions of instrumental and intrinsic value, be able to give plausible examples of each (beyond what we've discussed in class), be able to plausibly identify examples I give as either instrumentally or intrinsically valuable.

* Moral dilemmas: Be able to explain, define, identify, and give your own examples of moral dilemmas. Understand the connection between moral dilemmas and "ought implies can."

* Moral collective action problems: Be able to define each of the following terms, correctly identify when they are or are not used properly, correctly identify examples of each, and give your own examples (not from class) of each: moral collective action problem, collective action situation, participation, adherence, deviation, sub-optimal result cases, optimal result cases, mimetic failure.

* Victimless crime: Know the definitions of "victimless act" and "victimless crime," be able to give your own examples of each, and identify if examples I give are examples of each.