Syllabus Instructor: Tom Atchison
Philosophy
301-02 3734 17th Ave. So.
Ethical
Inquiry Minneapolis, MN 55407
Spring
Semester 2003 612-728-9421
tomatchison@bigfoot.com
The
Elements of Moral Philosophy by James Rachels
Wilcox and Wilcox, Applied Ethics
in American Society
Supplemental articles-- photocopies
will be handed out in class at least one week before they are to be discussed.
This course will raise and consider several different kinds of
ethical questions:
First, some questions about
ethics: Is there such a thing as truth
in ethics? Or is it all just 'a matter
of opinion'? Can ethical questions be
answered through rational inquiry? Or
must they be approached in some other way (through religious faith or feeling
or intuition)? Is it important to have
ethical principles and to stick to them no matter what? How can we know if an ethical principle is
correct? (Is there really any such
thing as a correct ethical principle, or is it just a matter of deciding which
principles I am 'comfortable' with?)
Can rational inquiry in ethics lead to the development of an ethical theory
that explains or justifies our ethical judgments, perhaps by showing us how
they can be derived from some more basic ethical principle? (We will study several attempts to develop
such a theory.) Are the ethical
theories developed in the 'Western' philosophical tradition really as universal
and objective as they pretend to be, or do they express the particular interests
and limited points of view of the people who constructed them? (We will approach this question primarily by
studying a feminist perspective according to which traditional ethical theories
and discussions express a distinctively male perspective.)
Second, we'll examine what we might
call ethical issues: Do we have a duty to help those who are less
fortunate than ourselves and, if so, to what extent? Is it immoral for two people of the same gender to have sex with
one another? When, if ever, is it morally
acceptable to have an abortion or to end an ill or injured person's life? And
so on. Most of us have opinions about
questions like these and most of us have had at least some opportunity to think
about them and discuss them. Here, we
will try to see if the 'professional thinkers' have anything to offer us that
can help to settle these contentious issues, and we will explore how they are
approached from a variety of moral perspectives. In this process, we'll try to sharpen the skills we need to think
carefully about these issues for ourselves.
(Note: Some of these issues will be touched on, briefly, in the early
part of the course, as illustrations of the way different ethical theories can
be applied. In the latter part of the
course we will have time to consider some issues in more depth.)
I
cannot promise we will answer any of these questions to your satisfaction. They are, for the most part, very difficult
questions. What we can hope to do is to
learn something about how various historical and contemporary thinkers have
answered them, and to become somewhat more careful and critical in our own
efforts to answer them.
Conduct of the Course
Class time will be devoted largely to discussion, some in
small groups, some all together. I will
occasionally lecture, more often I will answer questions as they come up in
discussion, and even more often I will try to help you figure out how to answer
your questions yourself.
Much of our discussion will focus on understanding and
evaluating the texts. This will work
well only if you have done the assigned reading carefully -- often twice or
three times -- and given it some thought.
In philosophy we are interested not in the information that can be
extracted from a text, nor simply in the conclusions or opinions that an author
expresses; we are primarily interested in understanding and assessing the reasoning
that an author uses to try to establish or support those conclusions. This requires a very careful sort of
reading.
The point of reading these texts is
not only to understand what some great minds have produced. A guided tour through the Museum of Great
Ideas is a very good thing, but not the best thing that philosophy has to
offer. Better is the opportunity to
learn to think for yourself. The
readings provide models of careful and/or creative thinking, challenges to our
prejudices and assumptions, and starting points for our own reflections. But the only way to learn to philosophize is
to enter the conversation yourself. In
this way a course in philosophy is more like a course in drawing or sculpture
-- a studio art course -- than like a course in art history or art
appreciation. You can’t learn to draw
by just watching other people draw, and you can’t learn to do philosophy by
just listening and reading. You have to
express your views and expose them to other people’s critical reactions.
Assignments and Grading
Reading assignments
I expect you to
find time (several hours) to do the reading for each class and to come prepared
to discuss it. Come to class ready to
say what you found interesting, what you found confusing, silly, or just plain
wrong, what seemed to you to be the most important claims made, and what
arguments or justifications were offered for those claims.
20 % of your grade will be earned by submitting brief (a page or two, typed, double-spaced ) responses to the readings for each class. These must be turned in at the beginning of the class period to be counted. (If you must miss class, send in your response paper by e-mail.) They can contain questions, objections, observations and/or reactions to the reading for that class. Sometimes I will assign topics or questions. I will not grade these, but I will reject any that do not seem to be based on a reasonably conscientious reading of the assignment for that week. You can miss one of these and still earn an ‘A’ for this part of the course work, but missing more will be penalized on the following schedule: 90% completed = A; 80% = B; 70% = C; 60% = D; less than 60% = F. I will also notice and reward particularly perceptive or thoughtful response papers.
Class discussion
Most weeks we will have guided small group discussion
projects. The purpose of these projects
is to open discussion and to focus it on particular issues. They are also
intended to be "mini-labs" in which to practice the skills of careful
reading and evaluation of reasoning.
The projects are done in class in groups of 3-5 and take roughly
20-45 minutes to complete. Each group
should keep notes on its discussion, sign the notes and hand them in at the end
of each class session. Often groups
will also report orally on their discussions.
If you miss a discussion project, you should get hold of the
instructions, write out responses to the questions on your own, and hand them
in as soon as you can.
10% of your grade will also be determined by my
evaluation of the quality of your participation in class discussions. Just showing up and paying attention earns a
C for this component; occasionally making helpful contributions earns a B;
regularly making helpful contributions earns an A. Helpful contributions include: asking pertinent questions,
answering questions asked by the instructor or by other students, expressing
your views about the texts or topics we are discussing, responding (relevantly
and respectfully) to the views expressed by others.
Position Paper
You will be asked to write a (5-7 page) paper explaining and supporting your position on an
ethical issue or question. The
position paper will count for 30% of your grade. Please keep copies of all the work you hand in.
We will have two one-hour, in-class exams -- one at
mid-semester, one during the last class.
Each exam will count for 20% of your grade.
I
try hard to base my evaluation of your work on your understanding of the
reading, the quality of your reasoning and questioning, and the clarity and
effectiveness of your expression of your thoughts, not on whether I
agree with your ethical theories, ideas, or opinions.
Time
commitment outside of class
In accordance with Metropolitan
State University guidelines, I've designed this course with the expectation
that students will do 2-3 hours of course-related work outside of class for
every hour spent in class. In other
words, you should expect to spend 6-9 hours a week outside of class working on
this course.
Needed
reading and writing skills
Although there are no prerequisites
for this course, it is an upper-division course. This means I assume you have the following reading and writing
skills, and assignments are made with this expectation in mind:
Attendance
I do not require attendance per
se, but part of your grade is determined by discussion projects and
general class discussion. So, when you
are in class, contribute to the discussion and please be sure your name is on
your small group's discussion report and that the report gets turned in. When you miss a class, get the instructions
for the discussion project, write out answers on your own and turn them
in. I strongly advise regular
attendance (and prompt completion of missed discussion projects), because the
material in this course is relatively difficult and confusing, and few students
are able to do well on the exams and papers without the explanations and
practice provided in class.
All work submitted for this course
must be your own. Plagiarism is the
academic ‘sin’ of presenting someone else’s work as your own. It is plagiarism if you copy something
verbatim (word for word) from a published source, from the Internet, or from
another student. It is still plagiarism
if you rearrange, paraphrase, condense, or summarize someone else’s work
without making clear to your reader what is your contribution and what is taken
from your source. If the exact wording comes from your source, then use
quotation marks. If the idea comes from
someone else, give him or her credit for it. The way to do this is to cite
your sources. There is a clear and
detailed explanation of various forms of plagiarism and of proper citation
practices at http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~tales/02-1/plagiarism.html. There is a brief discussion of plagiarism in
the conduct code section of the University’s Student Handbook at http://www.metrostate.edu/handbook/academicprog.html. Scroll down to the end of the document for
the section on plagiarism. I will
give a grade of ‘F’ to any student who submits plagiarized work for this
course.