Philosophy 19A

  Legal Studies
Global Studies
Social Justice & Social Policy and
Peace, Conflict & Coexistence Studies

Instructor:
Professor Andreas Teuber
teuber@brandeis.edu

Department of Philosophy
BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
Waltham, Massachusetts 02454
Tel. 781-736-2787

Office Hours:
Mondays & Wednesdays 2:30-3:30 PM
and by appointment

T A.'s
Dianne White
"Sandy" McKinley
Office Hours: To be announced







What are human rights
and what reasons are there
for thinking that persons have rights?

Are some rights more basic than others
and what compelling interests,
if any, justify their violation?

The course will look closely
at international human rights policies
and the moral and political issues
to which they give rise
as they are embedded
in actual, concrete cases.


 

   Course Syllabus

   Course Requirements

   Electronic Reserve

   Texts

   Links

COURSE DESCRIPTION

       Opening sections of the course wil be devoted to an examination 
of the rights of civilians and non-combatants in time of war, at Hiroshima,
during the fire-bombing of Dresden, at Mylai, and  The Nuremberg Trials.

Discussion will include the role considerations of human rights
ought to play in the foreign policy of any country as well as
an examination of the role such considerations actually have played
most recently in Darfur and the Sudan., Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Rwanda, Nigeria, Burundi, China & Tibet, Haiti, Iraqi Kurdistan, Chechnya,
as well as Cambodia, Northern Ireland, Burma, Indonesia, East Timor, Somalia,
Afghanistan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Guatamala ,
Colimbia , Chile , Peru, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

 Discussion will also include: territorial integrity and the ethics of humanitarian intervention,
state sovereignty and human rights violations, U. S. intervention in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq,
international terrorism and human rights, the role of international peacekeeping forces,  
the significance and effectiveness of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights,
the responsibilities of individuals and states to alleviate world hunger and famine,
the morality of torture and prisoner abuse, the moral and political issues surrounding
the plight of refugees and homeless persons and  the arguments for
international war crime tribunals v. truth and reconciliation commissions .


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SYLLABUS

HUMAN RIGHTS

Philosophy 19a and Legal Studies
Professor Andreas Teuber
Spring   2005

PART I

WEEK 1
January		 Introduction and Organization
January What is a Human Right?
Minogue, "The History of the Idea of Human Rights" (ERES)
 Cranston, "What are Human Rights?" (ERES)
 Locke, Second Treatise on Government (CHAPTER II ONLINE), (ERES)
Glover, HUMANITY, "Never Such Innocence Again," pp. 1-7 ONLINE
 Richard Wasserstrom, Rights, Human Rights, and Racial Discrimination (ONLINE) (AN HR EXTRA: NOT REQUIRED)
 Joel Feinberg, Wasserstrom on Human Rights (ONLINE) (AN HR EXTRA: NOT REQUIRED)
 Louis Pojman, Are Human Rights Based on Equal Human Worth? (ONLINE) (AN HR EXTRA: NOT REQUIRED)
 Mordecai Roshwald, The Concept of Human Rights (ONLINE) (AN HR EXTRA: NOT REQUIRED)
 Richard Gale, Natural Law and Human Rights (ONLINE) (AN HR EXTRA: NOT REQUIRED)
 Richard Lillich, The Constitution and International Human Rights (ONLINE) (AN HR EXTRA: NOT REQUIRED)
WEEK 2
January 		The Moral Reality of War
Walzer, JUST AND UNJUST WARS, pp. 3-47
Walzer, "Naked Soldiers," JUST AND UNJUST WARS, pp. 138- 144; 
Walzer, "The Theory of Aggression" JUST AND UNJUST WARS, pp.51-85; 109-124.
Glover, HUMANITY, "Ethics Without the Moral Law," pp. 11-44.
January Non-Combatant Immunity (1)
Walzer, JUST AND UNJUST WARS, pp.127-137; 144-174
Nagel, "War and Massacre" ONLINE (ERES) 
Richard Brandt, "Utilitarianism and the Rules of War" ONLINE (AN HR EXTRA: NOT REQUIRED) 
Mavrodes, "Conventions and the Morality of War,"
INTERNATIONAL ETHICS, pp. 75-89 and ONLINE
Richard Wasserstrom, "Three Arguments Concerning the Morality of War" ONLINE (AN HR EXTRA: NOT REQUIRED) 
WEEK 3
January		 Non-Combatant Immunity (2)
Fullinwider, "War and Innocence," INTERNATIONAL ETHICS, pp. 90-7
Alexander, "Self-Defense and the Killing of Non-Combatants,"
INTERNATIONAL ETHICS, pp. 98-105

Glover, HUMANITY, "Close Combat," pp. 47-57.
Walzer, "Guerrilla War and Terrorism," JUST AND UNJUST WARS, pp. 176-206.
Glover, HUMANITY, "The Shift To Killing at a Distance," pp. 64-68.
Walzer, "War and Peace in the Jewish Tradition" (ERES)
January ChurchillÌs Decision to Bomb the German Cities and
TrumanÌs Decision to Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Walzer, JUST AND UNJUST WARS, pp. 251-62; pp. 263-68.
Glover, HUMANITY, "Bombing," pp. 69-88.
Glover, HUMANITY, "Hiroshima," pp. 89-112.
Walzer, "World War II: Why Was This War Different?" ONLINE (A CHAPTER IN THE BOOK)
WEEK 4
February		 War Crimes: Nuremberg and Mylai
Wasserstom, "The Relevance of Nuremberg" ONLINE (ERES);
Sanford Levinson, "Responsibility for Crimes of War" ONLINE (ERES)
Walzer, JUST AND UNJUST WARS, pp. 287-327; 
Glover, HUMANITY, "The Case of Mylai." pp. 58-63.
David Malament, "Selective Conscientious Objection & the Gillette Decision" ONLINE (ERES)
Glover, HUMANITY, "War and the Moral Resources," pp. 113-116.
February TheDevelopment of Human Rights in International Law
J. Roland Pennock, "Rights, Natural Rights, and Human Rights Û A General    View" (ERES)
Moynihan, "The Poltics of Human Rights" (ERES)
 David Forsythe, Human Rights in U. S. Foreign Policy: Retrospect and Prospect (ONLINE) (AN HR EXTRA: NOT REQUIRED)
Driscoll, "The Development of Human Rights in Intl. Law," (ERES) 
Douglas Husak "Why There Are No Human Rights"  (ERES)
Louis Henkin, "International Human Rights as 'Rights'"  (ERES)
 Louis Henkin, The United Nations and Human Rights (ONLINE) (A HUMAN RIGHTS EXTRA)
 James Nickel, Are Human Rights Utopian? (ONLINE) (A HUMAN RIGHTS EXTRA)
 Louis Henkin, U. S. Ratification of Human Rights Conventions(ONLINE) (A HUMAN RIGHTS EXTRA)
U. N. Declaration and other International Agreements (WEBSITE)

Paper topics for the first paper will be handed out on Thursday,
The paper is due in ten days, in class.
 
WEEK 5
February		 Human Rights Discussion Week
    The film GHOSTS OF RWANDA will be shown during the week. The bulk of class time will be devoted to discussing the issues raised during the first four weeks of the course as well as a discussion of strategies for answering the Paper Topics.

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TEXTS


 

Primary texts will be available at the University Book Store:
 

  Michael Walzer, JUST AND UNJUST WARS Basic Books: SAMPLE CHAPTER (Brandeis Access Only)
Click Here to Buy New or Used Online at Barnes & Noble College Textbook Division

  Charles Beitz et al. (eds.), INTERNATIONAL ETHICS Princeton University Press. SAMPLE CHAPTER
Click Here to Buy New or Used Online at Barnes & Noble College Textbook Division

  Jonathan Glover, HUMANITY: A MORAL HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Yale University Press. SAMPLE CHAPTER
Click Here to Buy New or Used Online at Barnes & Noble College Textbook Division

  Henry Shue, BASIC RIGHTS Princeton University Press. SAMPLE CHAPTER
Click Here to Buy New or Used Online at Barnes & Noble College Textbook Division

  Robert Rotberg and Dennis Thompson (Editors), TRUTH V. JUSTICE Princeton University Press. SAMPLE CHAPTER
Click Here to Buy New or Used Online at Barnes & Noble College Textbook Division

  Samantha Power, A PROBLEM FROM HELL: America in the Age of Genocide Basic Books. EXCERPT
Click Here to Buy New or Used Online at Barnes & Noble College Textbook Division

  Jean Bethke Elshtain, JUST WAR AGAINST TERROR: The Burden of Amercican Power in a Violent World Basic Books, INTRODUCTION
Click Here to Buy New or Used Online at Barnes & Noble College Textbook Division

  Michael Ignatieff, THE LESSER EVIL: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror Princeton University Press, CHAPTER ONE


         There will also be a specially prepared collection of readings available on WebCt. See Articles on Electronic Reserve below..  A limited number of these articles will also be available at the Reserve Desk in Goldfarb to use in the Library.

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ARTICLES ON ELECTRONIC RESERVE

 The following articles are available on WEBCT.
You may download any article for your own personal use.
The Library has put these articles ONLINE as PDF Files.
To read the articles, you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader.
If you do not have Adobe Acrobat, then click on
the icon below to download it for free.


 
 
(1) "War and Massacre" ONLINE  
by Thomas Nagel
 (29)  "Human Rights: A Western Cultural Bias?"
  by Richard Schifter
(2)  " "Utilitarianism and the Rules of War" ONLINE
  by Richard Brandt
  (30)  "Towards Democracy"
  by Andrei Sakharov
(3)  "War and Peace in the Jewish Tradition"
  by Michael Walzer
 (31)  "Gorbachev Interview by the Washington Post & Newsweek"
  Mikhail Girbachev
(4)  "The Relevance of Nuremberg" ONLINE
  by Richard Wasserstrom
 (32)  "Speech to the U. N. General Assembly"
  by Mikhail Gorbachev
(5) "Responsibility for Crimes of War" ONLINE
   by Sanford Levinson
 (33)  "Report on Iran"
  Amnesty International
(6)  "Selective Conscientious Objection & the Gillette Decision" ONLINE
  by David Malament
 (34)  "Iraqi Chemical weapons Use in Kurdistan"
  by Peter Galbraith and Christopher Van Hollen, Jr.
(7)  "The History of the Idea of Human Rights"
  by Kenneth Minogue
 (35)  "Speech on Salmon Rushdie Affair" (1989)
  by Hojjat ol-Eslam ÎAli Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani
(8)  "What are Human Rights?"
  by Maurice Cranston
 (36)  "On Salmon Rushdie and Civil Liberties"
  by Leon Wieseltier
(9)  "The Politics of Human Rights"
  by Daniel P. Moynihan
 (37)  "The United States and YugoslaviaÌs Wars"
  by David C. Gompert
(10) "The Development of Human Rights in Intl. Law,"
  by Dennis J. Driscoll
 (38)   "Collective Spinelessness:  U. N. Actions in the Former Yugoslavia"
  by Thomas G. Weiss
(11) Excerpt from "Second Treatise on Government" (ONLINE),
  by John Locke
 (39)  "How Much Force in Humanitarian Intervention?"
  by Raimo Vayrynen
(12)  "Rights, Natural Rights, and Human Rights Û A General View"
  by J. Roland Pennock
 (40)  "Humanitarian Intervention in the Former Yugoslavia"
  by Stanley Hoffmann
(13)  "Why There Are No Human Rights"
  by Douglas Husak "
 (41)  "A Treatise on International Law (1912)"
  by L.  Oppenheim
(14)  "International Human Rights as ÎRightsÌ"
  by Louis Henkin
 (42)  "Revision of Oppenheim (1955)"
  by H. Lauterpacht
(15)  "Human Rights and Foreign Aid: Forging an Unbreakable Link"
  by Tom Harkin
 (43)  "A Treatise on International Law (1895)"
  by W. E. Hall.
(16)  "Human Rights and Foreign Assistance Programs"
  by Hugo Adam Bedau
 (44)  "Intervention in International Law (1921)"
  by E. C. Stowell
(17)   "Human Rights and Social Justice"
  by Charles Beitz
 (45)  "Domestic Jurisdiction, Intervention & Human Rights"
  by Thomas Buergenthal
(18)  "Human Rights as a Neutral Concern"
  by Thomas Scanlon
 (46)  "The Ethics of Intervention"
  by J. Bryan Hehir
(19)  "Constraints, Goals, and Moralism in Foreign Policy"
  by Douglas MacLean
 (47)  "Human Rights and Intervention"
  by Marc Wicclair
(20)  "Can A Human Rights Policy Be Consistent?"
  by Abraham M. Sirkin
 (48)   "Nationalism, Nation-State, and the United Nations"
  by Elizabeth Smith and H. Gene Blocker
(21)  "Law Day Speech on Human Rights"
  by Cyrus Vance
 (49)  "The Narcissism of Minor Difference"
  by Michael Ignatieff
(22)  "Commencement Address at Notre Dame"
  by Jimmy Carter
 (50)   "The Seductiveness of Moral Disgust"
  by Michael Ignatieff
(23)  "Establishing a Viable Human Rights Policy"
  by Jeanne Kirkpatrick
 (51)  "Twelve Point Program for the Preventiuon of Torture"
  by Amnesty International
(24)  "ÎHuman RightsÌ: The Hidden Agenda"
  by Irving Kristol
 (52)   "The Case for Torture"
  by Michael Levin
(25)  "Human Rights in the Reagan Years: A Reply to Irving Kristol"
  by Richard Schifter		 (53)  "Torture in the Eighties" (Excerpt)
  by Amnesty International
(26)  "Reform And Human Rights:  The Gorbachev Record"
  by the Commission on Security & Cooperation in Europe
 (54)  "On Not Feeding the Starving"
  by Garrett Hardin
(27)  "The Reagan AdminstrationÌs Human Rights Record"
   by Holly Burkhalter, Human Rights Watch
 (55)  "Reconsidering the Famine Relief Argument"
  by Peter Singer
(28)  "Human Rights and U. S. Foreign Policy:  A Mandate for Leadership"
   by Amnesty International
 (56)  "Poverty and Food: Why Charity is Not Enough"
  by Thomas Nagel

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COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Class Times

 The course will meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 1:10 PM to 2:00 PM.
 
 

Writing

     Four  papers are required on topics growing out of the readings and class discussions. The papers should be about 5-6 pages in length, preferably typewritten. Paper topics will be available at least ten (10) days before a paper is due. It is wise to make a copy of a paper before handing in the original. If you are working on a computer, make a back-up.

PAPER TOPICS


Human Rights Logs (Journals)

     You  shall also be asked to keep a log or journal throughout the semester.  The log should not be used for note-taking or for  jotting down quotations or for making commentaries on the readings (although you may wish to use a separate note-book for these tasks), but should be reserved exclusively to give and develop your own answers to certain basic questions on human rights issues.  Questions will arise throughout the semester, questions for which there may not necessarily be any, easy or obvious answer, and these questions will be singled- out and identified as questions for the Human Rights logs.  Arrangements shall also be made to have these questions ON LINE and to make it possible for anyone in the class to put their answers on a BULLETIN BOARD as well as the opportunity to comment upon and respond to the answers and commentaries of other students in the class. The Class Bulletin Board is located at  

http://webct.brandeis.edu

or type the URL into your browser window and hit "Return." To access the discussions on the Bulletin Board, you will need to be registered and enrolled in the course.
 
 

Examinations

 There will be a short-answer quiz in class towards the end of the semester.  There will be no other written examinations, final or otherwise.
 
 

Grading

     Grading will be broken down as follows: 30% for your strongest essay, 25% for your next best effort, 20% for you rnext best effort after that and 15% for the essay which is least successful of the three. Participation in class and/or in discussion on the Web/Bulletin Board will count 5% and the quiz will make up for the remaining 5%. count 10%.
 
 

Attendance

Attendance is required.  You are allowed three unexcused absences.  Any further absences will have an impact on your final grade.
 
 

Films

     A few films will be shown during the semester among those already mentioned, LONG NIGHT'S JOURNEY INTO DAY and THE POLITICS OF FOOD (times to be announced).
 
 

Small Group Discussions

     In a course this large discussion groups can be very helpful. Occasional discussion sections will be scheduled especially after paper topics are handed out and before a paper is due. Discussion groups will give you an opportunity to explore some of the complex issues of the course in greater depth.
 
 

Office Hours

     Professor Teuber will hold office hours from 2:00 to 3:00 PM on Mondays and Thursdays and by appointment. His office is located in RABB, Room 306 (Tel. 736-2787).
 
 

Messages

      If you wish to leave messages for Professor Teuber, you may do so on his Voice Mail at -736-2787 or at his e- mail address: TEUBER@brandeis.edu. You may also wish to visit his Home Page at Teuber Home Page
 

SOME KEY HUMAN RIGHTS LINKS ON THE WEB


 






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October 28, 2004

URL: http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/
teuber@brandeis.edu
Andreas Teuber's Home Page