Welcome to the class, FSP 114-05. The photograph at the top of this site was taken by me early last spring in Camden, NJ, one of the poorest cities in the US. Starting in about two weeks, the students taking this course will post comments on class discussions, readings, and the community service they will undertake with me during the semester in Camden.
Here is the course description:
What are the characteristics of the just, moral society? Do individuals have rights, and if so what are they? What are the ethical responsibilities or obligations of a society’s more fortunate toward the less fortunate? How have groups answered these questions in the past and the present? In this seminar, we read literature that sheds light on premodern as well as modern responses to these questions and seek some answers of our own through community service in Camden, New Jersey.
The maker of the video below, a remarkably clear-eyed visual statement of the problems faced in this city, is a student at the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Camden:
