Ethics:
History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues edited by Steven Cahn
and Peter Markie. Oxford University Press, 1998.
PHL 125 Twentieth Century Philosophy
Fall 1999
Course Description
In this course we will examine some of the major strands of twentieth century thought concerning the nature of morality. The debates reflect some of the main trends of this century’s philosophy, including positivism, existentialism, pragmatism, the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and most recently, feminist and communitarian theories. We will focus on large questions such as: is morality relative to one’s culture or whether it should be fundamentally the same for everyone?; if morality is relative to culture, can it be anything more than mere personal opinion and preference?; and if there are moral facts, then how do we know them? This will be an abstact and challenging course that deals with large questions. Students will be encouraged to investigate how these issues are relevant to modern controversies in society today, such as animal rights, abortion, our duty to help starving people in other counties, and our right to interfere with other cultures whose practices we see as wrong.
Ethics:
History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues edited by Steven Cahn
and Peter Markie. Oxford University Press, 1998.
Work: Class participation, a midterm exam,
one 8 page paper, and one 15 page paper.
Midterm: Takehome exam, given October 21, due October 28
8 page paper: Your choice of topic, but it can be simple, such as comparing and contrasting two of the philosophers we have discussed. Due November 4.
| Week 1 | Introduction | ||
| Week 2 | Comtempoary Ethical Problems | 45: Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence, and Morality
46: John Arthur: Famine Relief and the Ideal Moral Code Michael Specter: The Dangerous Philosopher, New Yorker, Sept 6, 1999 |
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| Week 3 | 47: Tom Regan: The Case for Animal Rights
48: Carl Cohen: The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research |
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| Week 4 | Background to 20th Century Moral Philosophy: Kant, Utilitarianism, Nietzsche | 12: John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism, pp. 343-366
15: Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil, pp. 405-412 |
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| Week 5 | Pragmatism | 16: William James: The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life
17: John Dewey: The Quest for Certainty |
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| Week 6 | Existentialism | 18: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus
19: Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism Is a Humanism |
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| Week 7 | Philosophy of Language | 21: W. D. Ross: The Right and The Good
22: C. L. Stevenson: The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms |
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| Week 8 | Utilitarianism Revisited | 23: R. M. Hare: Freedom and Reason
29: Richard B. Brandt: Some Merits of One Form of Rule Utilitarianism |
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| Week 9 | Criticisms of Utilitarianism | 28: Bernard Williams: A Critique of Utilitarianism
38: Susan Wolf: Moral Saints |
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| Week 10 | Relativism | 25: Gilbert Harman: The Nature of Morality
26: James Rachels: The Challange of Cultural Relativism |
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| Week 11 | Right-based theories | 27: Joel Feinberg: Psychological Egoism
31: Philippa Foot: Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives |
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| Week 12 | Contractarianism | 32: John Rawls: A Theory of Justice
33: David Gauthier: Why Contractarianism? |
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| Week 13 | Virtue Theory | 34: Alisdair MacIntyre: After Virtue
35: James Rachels: The Ethics of Virtue |
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Links:
GeneralStephen Darwall's Philosophical Ethics Class Hinmann's Ethics Updates Christian Perring's Notes on articles in Moral Discourse and Practise
Peter Singer:The Singer Solution to World Poverty NYT on Singer's arrival at Princeton
Nietzsche:Yahoo Nietzsche page Existentialism and Freidrich Nietzsche Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
John Stuart MillYahoo Mill page Episteme John Stuart Mill links
William JamesA Stroll With William James Episteme links
John DeweyLinks to the World of John Dewey Garth Kemerling "John Dewey Page"