As we know, the United States never paid large-scale reparations to formerly enslaved Black people or their descendants. Some believe that justice requires the U.S. to compensate the descendants of those victimized by American slavery. Others take it that it would be unjust and unfair to require the current American government to pay for the sins of the past. In this course, we’ll consider all sides of the philosophical debate over Black reparations.
Students will become familiar with formal and informal logical fallacies and learn to detect these fallacies in legal arguments. Students will also learn to construct and defend arguments using rules of logical deduction and methods of analogical reasoning. The course will not only benefit students who plan to pursue careers in law, but also those who would like to better understand how lawyers and judges reason.