KENYON COLLEGE
OLOF PALME HOUSE
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course examines the variety of ways societies establish, in the political context, normative models of justice and rights by appeals to religious sanctions, the Natural Law, and Natural Rights. Using the notions of property and human rights as examples, the course surveys the connections between ethical thought and religion in ancient Judaism and early Christianity, the use of Aristotelian philosophy in Islam and Medieval Scholasticism, the formation of the American political experience and the development of modern social philosophies of distributive justice.