In preparation for next week, please read:
Crito, by Plato. This ancient text is a dialogue. Read it like the script for a play. For fun, you could even get someone else to read it aloud with you--reading texts like this aloud often improves understanding. In this text, the characters argue about whether and why we are obligated to obey the laws of the civic institutions they live under. Socrates has been convicted (perhaps unjustly) and sentenced to death. Crito offers to help his friend Socrates escape from prison. Socrates refuses, and explains his refusal to Crito.
Just Laws vs Unjust Laws, by Brian Penny. One thing that a number of you were interested in in your select-your-own-problem posts from a previous week was the set of problems dealing with surveillance and privacy. This article uses that set of problems (in August 2013, when the time was very much ripe for discussion of that) to theorize about just and unjust laws.
In class, we will discuss the connections between what is legal and what is right, and use these articles as a common ground for our discussion.
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