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Course Criteria
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4.00 Credits
Is pleasure the only ultimate good? Are individuals' preferences the only basis for assessing the quality of their lives? What makes acts wrong? Is moral blame applicable only to agents who have free will? Should we accept moral relativism? Readings mainly from contemporary philosophers.
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4.00 Credits
How should one make moral choices? What is the best way to live a moral life? How should the state be organized to best encourage proper human behavior? And what happens if the state comes to be formed as an empire? What are the proper moral ways to respond? Questions such as these were at the heart of classical Chinese philosophical debates. This course will be the study of how the classical Chinese thinkers wrestled with these questions and what responses they gave. As we will quickly see, the views that arose in China were among the most powerful and influential in human history. Regardless of whether one agrees with these views or not, they should be studied and taken seriously by anyone who cares about ethics and politics.
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4.00 Credits
An examination of moral questions that arise in the context of social protest in the US during the 20th century, including the central question of political philosophy: How can political authority be justified? After studying the Attica prison revolt of 1971, we will consider the following questions: Is there an obligation to obey the law? What, if any, are the moral limits to this obligation? Can civil disobedience be justified, and does it always need to be? Texts include classic excerpts from Plato, Hobbes, Rawls, and Marx.
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4.00 Credits
A critical analysis of selected classical and contemporary theories of justice, with discussion of present-day practical applications. Topics include affirmative action, income distribution, same-sex marriage, debates about rights (human rights and property rights), arguments for and against equality, debates about political obligation and the claims of community. Readings include Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Mill, and Rawls.
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4.00 Credits
Bioethics is the study of ethical issues arising in efforts to maintain and restore health, and, more broadly, with charting humankind's future in an era of both technological advances and unmet need. We will try to reason our way through moral dilemmas that pit health against freedom, prevention against rescue, and the claims of those with competing needs when life itself hangs in the balance. The course will emphasize ethical issues involving health that arise at the global and population levels, particularly those involving peoples and regions with the greatest burden of disease.
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4.00 Credits
Examines the Western secular tradition through the work of three seminal figures whose critiques of religion-in social and political theory, philosophy, and psycho-analysis and anthropology-are motivated by ethical concerns. Brief introductory readings of Kant, Hegel, and Feuerbach ground analysis of Marx's, Nietzsche's, and Freud's ethical atheism. Students do not develop or debate formulae for behavior, but rather become critically aware of ethical considerations that underlie actions and that are negotiated vis-a-vis prevailing moral codes. Readings include The German Ideology, The Communist Manifesto, The Gay Science, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Anti-Christ, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Totem and Taboo, The Future of an Illusion.
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4.00 Credits
The course explores the problem of morality in international relations. Starting from an overview of different theoretical perspectives concerning moral argumentation in international affairs, it proceeds to consider the ethical dimensions of more specific international issues such as the use of force, human rights, and distributive justice. Contemporary cases will be used when relevant.
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4.00 Credits
This course considers how Tolstoy and Dostoevsky take up moral inquiry in their fiction, introduces students to philosophical texts that informed their major fiction, and asks why the novel as a literary genre may be a good forum for the discussion of ethics. We will read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and The Brothers Karamazov, as well as selected texts from Rousseau, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and others.
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4.00 Credits
A sustained discussion of the obstacles and the opportunities that the established traditions of Western philosophy, social theory and the humanities present to those who see time as real, history as open, novelty as possible, and social and cultural transformation as imperative. The central theme is how thought deals with the creation of the new. Special attention to three European philosophers -- Hegel, Marx, and Bergson, as well as to those strands in contemporary philosophy and social thought that bear most closely on our concerns. No prerequisites other than willingness to consider a wide range of problems, materials, and ideas.
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4.00 Credits
A rigorous, intensive elective that helps students prepare for the demands of college writing. In small classes, students work closely with instructors on developing and organizing ideas, analyzing sources, and writing clear, engaging essays. Students also meet frequently in individual conferences with instructors to discuss their work. Assignments are based on sources from a range of disciplines and genres.
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