Political Theory

This course is an advanced seminar that will focus intensely on a particular issue in political theory or on a particular political thinker or group of political thinkers.

This course examines the role that philosophical theories of law play in our American Constitutional system. Topics include: the relationship between law and morality, the positivism vs. natural law debate, Ronald Dworkin's "principled" theory of Constitutional interpretation, Justice Scalia's "textualism," and Judge Richard Posner's pragmatic-economic approach to the law.