Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights and Criminal Justice
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| LAWW4025 | Law | 4 | 15 | Autumn UK |
- Code
- LAWW4025
- School
- Law
- Level
- 4
- Credits
- 15
- Semesters
- Autumn UK
Summary
A broadly-based introduction to the philosophical foundations of human rights and criminal justice, emphasising the moral and political underpinnings of legal rules, doctrines and principles. The module first tackles perennial conceptual and methodological issues relating to the nature of philosophical inquiry and the challenges of scepticism. Thereafter, the model reconsiders key issues and questions in contemporary debates surrounding human rights and criminal justice through the contrasting lenses of two rival philosophical perspectives, utilitarianism and liberal deontology.
Target Students
Available to postgraduate students in the School of Law. Also available to Exchange students.
Classes
This module is taught in seminar format.
Assessment
- 100% Coursework 1: 15 pages
Assessed by end of autumn semester
Educational Aims
To introduce lawyers and others with limited or no formal philosophical background to key themes, ideas and arguments in moral and political philosophy, and to indicate their salience for practical questions of law reform and legal practice in the fields of human rights and criminal justice. To develop advanced skills of conceptual analysis and critical thinking.Learning Outcomes
This module is essentially an exercise in developing awareness of and facility in philosophical argumentation.
Students will learn to identify, critically evaluate and construct for themselves sound philosophical arguments, especially as they apply to human rights and criminal justice issues in the law and legal practice.
Students will develop an appreciation of why and how philosophical arguments bear upon the development and implementation of positive criminal laws and (national and international) human rights law.
They will be encouraged to make these connections both at the general level (e.g. of evaluating the authority and legitimacy of human rights norms) and at the more particularistic level of legal policy and decision-making, e.g to what extent, if ever, the use of torture could ever be justified in the administration of criminal justice