Contents of Course Packet

General Course Handouts

6. Philosophy Minors for different Majors

Handouts on Ethical Theories

Readings (outside of the textbooks)
18. Jonathan Lear, "Ethics and the Organization of Desire"
19. Joel Feinberg, "Psychological Egoism"
20. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue ch.14-15
21. Peter Singer, "Morality, Egoism, and Prisoner's Dilemma"
22. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (selection)
23. Bernard Williams, "A Critique of Utilitarianism"
24. Annette Baier, "Trust and Antitrust"

Philosophical Ethics (PHLU 1100-01 & 1100-02)

Instructor: John Davenport

Summer 2000 Seesion II (July)

Phone: 636-7928

Email: Davenport@fordham.edu

Office: Rm.923E; Box: Rm 914

Office Hours: Most days, I will be in one hour before class on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday nights. I must leave promptly after class is over however. I'm in Rm. 923E.

The idea of Ethics: Ethics concerns problems and questions we inevitably encounter in trying to live worthwhile and decent lives. We make decisions about our actions, our attitudes towards others, our long-term commitments, our jobs, our families, our political values. Whether we realize it or not, we all make moral judgments and operate with an implicit set of values, along with some notion of what ought and ought not to be done, and a sense (however inarticulate) of what matters.

Philosophical ethics is the systematic attempt to articulate these views and make sense of the principles underlying them. Many of the most famous writers in the history of human culture have sought to explain the moral perspective, to uncover objective bases or foundations for the values we use in deciding how to live, what actions to praise and blame, and which institutions to foster. In the process, they have raised questions that are fundamental to human life:

-- is there an objective difference between right and wrong, good and evil?

-- what is worth living for? what is worth caring about?

-- what is true human happiness? why not simply do whatever I enjoy most?

-- do the interests of others limit what I may legitimately do in pursuing my chosen goals?

-- are human beings egoists, inherently self-interested, or can we select and alter our goals in light of criteria that concern other interests than our own well-being?

-- what arrangements are just and unjust in social life?

-- does religion provide the basis for ethics, or is morality independent of faith?

Many people assume that the answers to these questions must be mere matters of opinion, or sheer personal preference, like preferring blue to red, but none of the most famous writers on ethics in history have agreed with this kind of dismissive subjectivism. Instead, virtually all have held that ethical questions but are amenable to serious logical analysis and argument. We cannot just uncritically assume our position; it must be defended. When we try to defend our moral opinions, we are forced to address deeper underlying questions such as:

--what distinguishes moral norms and ethical ideals from other sorts of principles?

--what kind of grounds could there be for moral claims?

--are duties and ideals of virtue based on reason or sentiment, thinking or passion?

--is egoism or selfishness compatible with political justice or not?

--are motives such as pure love and pure hatred possible for us?

Course Goals: Ethics can thus be approached from several different angles. This course will introduce the philosophical study of ethics by focusing on the problem of egoism or a life aimed only at securing one's own interests (conceived in different ways). Each philosopher we read this semester gives us reasons to reject egoism, or to limit or reconceive the pursuit of our own advantage to conform to moral values. In the process, students will be introduced to different theoretical accounts of the basis of morality, such as classical eudaimonism, deontological or rights-based approaches, utilitarianism, and social contract theory.

Through reading, written analysis, and class debate, students will learn how these different ethical theories apply to serious practical questions and problems in private and public life.

A key goal of the course is to learn to how to interpret philosophical texts and become familiar with the critical evaluation of value-concepts. Thus All readings must be completed before class on the assigned date, so that we can practice such close reading and analysis in class.

Grading System

Class participation: 20%

Class exercises : 30% This breakdown of course components is a basic guide

Essay: 25% for you, but there is also be a certain amount of leeway

Final test 25% and credit for improvement in assigning the final grade.

Requirements:

Class Exercises: Includes one in-class pop quiz on reading (no warning!), one group exercise in analyzing a text, and one class debate (in which you will turn in your prepared notes).

Class Participation: This grade depends on the quality of your questions and contributions in class, and prepared questions you bring to hand in. Be an active contributor, not just a passive listener, and you'll get more out of this material! This grade also depends on attendance. Since this is a summer class, each evening counts for a whole week during the regular semester. Any more than one absence will heavily affect your class participation grade. If you are absent more than three times, you might as well forget it during the summer. You must also be prepared to work for this class on weekends and on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings in July. (Hint: otherwise, don't take a summer class!!)

Test: Your knowledge of the readings will be evaluated in a final exam during the first week in August. The test will consist of multiple choice questions along with some short-answer questions. It will be an open-book test, but remember you have only a limited time, so know everything well in advance. Attending to class discussion will help a lot here, since test questions will emphasize the material we focus on during class.

Paper: There will also be a 6-7 page paper due at the beginning of the fourth week, in which you compare and contrast the ideas of two thinkers and argue for your own position on a question they address. You will have some choice among assigned questions here.

Texts: Plato, Gorgias, tr. Donald Zeyl (Hackett). Use this edition if possible.

Hobbes, Man and Citizen, ed. Gert (Hackett). Must use this edition.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2nd Ed., tr. Irwin (Hackett, 1999). Must use this edition.

Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Cambridge). Must use this edition.

Course packet required for all the other course readings (also on e-Res).

You must buy the packet from me; a check or money order for $20 made out to Fordham reimburses the department duplicating account.

Honesty and Citation: I take this very seriously; cheating is the one unforgivable sin. All your work for this class must be original, must be your own, and you must cite your sources, both when you quote text, and when you paraphrase. Examples of cheating:

(1) Handing in work you did for another class without clearing it with me.

(2) Copying another student's work on a test or paper.

(3) Handing in an essay downloaded from the internet, copied from an uncited website, or copied from an encyclopedia or book without citation is plagarism. This holds true even if if the wording has been significantly changed.

If I judge that a student has cheated in any of these ways, or in any comparably serious fashion, that student will fail the entire course and it will go on his/her permanent record here. If there are any prior offenses on record, suspension is possible. A very minor infraction results in an F for the entire assignment, usually dropping your final grade by a whole letter.

You are welcome to bring in ideas and quotes from secondary sources, but you must cite them either by footnotes or parenthetical references referring to a bibliography at the end of the paper. Even if you acknowledge an internet site, for example, you can't just lift large sections of its text wholesale: only take short quotations, clearly indicated as such in your paper.

--This includes paraphrases: even if you reword what the author said, cite the page number.

--It also includes websites: give the full URL of the page you cite. Note that webpages should never be the only source you cite in college essays.

Tentative Schedule

July 5 and 6: Introduction

(1) Theories and problems in ethics (see handouts in course packet)

(2) Forms of argument and fallacies (see handouts in course packet)

(3) Plato's Gorgias: the egoist challenge.

July 11-13: Aristotle and Eudaimonia -- a rejection of egoism

(1) Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. I (pp.1-17); Bks. III-IV selections (pp.40-64)

(2) Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, BKs. VIII-IX selections (pp.119-128; 141-153.

(3) MacIntyre, After Virtue, ch.14-15 (in course packet): "The Nature of the Virtues."

July 18-20: Egoism on the Individual and Collective Levels

(1) Thomas Hobbes, Man and Citizen (pp.37-70; 109-133; 165-172): the egoist bites back!

(2) Joel Feinberg, "Psychological Egoism" (course packet): the paradox of individual egoism.

(3) Peter Singer, "Morality, Egoism, and the Prisoner's Dilemma" (course packet): the

paradox of collective egoism.

July 25-27: Kant, duty as consistency, and human dignity -- another rejection of egoism

(1) Essay due July 25.

(2) Immanuel Kant, Groundwork, Parts I & II.

Aug. 1-2: Utilitarianism -- the collective good of the whole vs egoism

(1) John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (selections in course packet)

(2) Bernard Willaims, "A Critique of Utilitarianism" --agent-centered restrictions and integrity

(3) Annette Baier, "Trust and Antitrust"

Aug. 3: Final test.