ADTH 2160 Challenge of Justice

The pursuit of justice is a dominant concern of our age. But it appears that there are nearly as many understandings of justice as there are persons and communities to claim them. The goal of this course is to consider the principal understandings of justice and peace that have developed in the Western philosophical and theological traditions and assess how these alternative understandings affect personal decisions and social policy choices. We will pay attention to how these theories relate to concrete, practical, political and social issues. Special attention will be paid to the contribution of the Catholic intellectual tradition in formulating an approach to justice and peace. This course highlights what is at stake when we choose one way of justice rather than another. Ultimately, we need to think about how we ought to treat other people and what kind of society we want to build. Over the course of the semester, we will examine issues of justice related to human rights, hunger and poverty, racism, sexuality, ecology, and peace-building.