Dr Sarah Goff CON 4.11

This course is available on the MSc in Gender, MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation, MSc in Gender, Media and Culture, MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities, MSc in Human Rights and MSc in Political Theory. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course is capped at 2 groups. The deadline for receipt of applications is Friday, 17 October 2014.

Please be aware that this is a capped course and the application deadline is in MT. The course is in LT. If you are interested in taking the course, please make an application stating your MSc programme and (briefly) explaining the reason for your interest.

The course starts with the general question of why (or if) equality matters. It then introduces some of the major debates in the contemporary egalitarian literature: equality of what; equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome; luck egalitarianism versus relational equality. In the final section, it focuses on more specific issues and dilemmas. The topics addressed this year are gender and the division of labour; discrimination and policies that aim to combat it; and the question of who bears responsibility for addressing group-based and global inequalities.

20 hours of seminars in the LT.

Students will submit a short formative essay (up to 1500 words) and will be given feedback on this before submitting their assessed coursework.

Samantha Brennan 'Feminist Ethics and Everyday Inequalities' Hypatia 24, 2009; Derek Parfit 'Equality and Priority' Ratio 10, 1997; Ronald Dworkin Sovereign Virtue: the Theory and Practice of Equality (Harvard University Press, 2000); Clare Chambers, 'Every Outcome is Another Opportunity: Problems with the moment of Equal Opportunity' Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 8, 2009; Elizabeth Anderson 'What is the Point of Equality?' Ethics, 109, 1999; Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton University Press, 1990); G.A. Cohen 'Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive Justice' Philosophy and Public Affairs 26, 1997; Nancy Fraser, 'After the Family Wage: Gender Equity and the Welfare State' Political Theory 22, 1994; Jeff Spinner-Halev 'From Historical to Enduring Injustice' Political Theory 35, 2007; David Miller, National Responsibility and Global Justice (Oxford University Press, 2008)

Essay (100%, 5000 words) in the ST.

Instructor's note to students: please be aware that this is a capped course and the application deadline is in MT. The course is in LT. If you are interested in taking the course, please make an application using the LSE4U system, stating your MSc programme and the reason for your interest.