Syllabus Instructor: Tom Atchison
Philosophy
Ethical
Inquiry
Summer
Semester 2006 home
phone: 612-728-9421
E-mail:
tomatchison@earthlink.com
The Elements of Moral Philosophy (4th ed.)by James Rachels
Applied Ethics in American
Society,
edited by Wilcox and Wilcox
Other
readings will be photocopied and handed out in class or will be made available
on the Internet. Some assignments for
this class will require access to the Internet – Metro State provides access in
its computer labs and library.
Please make
sure your
Please keep
copies of all the work you hand in.
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
Assignments
and Grading
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, questionable, 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. Expect that you will need to read the
assignments more than once to understand them adequately, and plan your time
accordingly.
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: 85% completed = A; 70% = B; 60% = C; 50% = D; less than 50% = 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 (from my web site), write out responses to the questions on
your own, and hand them in as soon as you can.
10% of your grade will be determined by the number of discussion
projects you complete satisfactorily (on the same schedule as the response
papers above.)
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. You will be
required to turn in a topic proposal and a rough draft before the final
draft. Please keep copies of all the
work you hand in.
We will have two one-hour, in-class exams, one in the middle and one at the end of the semester. Each exam will count for 15% of your grade.
Note: 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
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. I will give a grade of ‘F’ to any student
who submits plagiarized work for this course.
Date |
Topic(s) |
|
|
|
|
May
9 |
Introductory Session |
|
May
16 |
Reason, Relativism, Subjectivism, and Religion |
Rachels, Chapters 1-4 |
May
23 |
Egoism and feeding the hungry |
Rachels, Chapters 5-6; articles by Singer and Hardin, Applied Ethics, pp. 358-380 |
May
30 |
Utilitarianism: the basic idea and the example of Euthanasia |
Rachels, Chapter 7; articles by Rachels and Pellegrino, Applied Ethics, pp.166-183 |
June
6 |
Utilitarianism: Refinements |
Rachels, Chapter 8, selection from Mill in Applied
Ethics, pp.10-21 |
June
13 |
Kant and Hunger (again) |
Rachels, Chapter 9; Kant and Van Wyk in Applied Ethics,
pp. 22-33 and 381-390; Paper topic statement due |
June
20 |
Kant and Punishment |
Rachels, Chapter 10; Kant and Primoratz. in Applied Ethics, pp. 33-38 and 284-294; Exam 1 |
June
27 |
The Death Penalty |
Intro to chapter and articles by Bedau, Van den Haag and |
July
11 |
Social Contract Theory |
Rachels, Chapter 11; Rawls in Applied Ethics, pp.38-44; Handouts; Rough draft of position paper due |
July
18 |
Economic Justice |
Hospers and Govier in Applied Ethics, pp. 311-341 |
July
25 |
Abortion |
Intro. to chapter and articles by |
Aug.
1 |
Feminist Ethics |
Rachels Chapter 12; Sherwin, Mackenzie and Wolf-Devine in Applied Ethics, pp. 59-69, 120-133, 145-155 |
Aug.
8 |
Virtue Theory |
Rachels, Chapter 13, Foot in Applied Ethics, pp. 50-58; Position Papers due |
Aug. 15 |
Virtuous Sex |
Soble, “Philosophy of Sexuality,” (esp. sections 6-16) online here; Gastil,
in Applied Ethics pp. 569-579;
Reread Rachels, pp. 44-47 and 53-57; (Optional) Levin, in Applied Ethics pp. 665-674; Exam 2 |