Democracy requires a proper understanding of the values and forms of social cooperation, we ought to honor. But it also requires practices that make it more likely that those values will be honored. This course will (1) examine institutional practices & political choices required to support a range of values we associate with democracy (2) examine the ways in which these values can be realized in the light of new challenges (3) use both philosophical texts and empirical material to understand the ways in which democracy can be better realized.

This is mainly a seminar in normative political theory insofar as it intersects with legal philosophy: its aim is to study, discuss and challenge some main contemporary (and occasionally, classical) legal conceptions of fundamental values posited in liberal and political theory. Of course, law is not the only, perhaps not even the most important, instrument for giving effect to liberal-democratic values, but it is certainly an indispensable guarantee of those ideals. Liberty under law, equality, justice and legitimacy: these will be four central themes of the seminar. Taken together, they cohere into an attractive vision of the rule of law.

This is a required course for the ten Graduate Prize Fellows (GPFs) in the University Center for Human Values. It is expected that the GPFs register for the course in both the fall and spring semesters of the year they are GPFs. The course has three central goals. First, the seminar is designed to support students' dissertation work while providing special aid to the human values aspect of the dissertation. Second, the seminar has an intensive focus on in-person academic performance skills. Third, the seminar aims to help graduate students to work toward the academic job market.

Introduction to ethical issues in market exchange, and in laws that regulate it. How ethical commitments evolve, and influence cooperation. The moral dimension of low wages, outsourcing, fair trade, price discrimination, and banning sales of sex, blood, organs and other repugnant goods. The nature, causes and consequences of economic inequality.

The choice of a kind of life involves both fundamental commitments and day-to-day decisions. This course is interested in zooming out and zooming in: how should we adopt commitments, and how do we realize them in ordinary life? What is the purpose of life, and how can you fulfill it? Should you live by an overall narrative, or is your life just the sum of what you actually do? Are commitments chosen or given to you? Are the decisions we think of as high stakes important at all? When should you relinquish what you thought were your deepest commitments? What should you do when commitments clash?

Topics covered will be the mind-body problem, personal identity, the possibility of life after death, the self, the will and the ground of moral status.

This course examines political thinkers who profoundly shaped normative thinking about politics in Indian, Islamic, African and Chinese contexts. The course will examine non-Western ideas of modernity, and justified forms of moral and political order. It will shed new light on key ideas of modern political thought: rights, justice, nationalism, identity, violence, perfectionism, democracy and power. The thinkers in this course such as Gandhi, Iqbal, Ambedkar, Qutub, Fanon, Cesaire, Mao and others, not only contribute to political theory. Their arguments also define fault lines in contemporary politics.

Scientists and humanists study "human nature" from radically different perspectives. This course explores interdisciplinary ways of tackling the gnarly problem of understanding ourselves. We'll grapple with questions like: Is human nature fundamentally good or evil? Is this even a sensible question to ask? How do technology and culture impact human morality and the ways we study it? What can AI tell us about human nature? Students will learn how to critically evaluate research examining the porous boundaries between self and society, and to think imaginatively about what the scientific method can reveal about humans- now and in the future.

This course takes a close look at the foundational texts and critical concepts in the discipline of sociology, focusing on classical theorists. The primary goal of the class is to help students understand theories of society and the organization of human communities. Key authors include Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Dubois, Burke, Hobbes, Locke, Tocqueville, and Arendt. We will put these authors in their historical contexts, explore how they can be used now to understand the social world, and examine how they might be deployed in empirical research contexts.

The course examines major moral controversies in public life and competing conceptions of justice and the common good. It seeks to help students develop the skills required for thinking and writing about the ethical considerations that ought to shape public institutions, guide public authorities, and inform citizens' moral judgments in politics. We focus on issues that are particularly challenging for advanced, pluralist democracies such as the USA, including justice in war, terrorism and torture, market freedom and distributive justice, immigration, refugees, and criminal justice in conditions of social injustice.