Saint-Louis University - Bruxelles
English
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LEUSL2202 - Political philosophy and the European Union



Credits : 3

Lecturer :
Mode of delivery :
Face-to-face , second term, 15 hours of theory.

Language of instruction :
English

Learning outcomes :
Political philosophy. Political philosophy has traditionally focused on the nation-state, in particular on how its collective decisions should be taken to qualify as democratic, and on how its institutions should be designed to count as just. More recently, political philosophy has resolutely expanded its focus: it started asking, for example, whether global governance should be a macroscopic replica of domestic government, and whether global justice is to be conceived as inter-national justice or as social justice writ large.

And the European Union. But what about this intermediate entity of an unprecedented nature that is now called the European Union? What can be said about it from a normative point of view? What are the principles that should determine how much power its institutions are to be given, how these should be designed, and what the scope and content of their policies should be?

Prerequisites :
None

Co-requisites :
None

Course contents :
The course will consist
(1) of an introductory and a concluding session that will address explicitly these questions (for all students taking the course for credit);
(2) of four dialogues with prominent European personalities (open to a limited number of personally invited guests, in addition to the students registered for the course);
(3) of a series meetings that will prepare these dialogues on the basis of the philosophical literature on the subject and of documents by and about the European personalities invited (only for the students in a Master 120 programme in European studies or other subjects).

Planned learning activities and teaching methods :
Lectures

Assessment methods and criteria :
All registered students will need to write an essay (about 5000 words) related to at least one of the dialogues and send it by 10 June to philippe.vanparijs@uclouvain.be. Their proposal for a topic (5-10 lines) can be sent throughout the semester (and no later than 10 May) to the same address. This essay will be the main basis for evaluation. It will be the object of an oral discussion during the exam session.

Recommended or required reading :
• An extensive bibliography will be provided separately.
• To get a flavour of the issues to be discussed, see John Rawls and Philippe Van Parijs, “Three Letters on the Law of Peoples and the European Union”, Revue de philosophie économique 7, 2003, pp. 7-20, downloadable from www.uclouvain.be/8609.