Date

Topic

 Reading Assignments

Writing assignments due

Jan. 12

Introductory Session

None

Jan. 19

Jan. 26

Karl Marx, Two passages from The German Ideology

Phil Gasper, "Marxism, Morality, and Human Nature"

Jeffrey Reiman, "The Critique of Capitalism and the Problem of Ideology" [Read for sure the secton called "Ideology and the Marxian Critique of Morality," which starts on page 158 (page 9 of the pdf). Read the other sections of the article if you have time and interest.]

Optional, extra articles:

Michael Rosen, "The Marxist Critique of Morality and the Theory of Ideology";

Steven Lukes, "Marx and Morality: Reflections on the Revolutions of 1989"

Sean Sayers, "Marxism and Morality"

Feb. 2

Nietzsche, Preface and First Essay from The Genealogy of Morality;

Jesse Prinz, "Genealogies of Morals: Nietzsche's Method Compared" (requres star ID login)

Optional, extra : Sabina Lovibond, “Selflessness and Other Moral Baggage”

Response paper

Feb. 9

Decolonial critique of European Morality

1. John Stuart Mill, brief excerpt from On Liberty, liberty not for barbarians. (To illustrate the tendency of canonical philosophers to make an exception from their general principles for colonized peoples.)

2. Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism

3. Two selections from Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth:

a. Opening pages
b. Conclusion

[The whole book is available here if you want to read more.]

Optional extras:

Albert Memmi. 1965 preface to The Colonizer and the Colonized

Albert Memmi, "Situations of the Colonized"

Franz Fanon, "The Lived Experience of the Black Man" (Chapter 5 of Black Skin, White Masks) -- This pdf is a bit blurry in my browser window, but it looks fine if you download the file and read it in a pdf reader like Adobe Acrobat.

Sandra Bartky, "On Psychological Oppression"

Response paper

Feb 16

Response paper;

Feb. 23

Rawls, selections from A Theory of Justice (Read the whole thing if you can. If not, at least try to get through the section that ends on page 38.)

Tom's notes on Rawls

Response paper

March 2

Charles Mills, "Rawls on Race/Race in Rawls"

Susan Okin, "Justice and Gender" -- Just read the first part (PDF pages 1- 12) and the last part (pp. 24-32). You can skip the middle section about Michael Walzer's theory)

Response paper;

March 9

First position paper due Monday, March 7, by 10 am due Monday, March 14 by 10 am.

March 16

Cedric Robinson, Selections from Black Marxism .

Optional extra: You might also want to read this remembrance of Robinson, published shortly after his death in 2016, by Robin D.G. Kelley:  https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/17/cedric-j-robinson-the-making-of-a-black-radical-intellectual/

March 23

Cedric Robinson, more from Black Marxism (Chapters on W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James, and Richard Wright)

If you want to delve further into Robinson’s book, now or later, the whole thing is online here: 
https://libcom.org/files/Black%20Marxism-Cedric%20J.%20Robinson.pdf

Response paper;

March 30

Decolonizing Critical Theory

1. Amy Allen, “Adorno, Foucault, and the End of Progress: Critical Theory in Postcolonial Times” and

Response paper

April 6

Note: All of the required readings for this week are available through our University library: if you use the links below, you will need to enter your Star ID and password to get to the article or video.

1. Two sections of this article by Joseph Heath, "Rebooting Discourse Ethics" Read the sections called "Discourse Ethics: The Background" and "Discourse Ethics: The Original Formulation." (pp. 832-845 in the pdf version)
[Note: The overall purpose of the article is to argue that Habermas's views changed for the worse from the 1980's into the 1990's, but along the way Heath offers the clearest account of Habermas's "Discourse Ethics" that I have been able to find.]

2. A 30 minute video interview with Axel Honneth:

3. Rainer Forst, "The Ground of Critique: On the concept of Human dignity in Social Orders of Justification"

Optional extras:

A brief section of the Stanford Encyclopedia article on Habermas.  The link will take you to the beginning of the section.  Stop when you get to the heading “Habermas's discourse theory of law and politics.”   https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/#HabDisTheMorPolLaw

Habermas, selections from "Discourse Ethics";

Thomas McCarthy, "Introduction" to Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action by Habermas

An interesting, but longer version of Forst's view is The Basic Right to Justification: Toward a Constructivist Conception of Human Rights

Video overview of Frankfurt School critical theory, with a focus in the second half (of the half hour film) on the critique of the culture industry. 

April 13

Amy Allen, "Conclusion: Truth, Reason, and History" from The End of Progress;

Optional: Rahel Jaeggi, “"Resistance to the Perpetual Danger of Relapse": Moral Progress and Social Change"

Response paper; second paper instructions handed out

Elizabeth Anderson, selections from Value in Ethics and Economics, Preface and first 25 pages

Optional: Michael Williams, "Wittgensteinian Contextualism is not Relativism" (Requires Metro State library log-in)

Response paper

Elizabeth Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, Chapter 5, “Criticism, Justification, and Common Sense”

Optional: Anthony Simon Laden, Reasoning a Social Picture, Chapter 5, “Reasoning as Responsive Conversation”