University of Kansas, Fall 2003
Philosophy 160: Introduction to Ethics
Ben Egglestoneggleston@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:

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:
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:

  1. 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.
  2. While using a non-KU computer, follow these steps:
    1. Go to http://www2.lib.ku.edu:2065/.
    2. 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.
    3. 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):

August 27 (W):

Part 1: Meta-ethics

September 1 (M):

September 3 (W):

September 8 (M):

September 10 (W):

September 15 (M):

September 17 (W):

September 22 (M): meta-ethics test

Part 2: Normative Ethics

September 24 (W):

September 29 (M):

October 1 (W):

October 6 (M):

October 8 (W):

October 13 (M):

October 15 (W):

October 20 (M):

October 22 (W):

Part 3: Applied Ethics

October 27 (M):

October 29 (W):

November 3 (M): normative-ethics test

November 5 (W):

November 10 (M):

November 12 (W):

November 17 (M):

November 19 (W):

November 24 (M):

November 26 (W):

December 1 (M):

December 3 (W):

December 8 (M):

December 10 (W):

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)