Philosophy Major and Minor

It is easy to see why admissions committees at law schools tend to favor philosophy majors. Perhaps more than anything else, law students and attorneys need to be skilled at evaluating the strength of arguments and counterarguments. And philosophy centers on a process in which we weigh arguments against counterarguments about various issues so as to reach truth or knowledge by figuring out which views we have the best reasons to adopt. Philosophy students learn to carry out this process with great rigor and sophistication.

Emphasizing all of this, one attorney said: “If you want to do well in law school, major in philosophy. Double major, if you want. But whatever you do, take a lot of philosophy classes.” Similarly, when asked what course of study she recommends first and foremost as pre-law training, another attorney replied: “That’s easy—philosophy. No question.” Still another lawyer put it this way:

If students aren’t used to analyzing argument after argument, they won’t succeed in law school. . . [In the study and practice of law, i]t’s not enough just to be able to craft a good argument of your own. You also have to be so familiar with argumentation that you can immediately spot the flaws in other people's arguments. That’s why philosophy courses are hands-down the best pre-law training. There are a lot of disciplines [in which] you’ll get some good practice at assessing arguments. But you’ll get the most practice, and the best practice, in philosophy.

The area of philosophy known as philosophy of law is of obvious importance for pre-law students. But so are other fields in philosophy, such as logic, which is the general science of inference. From the study of logic, students gain basic tools with which to distinguish good reasoning from poor reasoning. In order to have a complete set of tools and grow adept enough at using them, students will need to continue their study of philosophy during the undergraduate years. But the tools gained from a logic course are indispensable, and the study of logic is essential for any pre-law student.

Ethics and political philosophy, two other fields in philosophy, grapple with issues involving justice, fairness, duty and obligation, and the like. In turn, ethics and political philosophy reflect the very essence of law: foundational notions of right versus wrong, the proper interests of both individual and society, what people owe one another, the balance of rights they have, the basis for claiming a right, how disputes are to be settled with equity, when a law may defensibly be violated, and so on. Ethics and political philosophy are tightly linked with legal study.

Finally, since law is founded upon what humankind has concluded is known and knowable, pre-law students also do well to study the area of philosophy called epistemology, which concerns such issues as what knowledge is. But logic, ethics and political philosophy, and epistemology are just examples of fields in philosophy that are relevant. Pre-law students have a lot to gain from all of the philosophy courses offered at Seaver. All of the parties in a legal conflict have to provide compelling arguments in their defense. In a wide range of instances, law students and attorneys must ask whether the arguments that are offered are satisfactory. No other undergraduate students are better prepared to size up an argument than philosophy majors are.