The course enables students to develop a critical view of law and the society that produces it.
The course aims to help students understand the relationship between law and ethics. It seeks to open students up to questions that go beyond the norm itself and that draw their sources from the values that underlie and extend positive law. In this way, it helps to develop a critical view of the law and the society that produces it. As Dumont and Bailleux point out, a purely positivist approach, characterised by the desire to isolate law "from any element external to positive law as enacted by the State" (2010), has its limits. The course therefore aims to show that although "the autonomy of law is real, [...] it is only relative" (ibid.) and proposes a critical and interdisciplinary approach, which "accounts for the coexistence of several distinct and parallel normative orders, including the legal order, and their reciprocal interactions" (Lachapelle, 2021).
Students will thus be able to take a fresh look at the legal discipline, by analysing concrete situations requiring the interpretation and adjustment of rules.
As a critical reflection on values, ethics informs the production of law and, conversely, legal norms feed into ethical debate: discussion of the values highlighted by a social phenomenon often precedes normative decision-making, which in turn generates new ethical questions.
Following an introduction on the dialectic between ethics, morality, and law, the course develops a conceptual framework and subsequently brings this dialectic to life through reflection on major societal issues. Topics addressed may include: questions of bioethics (abortion, euthanasia, assisted reproduction), the relationship between freedom of religion and other fundamental rights (freedom of expression, the right to equality and non-discrimination), as well as climate change and the conflicts of values it entails.
The “red thread” defined by the Faculty of Law will be integrated into the course structure.
Each of these topics illustrates concrete instances of value conflicts for which reliance on legal rules alone proves insufficient. By highlighting both the strengths and the limitations of legal construction, ethical reflection provides a critical perspective on law. The course is therefore conceived as a law course that explores the values underpinning the production of legal norms.
The course considers law as a practice. Students will be invited to familiarize themselves with positive law, so that they can then confront it with concrete situations requiring the interpretation and adjustment of rules. Explanations and discussions will help to do justice to the rich complexity of legal practice, which exists only in the many attempts to respond to each situation. The course thus presents the law as a living tool, in perpetual flux and whose relevant use implies continuous and interdisciplinary reflection.
Moreover, legal practice is often affected, or even transformed, by other practices and other ways of thinking, such as scientific, philosophical, psychological, sociological and medical thought. Consequently, to gain a better understanding of what is at stake in legal practice, it is sometimes necessary to look at it from the outside, through the feedback of practitioners from other disciplines who are called upon to interpret and apply the rules that govern their practice.
Concretely, the following methods will be used: interactive and participative teaching, exchanges based on prior readings of texts or occasional video screenings, occasional invitations from a lecturer on a particular theme, etc.
The assessment is divided into two components, each contributing 50% of the final grade: a negotiation or parliamentary debate simulation, and a written examination.
The negotiation or parliamentary debate simulation is scheduled towards the end of the course. Students, working in groups, are required to defend a position on a topic involving ethical issues. Assessment will focus on their command of the subject matter, their argumentative skills, their ability to articulate a nuanced position, and their capacity for effective teamwork.
The written examination will be conducted on an open-book basis. Its purpose is to assess the students’ ability to formulate a personal and critical perspective, while making appropriate use of the knowledge and skills acquired during the course.
Written materials (available to students on Webcampus):
| Training | Study programme | Block | Credits | Mandatory |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor in Philosophy | Standard | 0 | 3 | |
| Bachelor in Law | Standard | 0 | 4 | |
| Bachelor in Philosophy | Standard | 2 | 3 | |
| Bachelor in Philosophy | Standard | 3 | 3 | |
| Bachelor in Law | Standard | 3 | 4 |