TOPICS: PHILOSOPHY AND LAW in Fall 2024 (PL3091B)

Philosophical investigations start from a moment of stupefaction faced with odd phenomena –

the law gives rise to many weird paradoxes as it takes place in society. Are we not amazed by the very idea of dividing all people and actions into two grand categories: law-abiding and criminal, legal and illegal, legitimate and illegitimate? If everyone is equal before the law, how can some people claim to be above the law: sovereigns, despots, warlords and drug barons? If the law is impartial and the rule of law reigns, how can judges be reputed progressive or conservative, harsh or lax? If the law protects us, why have most legal systems historically failed to protect women, and people placed in a socially subaltern position, whether due to race, class or sexuality? Why do I feel guilty as soon as I see a policeman? How can police break the law whilst they are enforcing the law? How can what was legal yesterday become criminal tomorrow through a stroke of the legislator’s pen – is the law arbitary? Who decides the law? We will dive into these questions by setting up philosophical battles between radically different approaches to law such as natural law (Grotius, Hobbes) and positivism (Kelsen, Hart, Raz), Hegel on the organic emergence of social norms as the ground of the law, Freud and Kafka on the subject’s relation to the law of indebtedness, guilt and obligation, Derrida on the violence attending the origin of law, feminist (Mackinnon), postcolonial and Marxist analyses of intrinsic biais and discrimination in legal systems.