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78039 Wickedness and Vice

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular semester, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

UTS: Law
Credit points: 6 cp

Subject level:

Undergraduate and Postgraduate

Result type: Grade and marks

Requisite(s): (70311 Torts OR (70110 Introduction to Law AND 76006c Public International Law))
The lower case 'c' after the subject code indicates that the subject is a corequisite. See definitions for details.
These requisites may not apply to students in certain courses.
There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.

Handbook description

The legal system organises and expresses multiple meanings. This subject considers the structure of wickedness and vice it communicates. The approach taken is consistent with traditional jurisprudential concerns such as natural law theory and positivism, and theorising about the criminal legal system as a system of blaming. The subject introduces students to various jurisprudential and general philosophical accounts of the legal system's approach to wickedness and vice. These theories are applied to specific issues, including questions about our duty to obey, the regulation of morality, the malice of the law and the characterisation of terrorism. This subject is particularly timely, given increasing international reliance on a 'discourse of evil'. Theory is essential to the law. Theory gives us a way of thinking about issues differently. This is particularly important when a legal problem appears to be insurmountable. Theory offers the possibility of imagining the world differently.

Subject objectives/outcomes

This subject will assist students to develop graduate attributes by pursuing the following learning objectives. Students will undertake class activities to practise their development of these attributes, and will complete a range of assessment tasks designed to assess their attainment of the identified attributes.

  1. Students should have an understanding of the various philosophical accounts of wickedness. (GA 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10)
  2. Students should have an ability to integrate theoretical insights with practical issues. (GA 2, 6)
  3. Students should have a detailed knowledge of particular theorists. (GA 1, 2,6)
  4. Students should be able to critically evaluate theories and understand the relevance of the theories to particular legal issues. (GA 1, 2, 6, 7 9)

Contribution to course aims and graduate attributes

The UTS, Faculty of Law has identified a number of professional attributes that graduates from the Faculty will possess upon graduation.

INTELLECTUAL
1. Critical Thinking: An appropriate level of independent thinking, creativity and critical analysis.
2. Analysis and Evaluation: An ability to strategically analyse issues of law, evaluate options and viewpoints to reach and implement decisions.
3. Spoken and Written Communication: Advanced oral and written communication skills.
4. Legal Research and Technological Literacy: Appropriate research techniques to acquire, distil and utilise legal information.

PROFESSIONAL
5. Disciplinary Knowledge: A coherent and extensive knowledge of substantive and procedural law.
6. Lifelong Learning: A capacity to continually update the knowledge skills and awareness appropriate to the practice of law.
7. Ethics: A capacity to value and promote honestly, accountability and ethical standards.

PERSONAL
8. Self and Cooperative Work Management: Self and priority management skills including cooperative work.
9. Cultural Awareness and a Global Outlook: An appreciation and valuing of cultural and intellectual diversity and an ability to function in a global environment.
10. Social Justice: An acknowledgement and acceptance of individual responsibilities and obligations and of the assertion of the rights of the individual and the community.

Teaching and learning strategies

Strategy 1 Presentation and analysis of philosophical accounts of wickedness.
Strategy 2 Class discussion.
Strategy 3 Essay writing.
Strategy 4 Class presentations.

Subject Delivery
Teaching will be based on seminars. Students are required to read the prescribed materials before each class and hand in a short summary of the readings upon attendance at class. Students who have not completed the prescribed readings may not attend class.

Classes will draw on the commentary and materials in the prescribed readings.

Students are strongly advised to go beyond the prescribed readings, particularly if they choose to specialise in a specific topic area.

Conversation and discussion are integral to theory. Many contemporary theories emphasise awareness of other voices and perspectives. Many seminars will be discussion based. To get the most out of seminars, students must have read and thought about the theories that will be discussed.

Content

  • Introduction: Wickedness and Vice
  • Law and morality: Hart v Devlin Debate
  • Mary Douglas: Disorder Theory
  • Philosophy of wickedness: Aristotle and Aquinas
  • Philosophy of Wickedness: Freud and Midgley
  • Function of Evil: Cole
  • Virtues and Vices: Philippa Foot
  • Banality of Evil: Arendt
  • The Atrocity Paradigm: Claudia Card
  • Law and Brothels
  • Criminal law and wickedness: Lavender
  • Malevolent Outlaw of Law
  • Conclusions

Assessment

Assessment Item 1: Class Participation

Intent: Class participation is closely linked to learning objectives one and two.
Conversation and discussion greatly assist in the understanding of theory. Through discussion we will also apply theoretical approaches to specific legal issues.
Weighting: 20%

Assessment Item 2: Short essay

Intent: The essay is linked to objectives three and four. The essay requires students to consider specific theorists in depth, and to critically evaluate those theories.
Weighting: 20%
Length: Maximum of 1,200 words

Assessment Item 3: Major essay

Intent:

The essay is linked to objectives three and four. The essay requires students to consider specific theorists in depth, and to critically evaluate those theories.
Weighting: 60%
Length: 4000 words
Criteria:

Your mark will follow these criteria:
You will be required to reflect and write on the theories and research you have been exposed to in this course. The essay will require application in a critical fashion of one or more of the research or theories discussed in class to a topic that is of interest to you. The essay will therefore require you to read more deeply into the theoretical literature, and at the same time to apply available research and theory concretely to a specific case study. This essay is therefore a research essay.

The word limit is not optional. I will stop reading when the word limit is reached.

If you are having any problems in relation to your research, I am happy to discuss this with you before the work falls due. I am also happy to give you feedback on an essay plan prior to the due date.

  • Use and understanding of relevant theories/research: 25%
  • Quality and extent of research: 15%
  • Structure of essay and strength of argument: 20%
  • Relevance and skill in use of applied case studies: 30%
  • Presentation, referencing and style: 10%

Required texts

Prescribed readings for this subject are available on UTS Online. You will be expected to have read prescribed materials prior to attending class.

In addition, students will be required to read specific cases and journal articles that are available on the web. In the final classes I will hope that you have read and/or seen We Need to Talk About Kevin and Let the Right One In.

Students are advised to exercise patience when reading the prescribed texts. It is to be hoped that some of these readings will contain ideas you have never come across before and may additionally be presented in a style to which you are unaccustomed. Take your time and allow yourself the opportunity to understand what an author is arguing.

Recommended texts

  • Thomas Aquinas, On Evil, (1274).
  • Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, (1994).
  • Richard Bernstein, Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation, (2002).
  • Claudia Card, The Atrocity Paradigm: a theory of evil, (2002).
  • Claudia Card, Confronting Evils (2010)
  • Jeffrey Cohen, Monster Theory (1996)
  • Jeffrey Cohen, Of Giants: Sex, Monsters and the Middle Ages (1999)
  • Phillip Cole, The Myth of Evil, (2006).
  • Andrew Delbanco, The Death of Satan, (1995).
  • Gregory Desilet, Our Faith in Evil: Melodrama and the Effects of Entertainment Violence, (2006).
  • Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, (2002).
  • R. A. Duff, Virtue, Vice and Criminal Liability: Do we want an Aristotlean Criminal Law?, Buffalo Criminal Law Review 6 (2002-2003): 147-184.
  • Eagleton, Terry, On Evil, 2010
  • George Fletcher, Rethinking Criminal Law, (1978).
  • Michel Foucault, Abnormal (1999)
  • Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, (2002).
  • Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, (2002).
  • Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, (1920).
  • Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, (1930).
  • David Garland, Punishment and Modern Society, (1990).
  • Lee Godden, The Bounding of Vice: Prostitution and Planning Law, Griffith Law Review 10 (2001): 77-98.
  • Peter Goodrich, Reading the Law, (1986).
  • Peter Goodrich, Legal Discourse, (1987).
  • Judith Halberstam, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (1995)
  • Lynda Hart, Fatal Women (1994)
  • Hirvonen, Ari (Ed), Law and Evil: philosophy, politics, psychoanalysis (2010)
  • Richard Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters (2003)
  • Melanie Klein, Envy and Gratitude, in Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-1963, 176-235 (1997).
  • Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, (1982).
  • Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, (1984).
  • Desmond Manderson, Apocryphal Jurisprudence, Journal of Legal Philosophy 27 (2001): 27-59.
  • Desmond Manderson, From Hunger to Love: Myths of the Source, Interpretation, and Constitution of Law in Children's Literature, Law and Literature 15 (2003): 87-141.
  • Markesinis, B, Good and Evil in Art and Law (2007)
  • May L (1998) Masculinity and Morality
  • Mary Midgely, Wickedness
  • William Miller, The Anatomy of Disgust, (1997).
  • Adam Morton, On Evil, (2004).
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, (1967).
  • Martha Nussbaum, 'Secret Sewers of Vice': Disgust, Bodies and the Law, in The Passions of Law (Susan Bandes ed., 1999).
  • Martha Nussbaum, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame and the Law, (2004).
  • W. Scott Poole, Monsters in America (2011)
  • Amelie Rorty, Preface: Varieties of Evil, in The Many Faces of Evil: Historical Perspectives, xi-xviii (Amelie Rorty ed., 2001).
  • Paul Rozin, Jonathan Haidt and Clark McCauley, Disgust, in Handbook of Emotions (Michael Lewis and Jeannette Haviland-Jones eds., 2000).
  • Jeffrey Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (1987)
  • Edward Said, Orientalism, (1985).
  • Austin Sarat and Austin Kearns eds., Law's Violence, (1992).
  • Andrew Sharpe, Foucault's Monsters and the Challenge of Law (2010)
  • A.W.Brian Simpson, Cannibalism and the Common Law, (1984).
  • Stychin, CF (1995) Laws Desire: Sexuality and the Limits of Justice
  • Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Evil, (2001)
  • Richardson, MIchael, The Existential Joss Whedon: Evil and human freedom in Buffy the vampire slayer, Angel, Firefly and Serenity, (2007)
  • Bernard Williams, Moral Luck, (1981).
  • Alison Young, Judging the Image: Art, Value and Law, (2005).
  • Alison Young, The Scene of Violence, (2010)

Other resources

Websites