The Great Ideas

This course examines ongoing debates about the great ideas of liberty, equality, and rights. We explore different nations' contrasting approaches to the law of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, rights to privacy, rights to due process and humane treatment, rights to equality for women and minorities, and rights to personal autonomy in matters such as sexuality. Through interactive seminars and short writing assignments, we examine the changing meaning of liberty in different nations, and we gain practice articulating our own perspectives on these issues. We examine contemporary cases facing courts and legislatures and how cases have drawn on England's Magna Carta (1215), the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights (1789), the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and the Singapore Constitution's (1965) guarantee of "Fundamental Liberties" for all. Special attention is focused on rationales for Singapore's approach, sometimes referred to as "Singapore communitarianism," "authoritarian constitutionalism," or "illiberal democracy."