Students meet with Professor Dworkin each Wednesday for two hours, and write a short paper each week, on the material under discussion. The Colloquium itself is on Thursdays, and meets for three hours. Students al so write a longer final paper. The Colloquium meets on a Law School schedule, and meets in the Law School building, Vanderbilt Hall. The first sessions are Wednesday and Thursday, August 25 and 26.
Enrollment is by permission of the instructors.
Contact Lynn Gilbert at 998-6252 to submit a request for permission to enroll. The course surveys twentieth-century contributions to legal philosophy. In addition to the central debate between H.L.A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin over the concept of law, we discuss Natural Law Theory, Legal Realism, Critical Legal studies, Feminist Jurisprudence, Critical Race Theory, and some aspects of Postmodern Legal Theory. The course begins with a very brief introduction to the methods of moral and political theory. There is a take-home examination, with a paper option for half the credit for the course.