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Instructors: Marie-Therese Montana
Event type:
Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
Ungerechtigkeit
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
2,0
Language of instruction:
German
Min. | Max. participants:
5 | 20
Registration group: SQ-Veranstaltungen
Comments/contents:
In this course we will look at issues of injustice. Traditionally, the ethical evaluation of state institutions, and thus also of law, is carried out on the basis of political theories that set out and justify an ideal conception of the just state and just community. This approach is discussed as insufficient, considering that an ideal of complete justice seems to be unattainable and that the legislature can often only be concerned with making unjust states less unjust. Consequently, how can a theory of perfect justice provide concrete suggestions for the design of laws? This problem has led a number of theorists to take the concept of injustice as a starting point for evaluating state institutions and law instead. This approach goes under the heading of the 'priority of injustice over justice' and holds out the hope of being able to provide a more meaningful starting point for the design of law.
Learning objectives:
You will be enabled to adopt the theoretical-reflective perspective of injustice theory on law and to develop the concepts and arguments relevant to your topic in a team. You will also gain the competence to communicate this perspective and its implications orally as well as in a video presentation and to critically question it in exchange with other students. These competences are legal cross-sectional key qualifications, cf. §5a III 1 DRiG.
Didactic concept:
In this course we want to approach the question of injustice from two sides. (i) First, we will be concerned with experiences of injustice, i.e. a kind of phenomenology of injustice. Here we will discuss examples of experiences of injustice of varying intensity and urgency, leaving plenty of room to consider your interests and emphases. In law, we will primarily deal with breaches of contract or offences relevant to private law as well as criminal law, and the abuse of rights. We will broaden this perspective to include analysis of experiences of injustice that shape our daily lives and look at how these are addressed in law. The list of possible experiences of injustice we could address is almost endless and ranges from the erroneous (re)distribution of goods, domination, power asymmetries and the exploitation of positions of power, paternalism, structural injustice, epistemic injustice, torture, assault and rape, to racism and discrimination, undeserved privilege and disadvantage, segregation and exclusion, marginalisation and invisibility, bullying and humiliation such as public shaming, objectification, infantilisation, victimisation, stigmatisation and stereotyping, to gaslighting, microaggressions, cancel culture and many, many more. Through the highlights you have chosen, we want to work out what advantage the injustice perspective offers over the justice perspective and whether and how it differs from the approach of law. (ii) The second aspect we want to address in parallel is the actual thesis of the priority of injustice over justice. Is there a conceptual priority here? Or is it rather a question of an advantage of the perception of experiences of injustice over experiences of justice? Are there other reasons to assume a priority of injustice over justice?
All are welcome! No previous knowledge of philosophy is necessary.
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