PHIL 1100 -- Ethics (honors)
Fall 2021
Prof. Chris Heathwood
University of Colorado Boulder

What We Did Each Day

(or plan to do)

WEEK 1

Tu 8/24:  First day stuff: Introductions (especially concerning stuttering), roll, syllabus.

Th 8/26:  What is Philosophy?  What is Ethics?  Logic.  Statement.  Truth.  Argument.  Validity.  Validity exercises. 
Questionnaire is due Sunday.

WEEK 2

Tu 8/31:  Set up colored-card participation system.  Logic: review of validity; explanation of soundness, examples.  The three main areas of normative ethics.  The normative ethics of behavior.  The case of baby Theresa.  Moral principles.  WKS, PGP, BP.  Fully general moral principles.

Th 9/2:  Reading Quiz #1.  Fully general moral principles.  Moral theories.  The fundamental project of the normative ethics of behavior.  10C, GR, GHP.  Refuting moral theories.  Counterexamples.  Your Counterexamples to 10C.  Other problems for 10C: what it fails to forbid; conflicts between commandments. 

Religion and Morality.  Review of Questionnaire question on God and Morality.  God and morality.  Divine Command Theory (DCT). 

WEEK 3

Tu 9/7:  Divine Command Theory (DCT).  How do we know God's commands?  Disturbing Bible passages.  An alternative divine-command moral epistemology.  DCT and atheism.  Reasons to believe DCT.

Th 9/9:  Reading Quiz #2.  Plato.  The Euthyphro.  Socrates's question.  Euthyphro Problem for DCT.  Horn 1 and Horn 2.  First problem with Horn 1 (what if God failed to prohibit something horrible?).  Second problem with Horn 1 (arbitrariness).  The problem with Horn 2.  The Euthyphro Problem as a valid, line-by-line argument.  A famous theist who rejects the Divine Command Theory for these and related reasons.

WEEK 4

Tu 9/14:  Examples of differences in moral beliefs and practices between cultures.  Some Common Claims of Cultural Relativists according to Rachels.  Group exercise to find internal inconsistencies in these claims.  Our statement of cultural relativism: CR.  CR and Tolerance. 

Th 9/16:   Reading Quiz #3.  CR and Tolerance.  An Argument from Tolerance for CR.  Two problems with that argument.  The Cultural Differences Argument for CR.  The general principle that P2 of Cultural Differences Argument might be based on.  Counterexamples to this principle.  A modified principle that P2 of Cultural Differences Argument might be based on.  Counterexamples to this principle.  A different approach to arguing from cultural differences to conclusions about ethics.  The analogy with auras.  The Individual Differences Argument for Nihilism about Auras.  The Cultural Differences Argument for Nihilism in Ethics.  Challenges to P1 of this Argument.

WEEK 5

Tu 9/21:  Reading Quiz #4.  C. S. Lewis on Cultural Relativism.  Arguing Against a Moral Theory.  The Argument from the Evaluation of Cultures.  Providing Rationales for Premises.  The Gallup Poll, our views about it, and upshot of this for Cultural Relativism.  The Gallup Poll Argument.  The Appeals of Cultural Relativism.  How non-relativists or "objectivists" can (1) value tolerance, (2) have humility about our knowledge of right and wrong, and (3) accept that lots of morality is relative at a non-fundamental level.

Th 9/23:  Review Day

WEEK 6

Tu 9/28:  Exam #1

Th 9/30:  Examples of uncontroversially wrong actions.  The Suffering Principle.  Counterexamples to the necessity claim in the SP.  John Stuart Mill.  A very famous passage.  Difficulties in formulating Mill's theory.  Hedonic Utility.  Varieties of pleasure and pain.  Maximization.  Alternatives.  Our formulation of utilitarianism: AU.

WEEK 7

Tu 10/5:  Reading Quiz #5.  Our formulation of utilitarianism: AU.  Important features of AU.  In-depth discussion of how it is the case that, on AU, "everyone matters equally," involving lifeboat example.

Th 10/7:  Your Initial Views and Arguments on Abortion.  Marquis’s Main Thesis.  Marquis's Methodology.  The concept of a future like ours.  Marquis' Future-Like-Ours (FLO) Theory of the Wrongness of Killing.  Allegedly Attractive Implications of the FLO Theory.  A Fifth Implication of the FLO Theory.  Marquis' Main Argument.     

WEEK 8

Tu 10/12:  Marquis's Main Argument: Not a religious argument.  An Initial Objection.  Other objections.  

Th 10/14:  Reading Quiz #6.  Problems for Act Utilitarianism: the Promise-to-the-Dead-Man Objection; the Footbridge Objection; the Punish-the-Innocent Objection; the Demandingness Objection.  Possible Utilitarian Replies.

WEEK 9

Tu 10/19:  Footbridge; Punish-the-Innocent; Demandingness: a Possibly Common Root to these Objections.  Preliminaries on Moral Rights: moral rights not legal rights; negative rights vs. positive rights.  Utilitarianism of Rights (UR).  UR and Footbridge.  UR and Punish-the-Innocent.  UR and Demandingness.

Th 10/21:  Reading Quiz #7.  Rights as Side-Constraints.  RT.  Who Has Rights?  Personhood Theory / Rationalism.  What Rights Are There? 
Nozick's four categories of rights.  Our Nozickian Rights Theory (NRT).  NRT and Footbridge.  NRT and the Punish-the-Innocent Objection.  NRT and Demandingness.  NRT and the Promise-to-the-Dead-Man Objection.  Your thoughts and questions on NRT.

WEEK 10

Tu 10/26:  A Rights-Based Position on Abortion.  The StaReading Quiz #8.  Problems for Nozick's Rights Theory.  Underdemandingness (Shallow Pond).  Locke's appeal to positive rights.  The Anna Case.   .ndard Anti-Abortion Argument.  Thomson’s Objection to P2: Famous Violinist.  Thomson’s Positive Argument.  The Cabin in the Mountains.  How to object to P2.

Th 10/28:  Reading Quiz #8.  Thomson’s Positive Argument.  Reactions to it.  An "intention" objection to P2.  A "consent" objection to P2.      Problems for Nozick's Rights Theory.  Underdemandingness (Shallow Pond).  Locke's appeal to positive rights.

WEEK 11

Tu 11/2:  Review for Exam 2.

Th 11/4:  Exam 2   BRING A BLUEBOOK!

WEEK 12

Tu 11/9:  W.D. Ross.  The Concept of a Prima Facie Duty.  The Promise/Accident example.  The Splinter example.  Ross's List of Prima Facie Duties.  (a) Fidelity; (b) Reparations (and how to apologize); (c) Gratitude; (d) Justice; (e) Beneficence; (f) Self-Improvement; (g) Non-Maleficence. 

Th 11/11:  Reading Quiz #9.  Counterexample exercise with Absolute Fidelity and Moderate Fidelity.  Rossian Pluralism (RP).  Applications of Rossian Pluralism.  How we know what maximizes p-f rightness over wrongness on Ross' view. 

WEEK 13

Tu 11/16:  Return Exam #2.   The core of Ross's theory as a framework for ethics, even if he's wrong about the specific duties.  Two duties or factors Ross may have overlooked?: (h) Consent; (i) Cost to the Agent.  Are there consent-based counterexamples to Rossian Pluralism?  Rossian Pluralism, over-demandingness, and how a cost-to-the-agent permission might solve this.  Ross's Argument from Promises against AU. 

Th 11/18:  Is Deontology Irrational?  Rationales for the premises of this argument.  Possible ways to reply to it.  Second Paper Assignment.  Reading Quiz #10. 

          -----     THANKSGIVING BREAK     -----

WEEK 14

Tu 11/30:  FCQs.  Questionnaire results on slave reparations.  Polls on slave reparations.  Randall Robinson and His Thesis.  Preliminary Questions about Robinson's Thesis.  The Compensation Principle.  An Initial, Two-Part Puzzle,  African Americans in America, past and present.  Solving the Two-Part Puzzle: From Past Claimants to Present Claimants: the Harms Continue claim. 

Th 12/2:  Reading Quiz #11.  From Past Debtor to Present Debtor and the Debts Continue claim.  Robinson's Argument for Slave Reparations.  The rationale for P2.  Your thoughts on Robinson's argument. 

WEEK 15

Tu 12/7:  Impromptu Ethics Conference with volunteer speakers

Th 12/9:  Review for Exam #3.

FINALS WEEK

Exam 3.  BRING A BLUEBOOK! 

F 12/10: Alternative Exam 3 time/place: Fri Dec 10, 1:30-2:45 p.m., HLMS 177

W 12/15: Assigned Exam 3 time/place: Wed Dec 15, 4:30-5:45 p.m., INFO 158