Seminar in Ethics: Utilitarianism	Office hours: Tu 10:30-12 (except M11), F 10-11:30 (except M14, M21, A4), and by appointment
Spring 2008	Office:   HLMS 164B
Professor Norcross	Phone: 303 492 7527 Email: norcross@colorado.edu

Texts: The Blackwell Guide to Mill's Utilitarianism, Henry West (ed.)

Consequentialism and its Critics, Samuel Scheffler (ed.)

Various online readings

Course description:  This seminar will focus on the debate between consequentialism, mainly represented by utilitarianism, and deontology.

Requirements: weekly papers (weeks 2-12), final paper, one class presentation, class participation. Since class participation is a requirement for passing the class, and you can't participate unless you attend, this class has the following attendance policy: more than five absences, for whatever reason, will result in failing the course.  Since you never know when you might get sick, it is not a good idea to miss class, unless you absolutely have to.

Weekly papers: For the ten weeks starting with Week 2 and ending with Week 12 (excluding week 10) you will write short (450-900 words) reaction pieces to the readings assigned for that week. The purpose of the assignments is for you to engage the readings, not to summarize them. Find something interesting in the readings that you want to talk about. You might want to take issue with something you read, to support it, or simply to point out how interesting or important it is. Your assignment should be uploaded to your dropbox on the CU Learn site. Paste the text into the text box. If there is formatting you really don't want to lose, you can also attach your assignment as a Word document (save it as either Word 2004 or earlier or as rtf), but make sure to paste into the text box as well. It should be well-written (complete grammatical sentences, correct spelling), and carefully proofed. In addition to submitting your paper in the assignments section of CU Learn, you should submit it as a discussion item. This will allow the rest of the class to read it as well. In order to give the whole class (including me) time to read your papers before the first meeting of the week, the papers are due by 5pm on the Monday of the relevant week.

Class presentations: Each of you will make one presentation to the class over the course of the semester. Details will be given in class.

Suggestions.  Do the reading assignments well in advance. You will probably have to read the text two or three times before you have an adequate grasp of the material. Philosophy is hard. Don't expect to understand it all at the first reading. Make use of my office hours to discuss things you don't understand. Ask questions in class. Very few questions are too silly to ask.

Disability Accommodations: If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability please submit a letter to me from Disability Services in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities (303-492-8671, Willard 322, http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices).

Religious holidays: If you have to miss a class because of a religious holiday, plan on using one of your five excused absences.

Honor Code: The honor code applies to every aspect of this class (including attendance).

Partial Schedule of assignments (updated throughout the semester—check frequently). Readings are from The Blackwell Guide to Mill's Utilitarianism (BG), Consequentialism and its Critics (CC) and online sources as indicated.

Dates	Assignment
Wk 1 (J15-17)	Utilitarianism chapters 1 & 2 (BG)
Wk 2 (J22-24)	Donner, Fuchs (BG)
Wk 3 (J29-31)	Utilitarianism chapters 3 & 4 (BG)
Wk 4 (F5-7)	Miller, West (BG)
Wk 5 (F12-14)	Utilitarianism chapter 5, Sumner (BG)
Wk 6 (F19-21)	Rawls, Williams (CC)
Wk 7 (F26-28)	Nagel, "War and Massacre" Nozick "Side Constraints" (CC) Norcross, "Two Dogmas of Deontology: Aggregation, Rights, and the Separateness of Persons" (In CU Learn course content)
Wk 8 (M4-6)	Railton, "Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality" (CC) Norcross, "Consequentialism and Commitment" (CU Learn course content)
Wk 9 (M11-13)	Foot, "Utilitarianism and the Virtues" (CC) No Class M11
Wk 10 (M18-20)	No Class M18, M20
Wk 11 (A1-3)	Scheffler, "Agent-Centered Restrictions, Rationality, and the Virtues" (CC) No Class A3
Wk 12 (A8-10)	Shaw, Norcross in BG
Wk 13 (A15-17)	Hooker (BG), Howard Snyder "Rubber Duck" (CU Learn resources)
Wk 14 (A22-24)	Norcross, "Good and Bad Actions", "Harming in Context" (CU Learn resources)
Wk 15 (A29-M1)	Final paper due A 29