Introduction to Justice Studies

Course Syllabus

Arizona State University

JUS 105 (58976) – Spring 2004

Mondays 5:40 – 8:30; Location: LSE 106

Instructors

Professor Torin Monahan                                           Professor James Riding In

Office: Wilson 314                                                     Office: Wilson 373

Phone: 480-965-4522                                                 Phone: 480-965-9360

Email: torin.monahan@asu.edu                                  Email: james.ridingin@asu.edu

Office Hours: M/W 4:30-5:30pm & by appt.             Office Hours: M/W 4:30-5:30pm & by appt.

Danielle Flaherty

Office: Wilson 315

Phone: 480-965-3751

Email: Danielle.Flaherty@asu.edu

Office Hours: By appt.

Note on where to meet: Every week, we will begin by meeting in LSE 106. From there, we may proceed to smaller discussion sections in rooms LSE 250, LSE 106, and LSE B04.

Course Description

This introduction to the multidisciplinary field of Justice Studies examines justice from many points of view, including matters of economy, politics, identity (e.g., race, ethnicity, class and gender), mass media, law, legislation, crime and history. Our critical engagement with these intertwined components of U.S. society is an attempt to pose the fundamental question that any examination of justice must: how do we continue to push for the creation of an equitable society for everyone, an important but elusive promise at the heart of the U.S. political system. This course is organized around weekly debates over different theories of justice.

Course goal: Drawing upon the course experience (and in conversation with the readings, lectures, debates, and discussions) develop your own theory of justice that grapples with the conflicts among pure ideals and messy realities. This requires that you evaluate each concept of justice that you come across, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the varied approaches, and deciding which components make sense to you. At the end of the course, you should have a list of things that you like about each approach to justice and a number of specific examples that show the merit of that approach. The final paper assignment is based on your integration of these disparate components into one cohesive whole.

Required Texts

1.         Sterba, James P. 2003. Justice: Alternative Political Perspectives. 4^th Edition.

2.         Reiman, Jeffrey. 2000. The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice. 7^th Edition.

3.         Peltier, Leonard. 2000. Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sundance.   

Grading

Team Debates                                                             20%

Participation                                                               20%

Mid-term Exam                                                          30% 

Final Paper on Your Theory of Justice                       30%

Course Expectations

Attendance: This class will be conducted with a focus on lectures, activities, and in-class discussions. Because of this format, you are encouraged to attend all classes. Formal attendance will not be taken, but your participation grade will suffer if you are excessively absent or tardy. You must turn in assignments ahead of time and arrange to get notes from a colleague if you are going to be absent.

Reading: Complete all readings (and other assignments) prior to the class meeting for which they are scheduled. Most of the readings will be drawn from the required texts for the course or from Internet web pages. In some cases, we may distribute photocopied readings to you in class. See the course outline below for details.

Participation: Through communication, ideas are formed, revised, borrowed, and developed. It is through argument, description, explanation, and improvisation – within a community – that individual learning flourishes. This course requires full participation (including active listening, facilitating, note-taking, and question-asking) to create an environment of open and shared learning. An effective participant is not someone who simply talks frequently, but someone who reliably offers thoughtful insights that help others to learn.

Student debate teams will be formed early-on, and each team will have the responsibility of debating an issue or an approach to justice in front of the entire class. It is expected that teams will engage in significant outside research and preparation. See the appendix to this syllabus for information on the debate format.

Writing: Writing is one of the most productive forms of thinking. No late or emailed writing assignments will be accepted. Please use 12-point font and 1" margins, and be certain to include a references section that documents your sources. Papers must be stapled or they will not be accepted. The socio-technological infrastructure is unreliable, so plan accordingly and print papers well in advance.

Technology: Laptop computers and other portable technologies should be used in class only as learning-facilitation tools. During class, it is not acceptable to play games, answer email, surf the web, answer cell phones, text message, or engage in other non-class-related activities. Your participation grade will be penalized if you break this rule. Why? Not only do these practices negatively affect your learning and participation, but they also distract others and create an environment of disrespect.

Course Assignments

1. Team Debates: You will be placed into a team by your section leader early on in the semester. Each team will be responsible for debating one topic during the semester. See the appendix below for a full explanation of format and grading. More details will be provided in class.

2. Mid-term Exam: There will be a cumulative, closed book exam held in class on March 8. It will include answer-matching, short answer, and short essay questions. Questions will be drawn from class readings, films, debates, and lectures.

3. Final Paper: The final paper, due May 3, will be a development of your personal theory of justice. It should pull from the many approaches to justice we’ll cover in the course, and it should work through specific examples to show where your theory holds and where it breaks down. This will be a critical thinking assignment that you should work on throughout the semester, testing what you think is a “just” framework against real-life examples, both historical and contemporary. The recommended length is 12 pages.

We reserve the right to distribute unannounced quizzes on the reading or lecture material. Any missed points on these quizzes will be deducted from your participation grade. Quizzes may not be made-up if you are absent.

Academic Honesty

In order to avoid plagiarism, your papers must provide full citations for all references: direct quotes, summaries, or ideas. While you are encouraged to develop your thinking with your peers, you cannot use their material without citing it. Work from other courses will not be accepted in this course. Allowing your writing to be copied by another student is also considered cheating. Please review the Student Code of Conduct for complete guidelines on academic honesty. Note: Any instance of plagiarism or cheating can be grounds for failure of the entire course or expulsion from the university. 

Gender-Fair Language

Language structures thought and action. Biases in language can (and do) naturalize inequities. Imprecise language also signifies un-interrogated values and sloppy thinking. For all of these reasons, the use of gender-fair language is expected in this course. For example, do not use words like "mankind" or "men" when referring to people in general; alternate between "she" and "he" instead of always using "he", or construct sentences in the plural instead of the singular so you can use "they" or "them" and avoid the problem altogether.

ESL/LD Students

Course requirements can be adjusted to serve the needs and capabilities of ESL and LD students. Please speak with the primary instructors during the first two weeks of class to make arrangements. Students may be advised to attend additional sessions during the instructors’ office hours so they can draw comparable value from the course.  

Course Schedule (subject to revision)

[Note: Weekly subject areas and readings are chosen for contrast – to facilitate debates.]

January 26: Introduction

•          Overview                                                        

February 2: The Social Contract and Socialist Justice

[Debate Question: Which approach to justice is better suited to stop the exploitation of children in Pakistan?]

•          Immanuel Kant. “The Contractual Basis for a Just Society.” (Justice)

•          John Rawls. “Justice as Fairness: A Restatement.” (Justice)

•          Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. “The Socialist Ideal.” (Justice)

•          Kai Nielson. “Radical Egalitarianism.” (Justice)

•          Jonathan Silvers. 1996. “Child Labor in Pakistan.” http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96feb/pakistan/pakistan.htm

February 9: Libertarianism and Communitarianism

[Debate Question: Which approach to justice is better for providing national security while safeguarding civil liberties?]

•          John Hospers. “The Libertarian Manifesto.” (Justice)

•          James P. Sterba. “From Liberty to Welfare.” (Justice)

•          Alasdair MacIntyre. “The Political and Social Structures of the Common Good.” (Justice)

•          Jean Hampton. “The Liberals Strike Back.” (Justice)

•          Susan Herman. 2001. “The USA Patriot Act and the USA Department of Justice: Losing Our Balances?” http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew40.htm

February 16: Colonialism, Law, and Cultural Justice I 

[Debate Question: Has colonialism of North American peoples stopped, or does it persist?]

•          Leonard Peltier. 2000. Prison Writings. Parts 1-3 (pp.ix-86)

•          U.S. Supreme Court. 1978. OLIPHANT v. SUQUAMISH INDIAN TRIBE ET AL. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=435&invol=191

February 23: Colonialism, Law, and Cultural Justice II

[Debate Question: Is Leonard Peltier innocent or guilty?]

•          Leonard Peltier. 2000. Prison Writings. Parts 4-5 (pp.87-136)

•          Webbing:

            http://www.noparolepeltier.com/

            http://www.freepeltier.org/

March 1: Colonialism, Law, and Cultural Justice III

•          Leonard Peltier. 2000. Prison Writings. Parts 6-7 (pp.137-217)

March 8: Mid-term (no assigned reading) 

•          Mid-term Exam

March 22: Utilitarianism and Environmental Justice

[Debate Question: Which approach to justice is better equipped to maintain a social and environmental balance for future generations?]

•          John Stewart Mill. “On the Connection Between Justice and Utility.” (Justice)

•          John Rawls. “Utilitarianism and the Distinction Between Persons.” (Justice)

•          Peter Singer. “All Animals are Equal.” (Justice)

•          Karen J. Warren. “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism.” (Justice)

•          Torin Monahan. 2001. “Please Increase Your Browser’s Memory Partition: Individual Action and Collective Blame in the Hall of Biodiversity.” Museum Anthropology 25 (1): 41-45. http://torinmonahan.com/papers/BioDiversity.htm

March 29: Discourse Ethics and Feminist Justice

[Debate Question: Are universalistic or particularistic approaches to justice better suited to give women more control over their bodies?]

•          Jürgen Habermas. “The Rule of Law and Democracy.” (Justice)

•          Susan Okin. “Justice and Gender.” (Justice)

•          Jean-François Lyotard. “The Postmodern Condition.” (Justice)

•          Baobab Press. “Norplant, Sticking it to 'Em.” http://www.africa2000.com/BNDX/BAO212.htm   

April 5: Bioethics 

[Debate Question: As a professional field, does bioethics provide us with sufficient guidance for coping with injustices in human experimentation?]

•          Carl Elliott. 2003. “Not-So-Public Relations: How the drug industry is branding itself with bioethics.” http://slate.msn.com/id/2092442/

•          Arthur Caplan. 1998. Due Consideration, selections. (available through Blackboard)     

April 12: Criminal and Social Justice I

•          Jeffrey Reiman. 2004. The Rich Get Richer... Introduction and Cht. 1 (pp.1-47)

April 19: Criminal and Social Justice II

[Debate Question: Is the U.S. criminal justice system intrinsically unfair in its criminalization of the poor or is this outcome more the result of racist and classist individuals working within the system (e.g., police, judges, attorneys, etc.)?]

•          Jeffrey Reiman. 2004. The Rich Get Richer... Chts. 2-3 (pp.55.-147)

Optional reading (to assist with answering the debate question):

• http://colorblind.typepad.com/the_colorblind_society/2004/03/caught_on_chat.html
• http://www.bet.com/articles/0,1048,c1gb9004-9867-1,00.html
• http://www.domelights.com/racprof1.htm
• http://www.neiassociates.org/defense.htm

April 26: Criminal Social Justice III

[Debate Question: Should the Criminal Justice System be radically changed?]

•          Jeffrey Reiman. 2004. The Rich Get Richer... Cht. 4 and Conclusion (pp.157-200)