Law, Ethics, and Society

Divisional Home: Division V

Minor Advisor:  Dan Huck

The Law Ethics, and Society [LES] divisional minor provides opportunities for coherent, disciplined, and multi-disciplinary study of law that is rooted in the liberal arts and the aims of liberal learning.  Paramount purposes include students developing careful, normative understandings of law, justice, and society, both in the United States and internationally.  This approach aims to supplement and complement students’ major disciplinary study, whether they are preparing to enter graduate study or the world of work beyond Berea.

The LES minor explores law as an enterprise in which moral argument, distinctive practices of interpretation and reasoning, and coercive force are employed to structure society, address conflicts, effect social change, and engage social, political, ethical/moral, and economic issues that arise for institutions, organizations, and people. The LES minor offerings rely on legal and other materials to explore questions that are both theoretical and practical/applied; that affect both public and private life; that involve quandaries about justice and injustice; that address tensions between liberty and authority, community and individual, process and outcome; and, that engage matters of proper interpretation and reasoning in and about law.

The Law Ethics and Society minor consists of five (5) full-credit courses: one (1) required core course -- LES 215: Law, Ethnics, and Society -- and four (4) distribution courses.  One (1) of the required distribution courses must be taken from the "Structures of Law" list, and one (1) required distribution course must be taken from the "Law and Ethics" list (see below).  Beyond these three (3) required courses (LES 215, plus one "Structures of Law" and one "Law and Ethics"), students can choose their additional two (2) courses from any of the three lists of courses below.  No more than two (2) courses from the same departmental rubric (e.g., PSC, SOC, etc.) can be used to satisfy the overall requirement of successfully passing five (5) courses for the LES minor.  Students should strongly consider taking the LES 215 course as a first foundational course in the LES sequence before completing all other courses required for the minor.

To earn the minor in Law, Ethics, and Society, a student must pass five (5) courses as follows:

• LES 215: Law, Ethics, and Society;
• at least one (1) course from the "Structures of Law" list below;
• at least one (1) course from the "Law and Ethics" list below; and;
• two (2) additional courses from any of the three (3) lists below ("Structures of Law", "Law and Ethics", or "Additional courses").
• however, in no case may two (2) courses using the same departmental rubric (e.g., PSC, SOC, etc.) be applied toward earning the LES minor