Week 1. Introductions and Inquiries. Utilitarianism, consequentialism, and deontology.

Week 2. Is war ever just? If so, when?

Required:

· Oren, The Morality of War, pp. 1-30.

Optional:

· Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars excerpts from Chapters 4-6 (14 pages)

Week 3: Is it right to compel an individual to fight?

Required:

· Galston, “A Sketch of Some Arguments for Conscription'' (6 pages)

· Fullinwider, “Conscription- No” (6 pages)

Week 4: Are weapons of mass destruction ever ethical?

Required:

· Wasserstrom, “War, Nuclear War, and Nuclear Deterrence: Some Conceptual and Moral Issues” (20 pages)

Optional:

· Walzer, “Nuclear Deterrence” (15 pages)

Week 5: What obligations do we have to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants?

Required:

· Schwenkenbecher, “Collateral Damage and the Principle of Due Care” (9 pages)

· Abbate, “Assuming Risk: A Critical Analysis of a Soldier’s Duty to Prevent Collateral Casualties” (13 pages)

Optional:

· Gray, “Weaponized Non-Combatants: A Moral Conundrum of Future Asymmetrical Warfare” (16 pages)

Week 6: Are drone strikes morally equivalent to other forms of force?

Required:

· Strawser, “Moral Predators: The Duty to Employ Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles” (26 pages)

Optional:

· Film: “Eye in the Sky” (1 hour and 42 minutes)

Assignments:

· Paper 1 Due Friday 5 pm

· In-Class Debate 1 Prompt: Unmanned aerial drone strikes may justly be used to achieve political goals. Participants to be assigned.

Week 7: What can justly be done with captives?

Required:

· Santucci, “A Question of Identity: The Use of Torture in Asymmetric War” (17 pages)

· Majima, “Just Torture?” (13 pages)

Week 8: Genocide and humanitarian intervention

Required:

· Valentino, Final Solutions ch. 3 (27 pages)

Optional:

· Dallaire, “The End of Innocence: Rwanda 1994” (11 pages)

Assignments:

· In-Class Debate 2 Prompt: The dominant military powers (e.g. the P-5, NATO) should intervene militarily in civil wars when genocide is evidently occurring. Participants to be assigned.

Week 9: Ethics of state surveillance

Required:

· Königs, “Government Surveillance, Privacy, and Legitmacy” (22 pages)

Optional:

· Intelligence² Debate Video, “Mass Collection of U.S. Phone Records Violates the Fourth Amendment,” Abdo and Wydra v. Baker and Yoo (1 hour and 28 minutes)

Assignments:

· Paper 2 Due Friday 5 pm

Week 10: How can global inequality be resolve justly?

Required:

· Intelligence² Debate Video, “Aid to Africa is Doing More Harm than Good,” Ayittey, Easterly, and Rieff v. Lucas, McArthur, and Smith (1 hour and 45 minutes)

Optional:

· Collier, The Bottom Billion

Assignments:

· In-Class Debate 3 Prompt: The highly developed countries (HDCs) should substantially increase their foreign aid to less developed countries (LDCs) in order to decrease global economic inequality. Participants to be assigned.

Week 11: What is owed to conflict refugees?

Required:

· Kukathis, “Are Refugees Special?” (21 pages)

Optional:

· Betts and Collier, “Help Refugees Help Themselves” (9 pages)

Week 12: What obligations do states have to protect the environment?

Required:

· Gardiner, “A Perfect Moral Storm” (13 pages)

· Adow, “The Climate Debt: What the West Owes the Rest” (8 pages)

NOTE: All texts available in this syllabus are for study purposes of this course only. They are protected by copyright and must not be further distributed.