Date

Topic

 Reading Assignments

Writing assignments due

Jan. 11

Introductory Session -

None

None

Jan. 17

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"

Jan. 24

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

Brief selections from Nietzche's Genealogy of Morals (I'll send these before the weekend)

The whole book is online in a public domain (uncopyrighted) edition here: http://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/nietzsche/genealogytofc.html,

There is a version with a scholarly introduction, timeline, biographical notes, etc. here https://philosophy.ucsc.edu/news-events/colloquia-conferences/GeneologyofMorals.pdf

Optional, extra: Sabina Lovibond, “Selflessness and Other Moral Baggage” This essay tries to explain why, really, Nietzche is not your friend.

Jan 31

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. 7

Response paper

Feb 14

Response paper;

Feb. 21

Michael Sandel, Chapter on Rawls from his book Justice

Tom's notes on Rawls

John Rawls, we have two versions: A. selections from A Theory of Justice (scan from a textbook)

or B. selections from A Theory of Justice (revised edition -- bigger print, machine readable)

Try to read at least the sections called "The Main Idea of the Theory of Justice" and "The Original Position and Justification" (Pages 14-21 in the selections from the original edition [A]; Sections 3 and 4 in the revised edition [B])

Second priority: "The Reasoning Leading to the Two Principles" (A pages 35 -38; B Section 26)

Third Priority: "Two Principles of Justice", "Interpretations of the Second Principle", "Democratic Equality and the Difference Principle", "The Tendency to Equality" (A pages 24-35; B, Sections 11, 12, 13 and 17); [The ideas in these sections are pretty well explained in the Walzer chapter, though there are important further points in Rawls text. I have crossed out several parts that seem to me to be unnecessarily technical.]

Response paper

Feb. 28

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 6

First position paperdue Saturday, March 2 Sunday, March 10 by 12 noon.

March 13

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 20

Cedric Robinson, more from Black Marxism (Chapter 4 "The Process and Consequences of Africa's Transmutation")

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 27

Decolonizing Critical Theory

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

Response paper

April 3

Note: Some 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. "Introduction to Habermas' Discourse Ethics" by Robert Cavalier

2. Habermas, selections from "Discourse Ethics"

2. Please read just 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.]

3. A 30 minute video interview with Axel Honneth

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

Whoops. When I checked this link I disoverd that the article on Habermas in the SEP has been substantially rewritten and expanded since the last time I taught this class (two years ago). There is a better, longer, but perhaps more difficult section on discourse ethcis, but I can no longer describe it as brief.

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

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

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 10

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

Anthony Simon Laden, Reasoning a Social Picture, "Prologue" and Chapter 1 "The Initial Sketch"

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

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

Response paper

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

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