Introduction to Ethics

November 28, 2012

Today I sent the following e-mail message to all enrolled students:

From: Eggleston, Ben
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 6:22 PM
To: PHIL160{14678}Fa12
Cc: Bednar, Kate; jeremydelong@sbcglobal.net; Marsh, Andrew
Subject: correction - test 3 scores posted to Blackboard

Dear students,

I’m sorry, the subject line of my previous message should have said test 3.

Best,

Professor Eggleston

------------------------------

From: Eggleston, Ben
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 6:21 PM
To: PHIL160{14678}Fa12
Cc: Bednar, Kate; jeremydelong@sbcglobal.net; Marsh, Andrew
Subject: test 2 scores posted to Blackboard

Dear students,

The TAs and I have graded the test you took today and I have posted the scores in the online gradebook at the Blackboard site for our course. The scores reflect a curve of 10 points.

In case you are interested in how you did relative to the whole class, here is some statistical information. The average of the scores was 78.9 and the scores had a standard deviation of 11.8. Of the 216 scores, there were 157 within one standard deviation of the mean (i.e., between 67.1 and 90.7), 33 above that range, and 26 below it.

I will discuss the test more in class on Monday.

Best,

Professor Eggleston

October 24, 2012

Today I sent the following e-mail message to all enrolled students:

From: Eggleston, Ben
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 8:00 PM
To: PHIL160{14678}Fa12
Cc: Bednar, Kate; jeremydelong@sbcglobal.net; Marsh, Andrew
Subject: test 2 scores posted to Blackboard

Dear students,

The TAs and I have graded the test you took today and I have posted the scores in the online gradebook at the Blackboard site for our course. The scores reflect a curve of 10 points.

In case you are interested in how you did relative to the whole class, here is some statistical information. The average of the scores was 80.7 and the scores had a standard deviation of 13.3. Of the 226 scores, there were 148 within one standard deviation of the mean (i.e., between 67.4 and 94.0), 40 above that range, and 38 below it.

I will discuss the test more in class on Monday.

Best,

Professor Eggleston

September 22, 2012

Today I sent the following e-mail message to all enrolled students:

From: Eggleston, Ben
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2012 11:56 AM
To: PHIL160{14678}Fa12
Cc: Bednar, Kate; jeremydelong@sbcglobal.net; Marsh, Andrew
Subject: test 1 scores posted to Blackboard

Dear students,

The TAs and I have graded the test you took last Wednesday and I have posted the scores in the online gradebook at the Blackboard site for our course. The scores reflect a curve of 15 points.

In case you are interested in how you did relative to the whole class, here is some statistical information. The average of the scores was 77 and the scores had a standard deviation of 13.5. Of the 234 scores, there were 150 within one standard deviation of the mean (i.e., between 63.5 and 90.5), 47 above that range, and 37 below it.

I will discuss the test more in class on Monday.

Best,

Professor Eggleston

September 13, 2012

Today I sent the following e-mail message to all enrolled students:

From: Eggleston, Ben
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 9:44 PM
To: PHIL160{14678}Fa12
Cc: Bednar, Kate; jeremydelong@sbcglobal.net; Marsh, Andrew; Schaplowsky, Gail
Subject: Introduction to Ethics - survey about Cengage web site - deadline extended to September 18

Dear students,

I was notified today by the organizers of the pilot program that they are extending the deadline for the survey until September 18. So, if you have not completed it yet, please do so by that date. The survey is on the course Blackboard site, in the “Student Surveys” area.

Thank you to those of you who have already completed the survey.

Best,

Professor Eggleston

September 7, 2012

Today I sent the following e-mail message to all enrolled students:

From: Eggleston, Ben
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 4:49 PM
To: PHIL160{14678}Fa12
Cc: Bednar, Kate; jeremydelong@sbcglobal.net; Marsh, Andrew; Schaplowsky, Gail
Subject: Introduction to Ethics - survey about Cengage web site - please complete by September 12

Dear students,

You will recall that the KU Bookstore provided the access codes for the Cengage web site free of charge as part of a pilot program designed to measure student satisfaction in regard to digital course materials. As I mentioned to you in an e-mail earlier this semester, in return for having the access codes provided free, you will be asked to complete some surveys about your use of the web site. The first of those surveys was added to the course Blackboard site today. There are nine questions, written by the organizers of pilot program, and I just reviewed them and I would estimate that they will take only about two minutes to complete.

Please complete this survey by Wednesday, September 12. Your feedback is essential to the success of the pilot program in measuring student satisfaction in regard to digital course materials.

Best,

Professor Eggleston

August 21, 2012

Today I sent the following e-mail message to all enrolled students:

From: Eggleston, Ben
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 1:49 PM
To: PHIL160{14678}Fa12
Cc: Bednar, Kate; jeremydelong@sbcglobal.net; Marsh, Andrew
Subject: logging in to the Cengage web site

Dear students,

A few of you have written to me asking how to use your Cengage access code and the course key I sent to you to get logged into the Cengage web site associated with our course. The instructions I have given are the following: (1) Go to https://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/index.html, (2) Go over to the right side of that page and click on ‘Register a Product’. I just logged into the site and saw that 25 of you have enrolled, so we are off to a good start.

In case you would like more detailed instructions, attached is a PDF file that I downloaded from the Cengage web site that provides information about logging in. Please do not be alarmed by the fact that it is 23 pages long. You really only need to worry about pages 3 through 9, and they are mostly screenshots with only a couple of instructions per page. (Later pages in the document are in case you already have a Cengage account that you want to link this course to, or if you want to buy access on your own.)

Page 4 is where you enter your access code. This is the individualized code you got (or can get) from the bookstore.

Page 8 is where you enter the course key that is common to everyone in the course. As I mentioned in a previous message, the key for our course is as follows:

CM-9781133230762-0000006

If you have any further questions about this process, please let me know, and I’ll be glad to try to help.

Best,

Professor Eggleston

Here is the file that was attached: ohcinmagprda01_3348_6428_0_cm_accessing_and_enrolling_clickpath.pdf

August 20, 2012

Today I sent the following e-mail message to all enrolled students:

From: Eggleston, Ben
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 3:31 PM
To: PHIL160{14678}Fa12
Cc: Bednar, Kate; Delong, Jeremy C; Marsh, Andrew; Rourke, James T
Subject: access codes for Cengage web site

Dear students,

The access codes for the Cengage web site have arrived at the KU Bookstore. For details on how to obtain your code, please see the message below from James Rourke, the assistant director of the bookstore. If you need any assistance with this process, please contact Mr. Rourke, whom I am cc’ing on this message.

When you have your access code and use it to access the web site, please enter the following course key, so that your account with Cengage will be affiliated with our course:

CM-9781133230762-0000006

Thank you for your patience about this matter. I think the online resources will be a useful supplement to the textbook.

Best,

Professor Eggleston

-----

From: Rourke, James T
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 2:59 PM
To: Eggleston, Ben
Cc: Ermey, Ann; Farran, Paul Kenyon; Schaplowsky, Gail; McCollum, Estella M
Subject: PHIL 160 Access/E-Book has arrived

Professor Eggleston,

The digital materials have arrived. This place has been an absolute zoo today, but we will prepared to have these codes available for distribution at our Jayhawk Ink store on level 2 of the Kansas Union(right across from the main store beginning at 5pm (right across from the main store). The reason I say 5pm is so we can allow things to calm down a bit. We will have them held with our pre-ordered book orders, so all students have to do is follow the signs that say “Pre-Order Pick Up”. We will have the updated roster of students, so all students will need to do is supply a student ID and sign verifying that they picked up this material. Feel free to forward this along to all students. The Jayhawk Ink store is open until 8pm this evening, so things will be plenty settled down by then.

Thank you!

James Rourke
Assistant Director
KU Bookstore
(785) 864-2478

August 13, 2012

Today I sent the following e-mail message to all enrolled students:

From: Eggleston, Ben
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 11:31 AM
To: PHIL160{14678}Fa12
Cc: Bednar, Kate; Brewer, Paul Thomas-Bliss; Marsh, Andrew Charles; Schaplowsky, Gail; Rourke, James T
Subject: Introduction to Ethics - introductory information

Dear students,

Hello. I’ll be your professor for PHIL 160, Introduction to Ethics, and I am writing to you today in order to give you some information that you might find useful as you gear up for the semester.

First, as you probably know, you have to be enrolled in one of our course’s twelve discussion sections as well as being enrolled in the lecture portion of the course. Most of the discussion sections are scheduled for Wednesdays and Fridays, but there is one that is scheduled for Mondays at 8 a.m. That discussion section will not meet on Monday, August 20. For all students, your first class will be the lecture at 12 noon on Monday, August 20, in room 3139 Wescoe.

Second, you’ll need to buy the textbook I have ordered for this course. It’s Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, Concise Edition, 2nd edition, by Barbara MacKinnon (Wadsworth / Cengage Learning, 2013), ISBN 978-1-133-04974-6. The KU Bookstore has ordered this book and told me this morning that you can expect to find this book on the shelves there by this Friday (August 17).

Third, I have set up a web site for the course, at http://web.ku.edu/~utile/courses/ethics11. I’ll post the syllabus there as well as handing it out on the first day of class, and I’ll be posting other things on the course web site as the course progresses. There won’t be anything there that you’ll be responsible for prior to our first class, so you don’t have to worry about it right away. I just wanted to go on and give you the URL.

Fourth, and finally, I am pleased to tell you about a special program that our course is a part of. Our course has been selected to participate in a University of Kansas pilot program designed to measure student satisfaction in regard to digital course materials. For our course, the digital course materials will be those found on a proprietary and password-protected web site that Cengage Learning, which is the publisher of our textbook, has set up to supplement the textbook. A few months ago, when I asked the bookstore to order materials for this course, I planned to require you to buy a bundle including both the textbook mentioned above and access to the web site I just mentioned. As part of the pilot program concerning digital course materials, the KU Bookstore will be providing you with access to the web site free of charge, by handing out cards with access codes printed on them on the first day of class. In return, you will be asked to complete some surveys about your use of that web site during the semester. Because of the difference between the price of the textbook alone and the price of the bundle (textbook + access code) that I originally planned to require you to buy for this course, this pilot program is reducing student materials costs for this course by thousands of dollars.

With the course materials including the web site as well as the textbook, I want to mention that the University of Kansas is fully committed to providing equal access to the course materials to students with disabilities. If you have any concerns about the accessibility of the course materials or would like to request the materials in other formats, please contact Mary Ann Rasnak, director of KU’s Academic Achievement and Access Center (http://www.achievement.ku.edu), at mrasnak@ku.edu.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to seeing you at 12 noon on Monday, August 20, in 3139 Wescoe Hall.

Best wishes,

Professor Eggleston

Textbook information (as of February 28, 2012)

For this course you will be required to read most of the book Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, Concise Edition, 2^nd edition, by Barbara MacKinnon, published by Cengage Learning. You will also be required to complete activities at Cengage Learning’s proprietary and password-protected web site called CourseMate. Cengage sells both the book and a printed card with an access code for CourseMate in a bundle that has the ten-digit ISBN 1-133-39642-9 and the thirteen-digit ISBN 978-1-133-39642-0. This is what I have asked the KU Bookstore to order as the instructional material for this course.

You can also buy these two items (the book and CourseMate access) separately or as a bundle from Cengage's web site. I encourage you to comparison shop there and elsewhere. If you find the book for sale at a lower price somewhere, make sure that it is the concise edition of the book and make sure it is the 2^nd edition of the concise edition. Also, note that even if you find the book for sale at a lower price somewhere, you will still need access to the CourseMate web site. A used copy of the book is unlikely to come with a valid access code, and access to CourseMate currently costs $50 if purchased separately at the Cengage web site. So, take that into account if you are considering buying the book separately somewhere.

Note added August 13, 2012: See announcement concerning e-mail dated August 13, 2012, above, for revised textbook information.

Course description (as of February 28, 2012):

This course provides an introduction to those problems of philosophy that are problems of moral philosophy, or ethics. We will begin by examining certain problems that arise when we try to make moral judgments: problems such as the role of religion in morality (e.g., “What’s right is just what God says is right”), cultural relativism (“What’s right for us is not necessarily right for them”), and psychological egoism (“People are always out to do what’s best for themselves anyway.”) Second, we will consider several historically important and still-prominent theoretical approaches to ethics that attempt to provide general principles to guide our thinking about specific questions of right and wrong. In the third and final part of the course we will consider more concretely several important moral issues such as euthanasia, abortion, economic justice, and animal rights. Throughout, the course will be guided by the goals of (1) enhancing understanding of the central concepts and principles of ethics and (2) improving ethical reasoning, decision-making, and behavior.