Philosophy 1140-05 - Ethics Office
Hours: M, W, F 10:20-11:20
Spring Semester 2004 Office: LC143S; Phone: 2604
Professor
Tom Atchison Email: tatchison@gw.hamline.edu
Course Materials
The following books are (or will be) available at the
bookstore: Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics; John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism;
Wilcox and Wilcox, Applied Ethics in American Society. Other course readings will be
photocopied. They will be handed out in
class at least a week before they are to be discussed. Please bring the text to be discussed to
class with you every time.
Class website: I maintain a simple website where I post course handouts and
information. The URL is http://www.woldww.net/classes/
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.
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 struggling with these difficult 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 texts
can serve as models of careful and/or creative thinking, as challenges to our
prejudices and assumptions, and as 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 (an hour or two) 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 (1/4-1/2 of a double-spaced, typed page, perhaps just a few sentences) responses to the readings for each class. These must be turned in at the beginning of the class period to be counted. They can contain questions, objections, observations and/or reactions to the reading for that class. 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 day. You can miss a few of these and still earn an ‘A’ for this part of the course work, but missing more than a few will be penalized on the following schedule: 85% completed = A; 70% = B; 55% = C; 40% = D; less than 40% = F. I will also notice and reward particularly perceptive or thoughtful response papers.
Class discussion
Occasionally 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
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.
Essays
You will be asked to write two short (3-5 page) essays
during the semester. Each paper will
count for 17% 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 scheduled final exam period. Each exam will count for 17% of your
grade. Exam questions will be selected
(by me) from a list I will hand out in advance.
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.