GENED 1200: Justice: Ethical Reasoning in Polarized Times

Fall semester 2024

Tuesday, 9:45-11:45am, Sanders Theatre, and weekly discussion sections

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Frequent Requests and whom to contact: 

• "I need to miss lecture or section": Contact ONLY your section leader
  • Absences will be excused in the case of: family emergency, illness or injury with a note from a doctor, religious holidays and observances, and varsity sporting events with a note from a coach.
• "I was unable to complete the Rapid Response during course time": Contact ONLY your section leader
  • If you were in class but the WiFi / Canvas glitched before you were able to submit it, you can email your RR to your section leader. These are meant to capture initial thoughts, not fully polished arguments, so you should have plenty of time to finish during lecture! 
• "I need an extension for a paper": Contact Soren Dudley with your section leader cc'd.
• "I'd like to bring my friend / parent / a visitor to lecture": Contact Roshni Chakraborty
  • Some visitors are occasionally allowed but please get approval first! Space in Sanders Theater is tight, and we need to know who is coming on a given day so we can plan accordingly.

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Head Teaching Fellows Contact Info:

Soren Dudley, sdudley@g.harvard.edu, Head Teaching Fellow. 

(For questions related to grading and extensions, please email only Soren and CC your section TF)

Roshni Chakraborty, rchakraborty@jd25.law.harvard.edu, Head Teaching Fellow.

(For requesting visitor permission, please email only Roshni )

Brian Palmiter, palmiter@g.harvard.edu, Head Teaching Fellow.

(For any other questions, please email only Brian and CC your section TF where appropriate) 

 

Teaching Staff: Bios and Office Hours 

The bios and office hours of the other Teaching Fellows are available here. 

 

Welcome to Justice

Fall semester 2024 brings the return of the in-person version of Justice for the first time in over a decade.  Some of you may have seen all or part of the course online, where the classic version is freely available.  This fall, in support of Harvard’s initiative on civil discourse, Justice will re-launch in a new version. 

The online version gives you a sense of the interactive way the course proceeds. A four-minute trailer is available here.

 

But watching online is not the same as joining in-person and being part of the discussion. And this semester’s version of Justice takes up new issues and controversies.

 

Then and Now 

The aims of the course remain unchanged: 

• Prompting reflection on the hard ethical questions we face, as citizens and human beings
• Cultivating the ability to reason together across our differences
• Examining the philosophical ideas—of justice, rights, virtue, and the common good--that lie just beneath the surface of our most contentious public debates

What’s new are some of the moral and political controversies we will discuss.  For example:

The ethics of AI

• Should predictive algorithms be used to decide who should be hired, or get a loan, or receive parole?
• Can tech help us find love? Can a robot be a friend? Will AI change the meaning of friendship, companionship, and intimacy? If so, for better or worse? 

Climate change

• If a country, or a company (or a university), achieves carbon neutrality by buying carbon offsets, rather than by reducing its own emissions, has it met its responsibility to alleviate climate change?

Immigration

• What is the moral significance of national borders?
• Is it unjust for rich countries to limit the entry of immigrants seeking greater economic opportunities? If countries have the right to limit immigration, what should be the grounds of admission?  

Markets, money, and merit

• Does Taylor Swift deserve to make 5,000-times more money than your best high school teacher? Does Elon Musk?

Affirmative action

• Was the U.S. Supreme Court right or wrong to rule that Harvard may not consider race as a factor in admissions? Should legacy status be a factor in admission?  What about class background, first generation status, or coming from an underrepresented part of the country?

Reparations

• Do we have a duty to redress wrongs committed by our country in the past? If so, does this mean that I am morally responsible for injustices committed by my great-grandparents?

Ethics and biotech

• Should CRISPR (gene-editing) be used only for medical purposes—to cure or prevent disease—or should it also be used to engineer taller, stronger, or smarter children? Do parents have an obligation to use genetic technologies, provided they are safe, to enhance the cognitive abilities of their children?

Free speech, hate speech

• Should people be free to say whatever they want, provided their speech does not incite violence or cause physical harm? Should hate speech be restricted?  If so, on what grounds?

 

Readings

Primary course readings will be drawn from the following philosophical texts:

Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Ch. I, IV.

John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1861)

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971)

Ch. I (sec. 1-6)

Ch. II (sec. 11-13, 17)

Ch. III (sec. 20, 24)

Ch. V (sec. 48)

Ch. VII (sec. 68)        

Aristotle, The Politics, Books I and III (Ch. 1-13)

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Books II (Ch. 1-3) and X (Ch. 1-3).

In addition, we will read articles on contemporary issues that raise philosophical questions.

 

 

Course Schedule

 

Week 1 (September 3): What's the Right Thing to Do? 

Pre-crime; robot companions; “earning to give”

If you want to do the most you can to improve medical care in the developing world, which of these paths should you pursue:  Become a physician and work for Doctors Without Borders, or work for a hedge fund and donate $100 million to Doctors Without Borders?

• What is “earning to give”? What are the strongest arguments for and against it?
• How does “earning to give” reflect utilitarian ethics?
• If Sam Bankman-Fried’s charitable contributions did more good than his FTX bankruptcy and fraud did harm, would you conclude that his FTX scheme was morally justified?

Peter Singer, “The Logic of Effective Altruism,” Boston Review, 2015.

Catherine Tumber, “Effective altruism is a counterpart to global market fundamentalism,” Boston Review, 2015.

Angus Deaton, “In Rwanda, the utilitarian calculus is used against the people,”  Boston Review, 2015.

William Macaskill, “To save the world, don’t get a job at a charity; go work on Wall Street,” Quartz, Feb. 27, 2013.

Dylan Matthews, “Join Wall Street. Save the world.” Download “Join Wall Street. Save the world.” Washington Post, May 31, 2013.

“Sam Bankman-Fried: CEO of FTX pursuing earning to give,” Download “Sam Bankman-Fried: CEO of FTX pursuing earning to give,”80,000 hours (EA website), October 2014, updated March 2021.

Clive Crook, “Effective Altruism Is as Bankrupt as Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX,” Download “Effective Altruism Is as Bankrupt as Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX,” Bloomberg, Oct. 18, 2023

 

Week 2 (September 10): Utilitarianism – Jeremy Bentham 

What is Jeremy Bentham’s principle of utility? Is it always right to do whatever maximizes utility?  How does Bentham’s proposal to improve “pauper management” illustrate his utilitarian philosophy? 

Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. I, IV

Jeremy Bentham, “Pauper Management Improved” (excerpts)

Consider the “High Tech Panopticon” system of surveillance proposed by Nick Bostrom.  If easy access to a destructive technology threatened the survival of the world, would ubiquitous real-time surveillance and predictive policing be justified?

Nick Bostrom, “The Vulnerable World Hypothesis” (excerpt)

 

Week 3 (September 17):  Utilitarianism – John Stuart Mill

How does John Stuart Mill’s version of utilitarianism differ from Bentham’s?  Does Mill successfully defend utilitarianism against the strongest objections raised against it?

Does Mill offer a convincing justification for individual rights?  On what basis does Mill distinguish higher pleasures from lower ones? Do you find his argument convincing? If not, do you reject the notion that some pleasures are qualitatively higher than others, or do you account for the distinction in some other way?

John S. Mill, Utilitarianism

 

Week 4 (September 24): Libertarianism

What is liberty? Do certain individual rights take priority over utilitarian considerations? Do such rights limit what laws the state may enact? 

Part I:

Does redistributive taxation violate the right of the wealthy to do what they want with their own money? Is taxation of earnings from labor on a par with forced labor? What is the “limitarian” case for taxing the wealthy?  Is it persuasive?

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, pp. ix, 32-33, 150-153, 160-163, 169-172.

Frederick A. Hayek, “Equality, Value, and Merit,” ch. 6 in The Constitution of Liberty (1960).

Ingrid Robeyns, “No billionaires? Please. No one needs over $20 million; Societies should set a cap on extreme wealth,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 29, 2024.

Ingrid Robeyns, “What, if Anything, is Wrong with Extreme Wealth?” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2019.

Part II:

Beyond taxation, what are implications of the right to liberty for personal choice?  Does the right to choose what to do with one's own body imply that the state may not (a) prohibit abortion, (b) prohibit selling one's kidney or other body parts, (c) prohibit drug use?

Ilya Somin, "Broader Implications of 'My Body, My Choice,'" Reason, May 10, 2019.

 

Week 5 (October 1): Markets and morals I: Freedom of choice and the ethics of consent

What are the moral limits, if any, of the freedom to choose what to do with our own bodies? Should it be legal to buy and sell human organs?  Should the law prohibit certain risky or arguably degrading forms of employment, such as “guinea-pigging,” and “dwarf-tossing,” or do such prohibitions violate people's right to engage in the work of their choice?  Should commercial surrogacy be legally permitted?  Should government prevent social media companies from commodifying our privacy and attention?

 

Selling kidneys; guinea-pigging; dwarf-tossing

Richard A. Epstein, “The Market Has a Heart,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 21, 2002

Gregory Mankiw, "The Kidney Shortage", May 15, 2006

Carl Elliott, “Guinea-Pigging,” The New Yorker, January 7, 2008

Cari Romm, “The Life of a Professional Guinea Pig,” The Atlantic, Sept. 23, 2015

Scott Nover, “How a Trump judicial nominee reignited the debate over dwarf tossing,” Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2019.

Neomi Rao, “Substantive Dignity: Dwarf-throwing, Burqa Bans, and Welfare Rights,” in Volkh.com, excerpted from Rao, Three Concepts of Dignity in Constitutional Law, 86 Notre Dame Law Review 183 (2011).

 

Surrogacy

Should commercial surrogacy be permitted?  Should surrogacy contracts be legally enforceable?  Does banning commercial surrogacy violate the right of women to decide what to do with their own bodies?

Elizabeth Anderson, “Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?” Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter, 1990), pp. 71-92.

Alexandra Holmstrom-Smith, “Free Market Feminism:  Re-reconsidering Surrogacy,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change, Volume 24, Number 3 (2021), excerpt.

 

Social media and the commodification of privacy and attention

Would you favor a ban on targeted online advertising, even if this meant you had to pay a subscription fee to access social media platforms?   Would such a ban deprive you, in effect, of the freedom to sell your privacy and attention in exchange for free access to social media?

Zeynep Tufekci, “We Need to Take Back Our Privacy,” New York Times, May 19, 2022.

Ash Johnson, “Banning Targeted Ads Would Sink the Internet Economy,” Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Jan. 20, 2022

Johann Hari, Stolen Focus : Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again (2022), pp. 156-165. 

 

Week 6 (October 8):  Libertarianism v. limitarianism; Kant

This week’s lecture will consist of two parts.  Part I will be an online debate between Professor Ingrid Robeyns, proponent of limitarianism, and Professor John Tomasi, proponent of a version of libertarianism. Part II will begin our study of Immanuel Kant.

 

Part I:  Limitarianism v. libertarianism

Readings:  Please reread the two articles by Ingrid Robeyns from Week 4 and John Tomasi’s article, “Economic Liberties and Human Rights”.

 

Part II:  Kant and the motive of duty

“If any action is to be morally good, it is not enough that it should conform to the moral law—it must also be done for the sake of the moral law.”  (Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals)

What does Kant mean by this?  Can you illustrate with an example?  What is the difference, according to Kant, between acting out of inclination and acting out of duty?

Reading:  Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ch. I

 

Week 7 (October 15):  Kant:  What is freedom?

What, according to Kant, is the supreme principle of morality?  Why must it take the form of a “categorical imperative”?  What does Kant’s categorical imperative require of us?  Why does Kant conceive freedom as autonomy?  Why does he hold that acting morally and acting freely are one and the same?  Is he right?

Readings: 

Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ch. II-III.

Kant, On A Supposed Right to Lie (1797) 

Kant, Duties to the Body in Respect of Sexual Impulse 

 

Week 8 (Oct. 22):  John Rawls:  Is inequality unjust?
 
Why, according to John Rawls, should we reason about justice from behind a “veil of ignorance”?  What principles of justice does he think we would choose if we reasoned in this way?  Do you find these principles persuasive?

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971)

Ch. I (sec. 1-6)
Ch. II (sec. 11-13, 17)
Ch. III (sec. 20, 24)
Ch. V (sec. 48)
Ch. VII (sec. 68)

 

Week 9 (Oct. 29):  Merit, luck, and moral desert
 
Should income and wealth be distributed according to merit and deservingness?  On what grounds do John Rawls and Frederick Hayek reject merit as the basis of distributive justice? Do you agree with them?  Is meritocracy a remedy for inequality or a way of justifying inequality?

N. Gregory Mankiw, “Spreading the Wealth Around: Reflections Inspired by Joe the Plumber,” Eastern Economic Journal, 2010. (excerpt)

Re-read (from Week 8) John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, sections 11, 12, 17, 48

Re-read (from Week 4) Frederick A. Hayek, ch. 6 in The Constitution of Liberty (1960).

Michael J. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit, pp. 113-140.
 

Week 10 (Nov. 5):  Affirmative action in university admissions

 

Should race be a factor in university admissions?  What about legacy status, athletic ability, and geographical diversity?  Is affirmative action at odds with admission based on merit?  In what sense, if any, is college admission a matter of moral desert?  What are the strengths and weaknesses of the diversity rationale for affirmative action?

Readings

Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (excerpts), U.S. Supreme Court (2023)

Chief Justice Roberts, Opinion of the Court, pp. 1-3, 15-22, 27-34, 39-40.
Justice Thomas, concurring, pp. 1-2, 22-42, 45-49, 58.
Justice Sotomayor, dissenting, pp. 12, 17-25, 38-51, 68-69.
Justice Jackson, dissenting, pp. 1-29.

Randall Kennedy, For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law, Introduction, chapter 2.

Randall Kennedy, “The Race-Neutral Delusion,” London Review of Books, August 10, 2024.

Elizabeth Anderson, The Imperative of Integration, ch. 7 (Understanding Affirmative Action).

John McWhorter, “Stop Making Asian Americans Pay the Price for Campus Diversity,” New York Times, Sept. 23, 2022.

John McWhorter, “Harvard, Brown and Other Top Schools Are Thinking About Black Freshmen the Wrong Way,” New York Times, Sept. 12, 2024.

Kimberly Reyes, “Affirmative Action Shouldn’t Be About Diversity,” The Atlantic, Dec. 27, 2018.

Robin Levinson King, Harvard under fire for helping elite skip the queue, BBC News, Nov. 25, 2023.

Optional readings:

Profiles of our guest speakers, Professor Randall Kennedy (Harvard Law School) and Professor Elizabeth Anderson (University of Michigan):

Craig Lambert, “Black, White, and Many Shades of Gray,” Harvard Magazine, May-June 2013. 

Nathan Heller, “The Philosopher Redefining Equality,” The New Yorker, Dec. 31, 2018.

 

Week 11 (Nov. 12):   Aristotle:  Justice, virtue, and the good life

Why, according to Aristotle, does reasoning about justice require reasoning about the telos, or purpose, of social practices and institutions?  Is teleological thinking at odds with individual freedom and the right to choose one’s ends for oneself?  Why does Aristotle believe we can only realize our nature in a certain kind of political community?  Is he right?

 

Aristotle, The Politics, Book I, ch. 1-2; Book III, ch. 9-13

Michael Sandel, An introduction to Aristotle, BBC (7-minute video)

 

How does Aristotle distinguish between pleasure and happiness? 

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, ch. 1-3, and Book X, ch. 1-3 

Case study 1: Employment discrimination:  Racism, sexism, “lookism”

Can employment discrimination be justified on grounds of satisfying the preferences of customers?  Does it make a difference whether the discrimination involves race, gender, or physical appearance?  Are some consumer preferences morally illegitimate for a business to serve?  Is it possible to determine what constitutes unjust employment discrimination without inquiring into the essential nature or purpose of the business?

Steven Greenhouse, “Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination,” New York Times, July 1, 2003.
Robert Barro, “So You Want to Hire the Beautiful. Well, Why Not?,” Business Week, Mar. 16, 1998.
Karyn Spellman, “Hooters guys? No way...,” The Boston Globe, November 16, 1995.

Case study 2:  Accommodating disability in sports

Should a golfer with a disability be allowed to use a golf cart in professional tournaments? What light does this case shed on Aristotle’s way of thinking about justice?

Bob Ryan, “Sorry, Free Rides Not Right,” Boston Globe, Jan. 31, 1998.
Tom Kite, “Keep the PGA on Foot,” New York Times, Feb. 2, 1998.
PGA Tour, Inc., v. Casey Martin (2001), excerpts from Justice Stevens’ opinion of the Court and Justice Scalia’s dissent.

 

Week 12 (Nov. 19):  Justice and rights:  Moral and legal reasoning

In deciding cases that involve controversies about justice and rights--such as affirmative action, free speech, and same-sex marriage--do judges necessarily draw upon moral reasoning?  Is it possible for law in these domains to be neutral toward the purposes and ends rights protect?

Guest speakers

Ketanji Brown Jackson, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States

Margaret Marshall, former Chief Justice, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (1999-2010)

Readings

Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, U.S. Supreme Court (2024), Justice Jackson dissent.

Erica Green, “At Harvard, a Confederate Flag Spurred Ketanji Brown Jackson to Act,” New York Times, March 20, 2022.

Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (2003), Chief Justice Margaret Marshall opinion.

Michael Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, pp. 151-160.

 

Week 13 (Nov. 26):  Markets and Morals II:   Immigration and climate change

Part 1: Immigration, refugees, and citizenship 

Should countries sell the right to immigrate?  What are the best arguments for and against a system of tradable obligations to admit refugees? 

Gary Becker and Edward Lazear, “A Market Solution to Immigration Reform,” Wall Street Journal, Mar. 2, 2013.

Gary Becker, “Sell the right to immigrate”, The Becker-Posner Blog, Feb 21, 2005.

“The Best Citizenship and Golden Visa Programs for 2018, Corpocrat Magazine, May 16, 2018.

Peter Schuck, "Creating a Market for Refugees in Europe" New York Times, June 9, 2015 

Paul Thompson, “Inside the only village in Europe where immigrants are banned,” Daily Mail (UK), 27 May 2016.

Part 2: How to value nature?:  Environmental protection and climate change

Is it wrong to buy the right to shoot an endangered species, even if doing so will help fund wildlife conservation? What are the best arguments for and against a global market in pollution credits that countries can buy and sell?  Does the use of  “carbon offsets” erode the norms that support environmental protection?  

Richard Conniff, “A Trophy Hunt That’s Good for Rhinos,” N.Y. Times, Jan. 20, 2014

C.J. Chivers, “A Big Game,” N.Y. Times Magazine, August 25, 2002 

Hiroko Tabuchi, "Switzerland is Paying Poor Nations to Cut Emissions for It,". New York Times, Nov. 8, 2022.

Don J. Melnick, et al., “Make Forests Pay: A Carbon Offset Market for Trees,” NY Times, Jan. 19, 2015.

Michael Sandel, “It’s Immoral to Buy the Right to Pollute,” New York Times, December 15, 1997, and replies by Steven Shavell, Robert Stavins, Sanford Gaines, and Eric Maskin, New York Times, December 17, 1997.

Pope Francis, ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’: ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME, 2015

Joseph Heath, “Pope Francis’ Climate Error,” New York Times, June 19, 2015.

 

Week 14 (December 3):  Justice and the good life

Part 1: Justice as neutrality?

Should we seek principles of justice and rights that are neutral toward competing conceptions of the good life?  What does MacIntyre mean when he writes that "the unity of a human life is the unity of a narrative quest" with a "certain teleological character"?  How does his conception of the self differ from that of Rawls?

Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, ch. 9 (excerpt)

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, ch. 15 (excerpt)

Part 2: Meritocracy and the good life

Does meritocratic competition cultivate attitudes and habits that are at odds with a good life?

Michael J. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit, ch. 6 (excerpt)

 

Course format

The course meets once a week for a two-hour interactive lecture with discussion, plus weekly discussion sections.  To promote ongoing discussion of course topics outside of class, we offer a number of sections in the houses, to be followed by informal conversation over dinner.

 

Course requirements and grade components 

• Lecture attendance and posting of "rapid responses" (200-250 words), written in-class, responding to prompts to be presented during lecture: 20% of course grade
• Section attendance and participation: 20% of course grade
• Two persuasive essays (1250-1500 words) that advance a well-reasoned argument on a choice of topics to be assigned: 30% of course grade
• Final exam: 30% of course grade

 

Course Policies 

 

Extension policy 

To request an extension on any assignments, please email Soren (sdudley@g.harvard.edu) and CC your Section TF with the reason and corresponding documentation. 

 

Absence Policy 

Absences will affect your lecture and section attendance grades unless they are excused. If your reason for missing the class meets the requirements below, you must submit a 500 word response paper to have your absence excused. 

Lecture: Every student gets one unexcused absence from lecture, not section, during the semester. You may use this for any personal or professional events that come up. Any other absences will affect your grade unless you email your section TF with documentation showing a medical emergency. If there is an unavoidable / emergency reason for your absence for which you do not have documentation (e.g., a family emergency, you are away participating in varsity sports, a religious holiday) please CC the Resident Dean of your House. You will not be excused for personal and professional events. 

Section: You must email your section TF with documentation or CC your Resident Dean for situations where you can't provide documentation prior to the section you missed in order to have the absence excused. 

 

Academic Integrity Policies 

Members of the Harvard College community commit themselves to producing academic work of integrity – that is, work that adheres to the scholarly and intellectual standards of accurate attribution of sources, appropriate collection and use of data, and transparent acknowledgement of the contribution of others to their ideas, discoveries, interpretations, and conclusions. Cheating on exams or problem sets, plagiarizing or misrepresenting the ideas or language of someone else as one’s own, falsifying data, or any other instance of academic dishonesty violates the standards of our community, as well as the standards of the wider world of learning and affairs. 

• The Harvard College Honor Code
• Academic Integrity in the Harvard College Handbook
• Harvard Guide for Using Sources

 

Collaboration Policy

Students are strongly encouraged to discuss their papers with one another. This is a good way of testing your arguments and anticipating possible objections. The best papers typically result from sustained discussion with classmates and others.  You should make sure, however, that your written work is your own.  Please indicate, in footnotes, or informally in the text, or in a separate acknowledgement statement, the names of those with whom you have discussed any ideas, arguments, or insights that figure prominently in your paper. 

 

Policy for the Use of AI

The use of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools such as ChatGPT is not permitted for course assignments. A primary goal of the course is to enable students to develop their ability to engage in ethical reasoning, to formulate clear and persuasive moral arguments, and reflect critically on their own convictions. The rapid response questions and course essays are designed to give students experience in evaluating and advancing moral arguments and to think for themselves.  Relying on GAI tools would not advance these educational goals.  

Violations of this policy will be considered academic misconduct. We draw your attention to the fact that different classes at Harvard implement different AI policies, and it is the student’s responsibility to conform to expectations for each course. 

 

 

Enrollment cap, Gen Ed lottery process

This course has an enrollment cap and is a part of the coordinated, ranked-choice Gen Ed lottery. For all questions about the lottery please email gened_enrollment@fas.harvard.edu not the instructional staff of this course. This course has seats reserved for incoming students that can be claimed through the lottery. The lottery for returning students took place during April registration. 

 

The lottery for incoming students will take place on Aug 21. Please make sure to submit your petitions and rank them by Aug 20 at 11:59pm EST. It is essential that you rank petitions, even if you are petitioning just one course. If you are successful in the lottery, your course petition in your Crimson Cart will turn to a green check that allows you to enroll. You then have until 11:59pm on Aug 26 to claim your seat. After this date instructors can begin approving petitions until the course cap is reached. For timely updates and detailed instructions about entering the Gen Ed lottery, please see https://gened.college.harvard.edu/courses/registration-and-lottery/.

 

Enrollment note: If you are getting an error message saying the course is full, it could mean your section is full. If you are having trouble picking a different section, please remove the course from your cart and add it back in (this will retain the approved petition). That will allow you to select an available section with open seats. If no seats are available in timed sections, then please select the untimed placeholder section.

 

If you are still encountering difficulties enrolling, please contact Duncan White, Associate Director, Gen Ed. 

 

Whom is this course primarily designed for?

The course is open to all Harvard undergraduates.

When is the course typically offered? 

The course will be offered in fall semester 2024, and will not be offered the following academic year.

 

Auditor Policy