POLSC402: Global Justice

2.1: Natural Rights, Utility, and the Crooked Timber of Humanity

• 2.1.1: Grotius and Natural Right

  • Hugo Grotius' "On the Law of War and Peace, Chapter 1: On War and Right" >

    Read this chapter.

  • The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Jon Miller's "Hugo Grotius" URL

    Read section 3, on natural law. Grotius has come to be considered the "father of natural law." Take note of how Grotius gives primacy to natural law over other conceptions of law as well as how he aligns natural law with public reason (and agreement) between nation-states. 

• 2.1.2: Hume and Utility

  • David Hume's "An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Section III: Of Justice" URL

    Read Parts I and II of Section III. Pay particular attention to the last paragraph of Part I, where Hume succinctly describes how justice arises from utility. At the same time, notice how Hume describes how justice varies according to, and is a product of, particular situations and human sentiments, yet it is universal in its fundamental utility for civilization.

• 2.1.3: Kantian Idealism

  • Immanuel Kant's "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch" URL

    Read this article, tracing how Kant outlines what would be required to establish the conditions for a worldwide perpetual peace to exist and sustain. For Kant, the establishment of something akin to a world government presumes an idea of history and the notion of humanity as a work in progress. 

  • Immanuel Kant's "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose" URL

    Read this article.

  • The New York Review of Books: Isaiah Berlin's "On the Pursuit of the Ideal" URL

    Read this article, which is meant to serve as a cautionary tale about the relationship between idealized pursuits and the protection of civil liberties.