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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
This course considers philosophical issues raised by family as a social institution and as a legal institution. Topics addressed include the social and personal purposes served by the institution of family, the nature of relationships between family members, the various forms that family can take, the scope of family privacy or autonomy, and how family obligations, mutual support, and interdependency affect individual members of families. Bell.
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3.00 Credits
An examination of various understandings of nature and the natural from the ancient Greeks to the present. The course includes exploration of basic philosophical issues regarding the concepts “nature,” “wild,” and “wilderness.” The focus is on the relationship between landscapes and conceptualizations of time, self, and community. Staff.
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3.00 Credits
What does it mean to exist as an authentic human being? This course explores diverse inquiries into this question by one of the 19th century’s most challenging thinkers. We read from a variety of famous pseudonymous writings (including parts of Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, The Sickness Unto Death), as well as some lesser-known works under his own name (Upbuilding Discourses, Works of Love). In doing so, we not only follow Kierkegaard’s literary and philosophical genius for displaying the intricacies and depths of aesthetic, ethical, and religious ways of living a human life, but we also deepen our own reflections on these matters – and perhaps strengthen our grasp on authentic living as well. Sessions.
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3.00 Credits
An examination of Nietzsche’s central philosophical conceptions-revaluation of values, genealogy of morality, self-overcoming, eternal recurrence-through selected readings from various periods in Nietzsche’s authorship. Staff.
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3.00 Credits
An examination of different metaethical theories, including ethical realism, emotivism, error theory, and constructivism, and different normative ethical theories, including utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, virtue ethics, and the ethics of care, followed by an application of these normative theories to a selection of ethical problems, including famine and world hunger, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, cloning, suicide, and self-defense. Philosophers include G.E. Moore, W.D. Ross, A.J. Ayer, J.L. Mackie, Bernard Williams, Susan Wolf, Peter Singer, Michael Tooley, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and Shelly Kagan. Mahon.
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4.00 Credits
In this course students study theories of embodiment. Beginning with the history of philosophy, we consider how the body gets to be subordinated to a mind; how it is considered mere matter, a building block that is unpredictable and passionate and needs to be controlled or shaped by the mind or the soul (e.g., Aristotelian biology). Continuing with an examination of how in science the body is depicted, shaped and, at times, reconstructed, the course then moves to social-cultural structures, including bodily containment and construction and, with Foucault, execution of power and punishment. Lastly, we consider how we can rethink, relive, regard, refigure, restore and respect our bodies and the bodies of others in more productive and thought-provoking ways. Verhage.
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4.00 Credits
This course considers ethical issues pertaining to the creation, consumption, and criticism of artistic works, including the visual arts, literature, and music. Can artistic works be assessed morally, and are such assessments relevant to their aesthetic assessment? Is it possible for a work of art to be deeply immoral and at the same time aesthetically excellent (or vice versa)? Is there a distinctive kind of moral knowledge that can only come about through engagement with works of art? To what extent, if at all, are artists accountable for the messages implicit in their works of art, or for the effects of these works on their audiences? Are there distinctive ethical issues raised by current forms of “popular art,” e.g., video games, rap music, and slasher films? Smith.
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4.00 Credits
Prerequisite: One W&L course in philosophy, one course taught by a W&L philosophy faculty member, or permission of the instructor. This course provides opportunities to explore philosophies of life held by influential philosophers and by ordinary people, focusing on what it means to live a good or worthwhile life. It also gives students a chance to clarify and develop their own vision of what a good life is for them. Projects include conducting interviews with members of the community outside the classroom. Bell.
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3.00 Credits
A consideration of selected issues in philosophy. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.
Topic for Winter 2011:
PHIL 295: The Self and The Social World (3). This course takes as its starting point the question of the ‘other.’ When being a ‘self’ depends first on being recognized by others, then how do we relate to ‘other selves’ and engage in community with them? The course concentrates on the work of traditional philosophical accounts of selves and others, e.g., Hegel’s dialectic of master and slave, and feminist philosophers, race-theorists, and post-colonialist thinkers who problematize these traditional philosophies and offer alternative ways of speaking about self and other. The worry is that our traditional understanding of ‘otherness’ is not a positive construct that recognizes diversity, but instead a form of violence towards the other person. Among other questions, we explore: how do we perceive, and communicate with others who have different bodies, genders, cultures and histories? How do we see ourselves through the eyes of others? Can we speak for others? And, can we build bridges across differences and forge common ground? (HU) Verhage.
Topics for Fall 2010:
PHIL 295A:Seminar: Process Philosophy - Cancelled
PHIL 295B: Virtue Ethics (3). We examine the recent movement toward virtue-based theories in both normative ethics and metaethics. We read some of the seminal articles that sparked this renewed interest in virtue ethics, and then examine a fully developed neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical account (and some criticisms that have been raised to this account). (HU) Smith.
PHIL 295C: Seminar: What is Honor? (3). Not open to students who have taken a previous iteration of this course at any level. What is honor? It lies at the heart of Washington and Lee’s values, yet its hold on the wider American society is tenuous, and its meaning is unclear to many, not least to students struggling to comprehend a revered honor system. This course seeks to explore the concept of personal honor in historical, literary, and philosophical texts. We examine some key moments in this concept’s development from ancient Greece to our own times, exploring a variety of philosophical perplexities along the way. We read literary texts such as the Iliad, Gawain and the Green Knight, and To Kill a Mockingbird, some biography (Robert E. Lee) and autobiography (Frederick Douglass), and a philosophical manuscript entitled “Honor for Us”, and view a variety of films (such as The Good Shepherd, Troy, The Last Samurai, Glory)–each of which casts different light on honor. We also explore honor’s reach in our contemporary society, from the military to sports, from politics to religion. At the end of the course, we focus on Washington and Lee’s own honor system, in order to clarify and deepen our own sense of local personal honor. Students participate in seminar discussion on the texts and films and the issues they raise. The course’s central philosophical question is this: how can honor, born and reared in hierarchical, patriarchal, warrior societies, live or even thrive in a more egalitarian and peaceful home, such as Washington and Lee in the 21st century? (HU) Sessions.
PHIL 295D: Seminar: Jurisprudence (3). This seminar examines Natural Law Theory, understood as the theory of law that holds that there is an essential relationship between law and morality, such that moral validity is a condition for legal validity. Both classical and modern formulations of the theory are considered, and both religious and secular versions of the theory. Authors include Sophocles, Cicero, Aquinas, Blackstone, Austin, Fuller, Hart, Dworkin, Finnis, Murphy, and Bix. (HU) Mahon
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4.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor. A consideration of selected issues in philosophy. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.
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