261004 The idea of natural law (S) (SoSe 2009)

Natural law theories hold that we are required to do and not do certain things, not by human legislation, but just „in the nature of things“. What this phrase means is unclear, though, and one task of the seminar will be to examine the explanations offered by various authors in the natural law tradition. To that extent the seminar takes an historical approach: we will want to know what happened to the idea of natural law since its conception by the sophists in the 5th century B.C. However, the idea of natural law is still, in one form or another, a live option in current philosophy of law, and so a second task of the seminar will be to form a reasoned judgment on the viability of this idea.

Regular attendance and active participation are required for receiving credit in this seminar, plus two short discussion papers of at least acceptable quality, to be written during term time on the material of the previous meeting.

The seminar will be conducted in English.

Requirements for participation, required level

BA-Studiengang: Abschluss des ersten Studienjahres.

Bibliography

A reader containing the texts to be discussed will be available when the term starts.