Recommended Courses in 2011-2012

UCLA Law and Philosophy Program
Recommended Courses in 2011-2012

Fall 2011

Law 217./Law M217./Philosophy 166. Legal Philosophy (Burra) (Core) (may be taken in addition to Law 262)
Law 266. Critical Race Theory (Carbado) (Qualifying)
Law M524./Philosophy M257A. Legal Philosophy: Political Authority and the Foundations of Democratic Theory (Plunkett) (Core) (Qualifying but priority admission to specializers)
Law 557./Philosophy M256. Contemporary Philosophy of Law : Contract Theory (Shiffrin) (Core)
Law 566. Laws of War and War(s) on Terror (Bali) (Qualifying)
Law 613. Seminar: Moral Culpability (Arenella) (Qualifying)

Spring 2012

Law 266. Critical Race Theory (Oren) (Qualifying)
324. Philosophy of Law (Greenberg) (Qualifying)
Law 551. Seminar: Philosophy of Punishment (Dolinko) (Core)
Law M555. Legal Theory Workshop (Shiffrin) (Core)
Law 610. Political Theory of the Founders (Dienstag) (Qualifying but priority admission to declared)
Law 653. Seminar: Advanced Critical Race Theory (Carbado/Crenshaw) )(Qualifying)
Law 655. Seminar: Feminist Legal Theory (Olsen) (Qualifying)

Courses of potential interest to Law and Philosophy specializers, with credit toward the specialization available upon consultation with the Director and by petition:

Philosophy 127A. Philosophy of Language (Fall 2011)

Philosophy 127B. Philosophy of Language (Fall 2011)

Philosophy 127C. Philosophy of Language (Fall 2011)

Philosophy 153A. Topics in Ethical Theory (Fall 2011)

Philosophy 154. Rationality and Action (Fall 2011)

Philosophy 155. Medical Ethics (Fall 2011)

Philosophy 183. Theory of Knowledge (Fall 2011)

Perspectives Courses

Section 2: Criminal Context (Dolovich) (Fall 2011)

Section 6: Law, Film, and Judgment (Dienstag/Mnookin) (Fall 2011)

Section 8: Lies and Deception (Dworkin/Shiffrin) (Fall 2011)

Students may also petition the Director of the Program to count other courses with substantial theoretical content toward the specialization, e.g. Sharon Dolovich’s planned seminar on Prison Law in the Fall or Neil Netanel’s year-long Colloquium on Entertainment, Media and Culture. A successful petition will include a syllabus and instructor permission to write a sustained theoretical piece of writing as part of the coursework.

Students may also initiate independent studies on theoretical topics of interest and petition to have those independent studies count toward the specialization. Also, it is a good idea to check the offerings in the Philosophy Department. Some graduate courses there may be used to satisfy specialization requirements.

FALL COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Law 217. Legal Philosophy (Burra)

This course is an introduction to some central issues in the philosophy of law. It will meet for ten weeks on the quarter system; I will schedule an additional "sample session" in the first two weeks of the law semester, for law students who wish to get a taste of what take the course will involve before deciding to commit to it. It does not require any specific legal or philosophical background, though some background in philosophy will be helpful. Grading will be on the basis of in-class participation, as well as mid-term and final papers.

We will spend the first third of the course on the issue of rights: what it is to have a right, and how the notion of a right relates to other notions such as that of a duty or an obligation; what is the difference, if any, between moral and legal rights; and what might be behind the thought that some rights are alienable while others are not. We will also examine the nature and rationale for some of the particular rights we take ourselves to have, such as the right to property and the right to self-defense. In the second section of the course we will discuss questions connected with punishment and responsibility, concentrating on the distinction between excuses and justifications. We will also examine the ways in which consent, duress, and self-defense serve as defenses to criminal liability. In the final section of the course we will touch upon questions about the nature of law and its relation to morality. What is the connection between legal norms and other sorts of norms, e.g. moral ones, or norms of etiquette? Do we have a duty to obey the law, and if so, what grounds this duty?

Law 266. Critical Race Theory (Carbado)

Throughout American history, race has profoundly affected the lives of individuals, the growth of social institutions, the substance of culture, and the workings of our political economy. Not surprisingly, this impact has been substantially mediated through the law and legal institutions. To understand the deep interconnections between race and law, and particularly the ways in which race and law are mutually constitutive, is an extraordinary intellectual challenge. That is precisely the project of Critical Race Theory (CRT). This course will pursue this project by exploring the emerging themes within CRT. Contrary to the traditional notion that racial subordination represents a deviation from the liberal legal ideal, this body of work recasts the role of law as historically central to and complicit in upholding racial hierarchy as well hierarchies of gender, class, and sexual orientation, among others. We will focus on the origins of the critique and the contrasts between CRT and liberal and conservative analytical frameworks on race and American Law and society. We will also examine some of the questions and criticisms raised about CRT, from both inside and outside of the genre, as well as the impact of the work on legal and political discourse. The point of departure for the course is an exploration of race itself--what exactly is race?--and the role law plays in constructing this identity.

Law M524. Legal Philosophy: Political Authority and the Foundations of Democratic Theory (Plunkett)

This course is a seminar on the nature of political authority and the normative foundations of democracy. We will be primarily concerned with the following questions:
1) Is democracy in general a better form of government than its competitors? If so, why?

2) Under what conditions can democratic governments claim political authority? Where, if at all, are those conditions met in the actual world?
3) Are there parts of human activity that should not be under democratic control? If so, why?
4) What is democracy anyway? Do we all mean the same thing when we use the word “democracy”? If not, then what exactly are we arguing about?

Readings for the course will be drawn entirely from contemporary philosophers including David Estlund, Joshua Cohen, Anthony Appiah, Philip Pettit, Jurgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, and Raymond Geuss. Through the course of engaging with this material, we will also look closely at a number of the distinctive metaphysical and methodological positions that these philosophers argue for as part of their work in political philosophy. In so doing, we will also try to come to grips with broader questions about the nature of political philosophy as such and its relationship to other parts of philosophical inquiry.

The course is cross-listed as a graduate seminar and so it will meet for ten weeks on the quarter system. Information about the course will be made available in early August to interested law students so they know what is involved before the course begins in late September.

Law 557. Contemporary Philosophy of Law: Contract Theory (Shiffrin)

This course will survey some recent controversies in contract theory, including disputes about whether contracts are promises, whether contract should be sensitive to the moral practice of promising, whether contract remedies are too stringent or too lax, how default rules should be constructed, and whether duress should operate as an excuse.

The course is cross-listed as a graduate seminar and so it will meet for ten weeks on the quarter system. In early August, I will circulate a syllabus to interested law students so they know what is involved before the course begins in late September.

Law 566. Laws of War and War(s) on Terror

The subset of international law relating to the conduct of war – known as international humanitarian law (IHL) or the law of armed conflict – plays a prominent role in contemporary debates about law and political violence across the world from Colombia to Chechnya, from Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay. The institutions, discourses and practices associated with IHL help shape contemporary debates about the use of force, provide a powerful language of legitimacy and de-legitimization, and structure decisions that may have crucial effects on international order and international human rights.

This seminar has two goals: first, to provide a basic introduction to IHL and second to explore some of the recurring and seemingly intractable problems that arise in the contemporary theory and practice of IHL, particularly in the post-September 11th context. Topics covered will include: international principles and rules governing the conduct of international and other armed conflict; the complementary nature of IHL and human rights law; the protections afforded by the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Protocols to combatants and noncombatants, including civilians and POWs; the role of the International Committee of the Red Cross; key decisions of international bodies regarding accountability for violations of IHL; the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, especially in light of the current engagement in Libya; and the transformation of the theory and practice of IHL under the pressure of (the) contemporary war(s) on terror. A background in or familiarity with public international law and/or international human rights is helpful, but not necessary, to participate in the seminar.

Law 613. Seminar: Moral Culpability (Arenella)

This seminar examines the criminal law's alleged link between legal and moral blame. Most of the criminal law's culpability and excuse doctrines for mala in se crimes are derived from the criminal law's account of moral responsibility for action. To evaluate how well our legal blaming judgments and legal excuses actually track defensible accounts of moral blame and moral excuses, the seminar begins with readings in moral psychology and moral philosophy to provide competing accounts of the human capacities needed before someone can qualify as a moral agent: a person capable of making a moral choice whether to comply with community norms. We will use these competing accounts of moral agency to examine a series of controversial legal excuses in the second half of the seminar including: the immaturity defense to adult criminal liability [the justification for retaining a juvenile justice system], the insanity defense, the diminished responsibility defense, duress, cultural defenses, provocation, rotten social background, and battered person syndrome versions of both reasonable and unreasonable self defense. If time permits, we will use these accounts of moral agency to examine involuntary civil commitment and preventive detention issues.

The seminar has two writing components: biweekly graded 3 page memos that evaluate the assigned readings by responding to particular questions and a final, non-research paper [15-20 pages] that applies the seminar's concepts to a particular proposal to alter some current criminal law excuse doctrine. The seminar satisfies the law school's writing requirement. Please email Professor Arenella if you would like to enroll in this course.

SPRING COURSE DESCRIPTIONS:

Law 266. Critical Race Theory (Ocen)

324. Philosophy of Law (Greenberg)

Find course description at http://www.law.ucla.edu/academic-programs-and-courses/curriculum/course-descriptions/Pages/default.aspx.

Law 551. Philosophy of Punishment (Dolinko)

The focus of the seminar would be on the question of what (if anything) makes it morally permissible for the state to inflict a hard treatment on people, against their will, provided they have been found guilty of criminal offenses. Class participation will play a part in grading the students. In addition, each student must write a final paper, roughly 20 to 30 pages, that examines one (or more) of the positions we have discussed and contains some original thinking (i.e., not simply repeating what was said by authors we’ve read). (I anticipate that the paper will fulfill the substantial analytical writing requirement.)

The seminar will begin with a session devoted to the preliminary problems surrounding the very definition of punishment. We will then move on to examine the two principal families of theories that have been proposed: consequentialist theories and retributive theories. The idea would be to explore the strengths and drawbacks of each approach. Toward the end of the semester, we would consider mixed or hybrid theories, like H.L.A. Hart’s, that try to combine elements of both consequentialism and retributivism, and some interesting new approaches, such as those put forward in recent articles by Mitchell Berman and Warren Quinn.

Law 555. Legal Theory Workshop (Shiffrin)

The Legal Theory Workshop brings leading scholars from around the country to discuss their works in progress with law students , graduate students in philosophy, and interested faculty.  All the papers will address legal issues from a theoretically informed perspective. The line-up of speakers and topics is quite diverse. This year's program is still being formed but past years have featured speakers on freedom of speech, intellectual property,  art and the law, the formal structure of law, the relationship of law to morality, constitutional law, distributive justice (domestic and international), tax, contract, tort, theoretical topics in criminal law, the nature of political authority, equality and discrimination, charitable donations and distributive justice (a joint session with the Tax Policy Colloquium), legitimacy and political equality, and the treatment of state intentions in constitutional law.

The seminar will involve biweekly discussions with leading scholars, with intervening preparatory weeks for students to gain background in the relevant topic. Students will be expected to attend  all sessions, participate regularly, and to write a handful of short reaction papers (1-2 pages) and one longer analytical paper involving little research (12-15 pages) at the end of the term about one of the subjects covered in class. Students who wish SAM credit may elect to write a somewhat longer paper.

No prerequisites or prior background is necessary, but students should be open to in-depth investigation of theoretical arguments about legal issues and legal structure. All law students are welcome and have the relevant preparation.  Background will be supplied in the weeks in between speaker visits. The course is particularly well-suited to those students who want to explore more theoretical perspectives on law and their use in legal arguments. It may be helpful to those who plan to write notes, to consider an academic career in law, or who plan to clerk, although none of these intentions are necessary to take, enjoy, or succeed in the course. The course also provides a nice opportunity to interact with faculty at UCLA in a congenial atmosphere and to meet faculty from other institutions.

Law 610. Political Theory of the Founders (Dienstag)

This course will examine the important trends in European political theory in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, that is, the political theory that was current and influential at the time of the US Revolution. The focus will be on competing accounts of the sources of freedom, constituent power, the proper structure of government, the nature of law and constitutionalism. We will be attempting to immerse ourselves in what the Founders were reading as they wrote the federal and early state constitutions. The period in question is one of extraordinary intellectual diversity even within the nations of Western Europe so there will be a good deal of material to cover. Course requirements include active participation in class, weekly reaction papers and a term paper.

Law 653. Advanced Critical Race Theory (Carbado, Crenshaw)

Students will participate along with faculty in the law school's biweekly Critical Race Studies Workshop. Every other week we will discuss a work-in-progress presented by various authors, including professors in law, social sciences and humanities, each contributing to the interdisciplinary nature of CRT. Some of the presenters will be from UCLA; most will be from other universities. Students will write 4-5 page papers commenting on each of the works presented. The student papers will be given to the workshop presenters before each workshop. Students will be expected to be active participants in the workshop. An underlying thematic discussion that will be taken up in the weeks between workshops will relate to the Supreme Court case, Ozawa vs. United States.

Critical Race Theory is a prerequisite for this course. Priority enrollment is given to students who are in the Critical Race Studies Specialization. Grading will be based 50% on the papers and 50% on class participation.

Law 655. Feminist Legal Theory (Olson)

In recent decades, sex discrimination scholarship has moved beyond its initial focus on legal doctrine and constitutional arguments to develop a criticism of the legal system itself. This seminar will focus on the impact that feminist legal theory is having on legal philosophy. We will read major works in feminist legal theory and discuss the practical effects these theoretical formulations have on selected legal issues of importance to men and women.

If there is sufficient interest, a major focus of our consideration will be on the impact anti-discrimination law has had on family law, and in particular the ways that different interpretations of gender equality impact the lives of women, men, and children. Are some family law courts intentionally using "gender-neutrality" to justify misogynistic policies, and if so, why? What does this tell us about relationships between theory and practice more generally, and what relationship does it bear to the use of "color-blind" policies in the area of race discrimination?

OTHER COURSES OF INTEREST

Philosophy 127A. Philosophy of Language

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 31. Syntax, semantics, pragmatics. Semantical concept of truth, sense and denotation, synonymy and analyticity, modalities and tenses, indirect discourse, indexical terms, semantical paradoxes. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. P/NP or letter grading.

Philosophy 127B. Philosophy of Language

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 31. Course 127A is not requisite to 127B. Selected topics similar to those considered in course 127A, but at more advanced and technical level. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. P/NP or letter grading.

Philosophy 127C. Philosophy of Language

Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 31. Recommended: course 127A or 127B. Selected topics similar to those considered in course 127B, but with focus on contemporary figures. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. P/NP or letter grading.

Philosophy 153A. Topics in Ethical Theory

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 22. Study of selected topics in normative ethical theory. Topics may include human rights, virtues and vices, principles of culpability and praiseworthiness (criteria of right action). May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. P/NP or letter grading.

Philosophy 154. Rationality and Action

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 6 or 7 or 22. Selected topics concerning normative issues in practical rationality or philosophy of action. Topics may include moral and practical dilemmas, nature of reasons for action, rationality of morality and prudence, weakness of will, freedom of will, and decision theory. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. P/NP or letter grading.

Philosophy 155. Medical Ethics

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Examination of philosophical issues raised by problems of medical ethics, such as abortion, euthanasia, and medical experimentation. P/NP or letter grading.

Philosophy 183. Theory of Knowledge

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 21. Analysis of concept of empirical knowledge. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. P/NP or letter grading.

PERSPECTIVES COURSES

Section 2: Criminal Context (Dolovich)

Whether one is a prosecutor or a criminal defense attorney, the practice of criminal law raises a number of difficult moral issues. In this seminar, we will address several of these issues. Two sessions will deal with prosecutors, one session with criminal defense lawyers, and another with a variety of ethical conundrums that arise in criminal practice generally. The final session will cover a topic that rarely gets considered in the law school context: the ethical issues arising for government lawyers defending prisoner suits. Discussions of criminal justice ethics are often abstracted from the realities of the criminal justice system and the modern prison experience. In this seminar, we will take these realities as our starting point, and consider what it means to practice criminal law in an era of mass incarceration, and in which the burdens of both crime and punishment fall disproportionately on poor people and people of color.

Section 6: Law, Film, and Judgment (Dienstag/Mnookin)

Law is primarily a profession of spoken and written words. And yet law and lawyering have always been subjects that have fascinated filmmakers and their audiences. Why is this? Is there some part of the law that is only visible rather than legible? To what extent do the words of law rely on or relate to those portions of human experience that are not easily captured in language? What can films tell us about law and its limits? In this seminar, we will examine these questions from multiple perspectives, with each session focusing on a film (or two) and ancillary readings.

The first two films place law in relation to the violence that it helps to regulate but on which it also tends to rely. What is the relation between the two and is that relation something that can itself be captured in legal language? What can we learn from filmic depictions of law‘s ambivalent relationship to force and violence? The next two films examine issues of judgment and decision that are ―internal‖ to the law and yet are not, themselves, always visible within legal procedures. Why are fictional depictions of juries compelling, and what does this say about our ideas of legal judgment? Turning from fictional filmic depiction to documentary, how might documentary film be a means for producing legal knowledge? More generally, to what extent is judgment something that the law can regulate and to what extent is it something on which legal procedure must trustingly depend? These themes are brought together in the final film in which a the sci-fi fantasy of perfect knowledge and seemingly unerring law pushes us to think about the connections between judgment, violence, legitimacy and free will.

Section 8: Lies and Deception (Dworkin/Shiffrin)

The course will investigate lies and deception from a theoretical perspective, while paying close attention to three specific contexts: deceptive interrogation techniques used by police and negotiators; deception by academic researchers, particularly of research subjects; and the legal regulation of deliberately false speech (with a particular focus on the recent litigation over the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act). In all three cases, we will look at the tension between regulating and abstaining from deception and achieving other fundamental values, e.g. the safety and security of innocent parties, reliable research and academic freedom, and the preservation of a robust free speech culture. The course will be jointly taught by Seana Shiffrin and our regular Distinguished Visitor, Ronald Dworkin (who will be present for the final two sessions in February).

The first three sessions will be devoted to articles and cases about deceptive police interrogation, deception as a technique in academic research, and the legal regulation of deliberately false speech. The final two sessions will be more focused on the general theoretical treatment of lies and deception, morally and legally. The two theoretical sessions in February will involve the students in a conversation lead by Ronald Dworkin, focused on critiquing a short manuscript-in-progress by Seana Shiffrin on these subjects.

Students will be asked to read articles and cases and to write two (short) paragraph-long questions for each session. The reading will not exceed 150 pages per session and will sometimes be substantially shorter. No prior background is necessary.