University of Kansas, Fall 2003
Philosophy 160: Introduction to Ethics
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu
Introduction to Ethics
Description: 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 cultural relativism (“What’s right
for us is not necessarily right for them”), subjectivism (“What’s right
for me is not necessarily right for you”), and the role of religion in
morality (e.g., “What’s right is just what God says is right”). Second, we
will consider several historically important and still-prominent theoretical
approaches to ethics that purport (most of them, anyway) to provide systematic
procedures for answering questions about right and wrong. In the third and final
part of the course we will consider more concretely a wide variety of
important moral issues such as animal rights, abortion, euthanasia, and famine
relief by considering the work of the controversial contemporary philosopher
Peter Singer. Throughout, we will seek not so much to form judgments about specific
moral issues—most of us do that on our own anyway, albeit with varying degrees
of certitude—but to improve our thinking about the considerations that may
count as reasons for and against the moral judgments we are tempted to make.
Class schedule: lectures on Mondays and Wednesdays,
11:30–12:20, in 3139 Wescoe Hall; plus a discussion section once a week, with
your teaching assistant
Teaching assistants: There are three teaching assistants for
this course; here is their contact information:
name |
e-mail address |
office hours |
office location |
office phone number |
Dusan Galic |
galicd@ku.edu |
W, 1–2; R, 12–1 |
1007 Wescoe Hall |
864-2338 |
Jennifer Kittlaus |
kittlaus@ku.edu |
M, 10:15–11:15; T, 8:15–9:15; W, 12:25–1:25 |
1011 Wescoe Hall |
864-2336 |
Bill Simkulet |
s_i_bill@yahoo.com |
M, 10:30–11:20; W, 10:30–11:20;
F, 11:30–12:20 and 1:30– 2:20 |
1007 Wescoe Hall |
864-2338 |
My office is in 3070
Wescoe Hall, and I have office hours on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from
10:30 to 11:20.
Requirements/grading:
Here are the factors that will determine your overall grade, and their
weights:
- two tests: a total of 30 percent
- meta-ethics test: 13 percent
- normative-ethics test: 17 percent
- four writing assignments: a total of 40 percent
- Hume writing assignment: 3.5 percent
- emotivism writing assignment: 5.5 percent
- Another 7 percent of your grade will be determined by the higher of
(1) your
grade on the Hume writing assignment and (2) your grade on the emotivism writing
assignment.
- So, if you do better on the Hume writing assignment, it will end up
determining 10.5 percent of your grade; if you do better on the emotivism
writing assignment, it will end up determining 12.5 percent of your grade.
- Together, the Hume writing assignment and the emotivism writing assignment
will end up determining 16 percent of your grade.
- normative-ethics writing assignment: 11 percent
- applied-ethics writing assignment: 13 percent
- This last writing assignment is optional. If you don’t do it, then this 13
percent of your overall grade will be determined by the higher of (1)
your grade on the normative-ethics writing assignment and (2) your grade on
the final exam.
- Also, if you do this last writing assignment but do worse on it than on
either the normative-ethics writing assignment or the final exam, then your
grade on the applied-ethics writing assignment will be set aside and this 13
percent of your overall grade will be determined in the way just described.
Thus, doing this last writing assignment cannot hurt (and may help) your
overall grade, compared to not doing it at all.
- participation in your discussion section: 10 percent
- a final exam: 20 percent
Further information about these
assignments will be provided as needed, as well as upon request.
Work will be graded in accordance with the university’s grading system, as
stated in article 2,
section 2 of the of the University Senate Rules and Regulations.
In addition, I should note here that I take academic misconduct, especially
cheating on tests and plagiarizing papers, extremely seriously, and am generally
disposed to impose the harshest permissible penalties when it occurs. To enable
you to meet my expectations in this regard and to do so without fear of
inadvertently falling short of them, I will provide clear and specific guidance
as to what does and does not constitute academic misconduct in advance of tests
and when papers are assigned. Meanwhile, you may consult
article 2, section 6
of the University Senate Rules and Regulations for university policy in
regard to this matter.
If you have a disability for which you may be requesting special services or
accommodations for this course, be sure to contact
Disability Resources (22 Strong Hall / 864-2620 (V/TTY)), if you have not already
done so, and have that office send me a letter documenting the accommodations to
which you are entitled. Please also see me privately, at your earliest
convenience, so that I can be aware of your situation and can begin to prepare
the appropriate accommodations in advance of receiving the letter from
Disability Resources.
Books to buy:
-
, (McGraw-Hill, 2003)
- Peter Singer, (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
Course materials on the web:
Course documents, including this syllabus, will be available on the web site
for the course, the URL of which is
http://people.ku.edu/~be75/courses/ethics8
(If you don’t want to type in this whole thing, you can stop after ‘be75’—at
which point you’ll be at my personal web site—and then follow the links to the
web site for this particular course.)
Class notes, paper assignments, information about tests, and other useful
materials will be posted at this site. The syllabus is also one of the pages at
the above site, and since it will probably be revised and elaborated as the
course progresses, I encourage you to check it online from time to time, instead
of relying on a hard copy.
One thing that will not be posted on the web site is your record of grades
for this course, since I don’t know how to make a web page that will allow each
student to view only his or her own grades. So, to allow you to have online
access to your grades, I’ll be entering your grades into the “online gradebook” at the Blackboard site for this course
(if you’re not already logged in, then log in
here; once you get to the Blackboard site for the course, click on ‘Tools’,
then ‘View Grades’). Note that although Blackboard provides a shell
for all sorts of course-related documents, I am using it only to provide you
with access to your grades; all
course-related documents, such as this syllabus, notes, and assignments, will be
at the site mentioned above.
E-mail distribution list:
I’ve had the KU computer folks set up an e-mail distribution list for the
course. In general, I’ll try to mention everything important (whether substantive or procedural) in class. But at times, I may use the e-mail distribution
list to send you information that you will be responsible for having or acting
on, so it is your responsibility to make sure that you read mail that I send to
this list. You can do this by making sure that you (1) have an e-mail address,
(2) are registered for the course (because this list is updated every night to
reflect current enrollment, taking account of drops and adds), and (3) read your
e-mail. There is one complication that you should be aware of: if you have both an
Exchange e-mail address (e.g., so-and-so@ku.edu) and a non-Exchange e-mail
address (e.g., so-and-so@yahoo.com), and you prefer to receive e-mail at the
latter address, then mail sent to the e-mail distribution
list for the course will not necessarily go to it, even
if you have registered it with KU as your primary e-mail address. (This is a
known problem with the KU distribution-list system.) To deal with this problem,
either check your Exchange account as often as your check your non-Exchange
account, or arrange for mail sent to your Exchange account to be forwarded to
your non-Exchange account. For more information on this problem and how to solve
it, see the
Exchange Distribution
List Primer and look at the answer to question 2: “Some of the people on my list say they’re not
getting my list mail. Why?”
Using J-Stor:
Some of the hyperlinks in the schedule below are to articles that are
available electronically from the J-Stor online journal archive. J-Stor’s home
page—www.jstor.org—can be accessed by anyone, but the contents of its archives
cannot be legitimately accessed without a subscription. KU has a subscription,
and you can use this subscription to access the J-Stor archive in either of two
ways:
- While using a computer with a KU IP address (which I imagine would be any
of the on-campus computers—e.g., in the computer labs, in the libraries,
etc.), just click on the link for the article you’re interested in. It should
appear with no problem.
- While using a non-KU computer, follow these steps:
- Go to http://www2.lib.ku.edu:2065/.
- Unless you are already logged into the KU libraries’ server, you will be
confronted with a log-in screen. Log in with your KU username and password.
- When the J-Stor screen appears, use “Search” or “Browse” to find the
article, based on the bibliographic information supplied below.
Once you have the article on the screen, you will probably want to print it.
Look for the gray “PRINT” link at the top of the page you’re viewing, and
click on it. You’ll then be given further instructions and links. In order to
print J-Stor articles, the computer you’re using needs to have installed on it
either (1) the Adobe Acrobat Reader (installed on most or all campus computers,
and downloadable free from Adobe; see the link on my home page) or (2) J-Stor’s
own printing application (details available with J-Stor’s instructions for
printing; click on “Set your printing preferences” after clicking on the “PRINT”
link).
Schedule:
August 25 (M):
-
Introduction (no assigned reading)
August 27 (W):
- The Elements of Moral Philosophy, preface (pp. xi–xii)
- EMP, chapter 1: “What Is Morality?” (pp. 1–15)
Part 1: Meta-ethics
- EMP, chapter 2:
“The Challenge of Cultural Relativism” (pp. 16–31)
September 1 (M):
September 3 (W):
- EMP, chapter 3:
“Subjectivism in Ethics,” through section 3.6 (pp. 32–44)
- deriving morality from nature
- EMP, section 3.7 through the first full paragraph on p. 46
- EMP, section 4.3: “The Theory of Natural Law” (pp. 53–57)
- David Hume,
A
Treatise of Human Nature, book III, part I, section II, first four of
the last five paragraphs
- To find the four-paragraph stretch you have to read, use the above link,
then search for the phrase ‘But in the’. This phrase is the beginning of the passage
you have to read, and its occurrence in this passage is its first occurrence
on the page linked above (though it does occur several times later on that
page, so be sure to search from the top).
- To print the passage you have to read, highlight the four paragraphs
beginning with ‘But in the’ and then use your browser’s print capability, with
the “Print Selection” option. If your browser does not offer this option, you
could copy the paragraphs into a blank file in another application (e.g., a
word processor) and then print that file.
- As you start reading, you may find the first sentence to be a bit unclear,
since it contains the phrase ‘these principles’, and it’s not clear (from that
sentence alone, at least) what the referent is ‘these’ is. It refers to
principles distinguishing virtue from vice, or moral principles.
- deriving ‘ought’ from ‘is’
- David Hume,
A
Treatise of Human Nature, book III, part I, section I, last four
paragraphs
- To find the four-paragraph stretch you have to read, use the above link,
then search for the phrase ‘But to make’. This is the beginning of the passage
you have to read, and it occurs only once in book III.
- To print, follow instructions similar to those above.
- As you start reading, you may wonder what the phrase ‘these general
reflections’ refers to. Basically, it refers to Hume’s claims that morality is
essentially a matter of sentiment, not reason. (Think of emotivism, and you’ll
have the basic idea.)
- Also as you start reading, you may be puzzled by the phrase (in the first
sentence) ‘dear and convincing’. The phrase should read ’clear and
convincing’. (Apparently this online version of the Treatise was made
by scanning a print copy of the Treatise, and the character-recognition
software misread the ‘cl‘ in ‘clear’ as a ‘d’ and rendered the word as
‘dear’.)
September 8 (M):
- Hume writing assignment due (in class)
- emotivism revisited
- Charles Leslie Stevenson, “The
Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms” (Mind vol. 46, no. 181 [January
1937], pp. 14–31)—this is from J-Stor; see the “Using
J-Stor” section above
- Read all of this paper, and don’t be discouraged if you don’t understand
all of it the first time you read it. It’s hard. I’ll say some things to help
you understand it better in class—things that you will understand better if
you have worked your way through the paper once—and then you’ll be ready for a
second reading, to be done before the next class, when I’ll say some more
things about the paper.
- For further (and optional) reading, there is a series of papers (also in
J-Stor) in which Stevenson and Richard Brandt debate the merits of Stevenson’s
view:
- Charles L. Stevenson, “The
Emotive Conception of Ethics and Its Cognitive Implications” (Philosophical
Review vol. 59, no. 3 [July 1950], pp. 291–304)
- Richard B. Brandt, “The
Emotive Theory of Ethics” (Philosophical Review vol. 59, no. 3
[July 1950], pp. 305–318)
- Charles L. Stevenson, “Brandt’s
Questions about Emotive Ethics” (Philosophical Review vol. 59, no.
4 [October 1950], pp. 528–534)
- Richard B. Brandt, “Stevenson’s
Defense of the Emotive Theory” (Philosophical Review vol. 59, no. 4
[October 1950], pp. 535–540)
- Also for further (and optional) reading, you might consider ’s
paper “How to Derive “Ought” from “Is”” (Philosophical Review vol. 73,
no. 1 [January 1964], pp. 43–58), which (as its title suggests) attempts to
refute the Humean-emotivist claim of the fact–value divide.
September 10 (W):
- Stevenson, “The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms,” continued
September 15 (M):
- EMP, chapter 4: “Does Morality Depend on Religion?” (pp. 48–62),
except section 4.3
- EMP, section 3.7, from the second full paragraph on p. 46
September 17 (W):
- EMP, chapter 5:
“Psychological Egoism” (pp. 63–75)
September 22 (M): meta-ethics test
Part 2: Normative Ethics
September 24 (W):
- EMP, chapter 6:
“Ethical Egoism” (pp. 76–90)
September 29 (M):
- utilitarianism
- EMP, chapter 7: “The Utilitarian Approach” (pp. 91–101)
October 1 (W):
- utilitarianism, continued
- EMP, chapter 8: “The Debate Over Utilitarianism” (pp. 102–116)
- for further (and optional)
reading:
- In “What
Is Wrong with Slavery” (Philosophy & Public Affairs
vol. 8, no. 2 [Winter 1979], pp. 103–121), R. M. Hare replies to
the objection—often lodged against utilitarianism—that
utilitarianism is liable to condone slavery in certain circumstances
(i.e., if the circumstances are such that the harm that the slaves
suffer, as a result of slavery, is outweighed by the benefits to
others that result from the availability of slave labor). On the
contrary, Hare claims, utilitarianism provides a better account
of why slavery is wrong than do the traditional arguments against it
that rest content with invoking concepts such as freedom or rights
without providing any deeper account of why such things as freedom
and rights are morally important.
- In “Utilitarianism
and Welfarism” (The Journal of Philosophy vol. 76, no.
9 [September 1979], pp. 463–489), Amartya Sen argues against the
welfarist component of utilitarianism: that is, utilitarianism’s
commitment to the thesis that, when consequences (or states of
affairs) are being judged good or bad, what matters is the amount of
welfare (or well-being) in them. Sen argues, that is, that in order
to judge properly the goodness or badness of a state of affairs, you
need to know more than just what level of well-being each person in
it is experiencing. (He does not, in this paper, take issue with
utilitarianism’s commitment to consequentialism—only its
commitment to welfarism.) Although this paper takes some work to get
through, it is a model of organizational clarity, as Sen argues for
a series of increasingly ambitious theses, culminating in the
rejection of welfarism itself.
- In “Utilitarianism
and the Virtues” (Mind vol. 94, no. 374 [April 1985],
pp. 196–209), Philippa Foot argues against utilitarianism’s consequentialist
component. She does not just claim that it is not always right to do
what will have the best consequences (although she seems to hold
this position); she also claims that it does not always make
sense to say that one set of consequences, or state of affairs,
is better than another. That is, she questions the very idea of
ranking states of affairs in terms of their goodness, as well as the
claim that—once states of affairs have been ranked in this way—one
must always act in whatever way will bring about the best one.
October 6 (M):
- Kantian ethics
- EMP, chapter 9: “Are There Absolute Moral Rules?” (pp. 117–129)
- The distinction between
hypothetical and categorical imperatives is fundamental in Kant’s
thought. If you want a clearer account of this distinction than
Rachels provides (though I think his account is pretty clear), you
could (this is optional) look at the first three pages or so of
Philippa Foot’s landmark paper “Morality
as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives” (The Philosophical
Review vol. 81, no. 3 [July 1972], pp. 305–316). Although (as
the title suggests) Foot argues against the Kantian (and very
common) notion that the requirements of morality are categorical,
she begins her paper with a wonderfully clear account of the
distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives. See,
in particular, paragraphs 2–5 of this paper—that is, from p.
305, line 12, through p. 308, line 4.
October 8 (W):
- emotivism writing assignment due (in class)
- Kantian ethics, continued
- EMP, chapter 10:
“Kant and Respect for Persons” (pp. 130–140)
- If you feel, after reading
Rachels’s account of Kantian ethics, that you would like another take
on it, you might look at (about 13,000 words), by . (This, too, is
optional.)
October 13 (M):
- EMP, chapter 11: “The
Idea of a Social Contract” (pp. 141–159)—lecture by Dusan Galic
October 15 (W):
- EMP, chapter 12: “Feminism and the Ethics of Care” (pp. 160–172)
October 20 (M):
- EMP, chapter 13: “The Ethics of Virtue” (pp. 173–190)
October 22 (W):
- EMP, chapter 14: “What Would a Satisfactory Moral Theory Be Like?”
(pp. 191–202)
Part 3: Applied Ethics
October 27 (M):
- background on Peter Singer
- Practical Ethics, preface (pp. vii–xiii)
- PE, chapter 1: “About Ethics” (pp. 1–15)
- PE, chapter 2: “Equality and Its Implications” (pp. 16–54)
October 29 (W):
- PE, chapter 3: “Equality for Animals?” (pp. 55–82)
November 3 (M): normative-ethics test
November 5 (W):
- Peter Singer and , “Animal
Rights” (Slate, June 11–15, 2001)
- Be sure to read all five days’ entries of the dialogue, not just Monday’s
entry.
- instructions for printing:
- Follow the above link to the document. The document should open in a new
window.
- When the Slate page appears, click on the “Print” link just above the
text of the article. This will open a new window containing all five days’
entries (and may also trigger your browser’s “Print” dialogue box to open).
- Use your browser to print the page.
November 10 (M):
- PE, chapter 4: “What’s Wrong with Killing?” (pp. 83–109)
November 12 (W):
- PE, chapter 5: “Taking Life: Animals” (pp. 110–134)
November 17 (M):
- normative-ethics writing assignment due (in class)
- PE, chapter 6: “Taking Life: The Embyro and the Fetus” (pp.
135–174)
November 19 (W):
November 24 (M):
- PE, chapter 7: “Taking Life: Humans” (pp. 175–217)
- Harriet McBryde Johnson, “Unspeakable
Conversations” (The New York Times, February 16, 2003)
- videotape on euthanasia: “On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying (Part 1: A
Death of One’s Own)”
November 26 (W):
- no class (Thanksgiving break)
December 1 (M):
- PE, chapter 8: “Rich and Poor” (pp. 218–246)
December 3 (W):
- John Kekes, “On the Supposed Obligation to Relieve Famine” (Philosophy vol. 77, no. 4
[October 2002], pp.
503–517)
- This journal is not archived by J-Stor, but you can access it via the web
site of its publisher, Cambridge University Press.
- instructions for printing:
- While using a computer with a KU IP address, go to Cambridge Journals Online, at
www.journals.cup.org.
- Under “Browse Journals,” select the option
‘Alphabetically’.
- Scroll down to the journal Philosophy and click on
its title.
- Click on ‘Volume 77’.
- Click on ‘Issue 04’.
- Find ‘On the Supposed Obligation to Relieve Famine’ and
click on the ‘[PDF]’ link below it. This will open a new window, using the
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Click on the printer icon in the upper left. This should
present you with a dialogue box enabling you to print this paper. It is 15 pages long.
December 8 (M):
- applied-ethics writing assignment due (in class)
- Bonnie Steinbock, “Drunk
Driving,” (Philosophy & Public Affairs vol. 14, no. 3 [Summer
1985], pp. 278–295)
December 10 (W):
- Hugh LaFollette, “Licensing
Parents,” (Philosophy & Public Affairs vol. 9, no. 2 [Winter 1980],
pp. 182–197)
Friday, December 19: final exam (10:30 a.m.–1 p.m.)
(see
http://www.registrar.ku.edu/timetable/039finals.shtml for KU’s final-exam
schedule)