Phil 3100 - What We Did Each Day

(or plan to do)

Week 14

M 4/23

• Study Guide for Exam 3 now up
• Review of Foot's Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, and how it explains one pair of cases (Magistrate vs. Driver)
• Thomson's criticism of this (Passenger)
• The Trolley Problem (Switch vs. Footbridge)
• Possible solutions:

W 4/25

• Radiolab, Greene, X-Phi

F 4/27

• REVIEW FOR EXAM #3

 

Week 13

M 4/16

• Two Distinctions Common in Deontology: Intend/Foresee; Do/Allow.
• Intending as an end vs. intending as a means
• The Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE)
• Why believe the DDE?
• Hart's objection to the DDE
• Foot's Reply

W 4/18

• Pop Quiz #8
• Review of last time
• The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing (DDA)
  • Foot's Formulation of the DDA: negative duties vs. positive duties
  • DDA and the cases
  • DDA and DDE
  • Utilitarianism, Libertarianism, and the DDA

F 4/20

• NO CLASS

Week 12

M 4/9

• Act Consequentialism
• Deontology
• Three Common Features of Deontology
  • Constraints
  • Duties of Special Relationship
  • Options
• Constraints
  • Moderate vs. Absolute
  • Examples
  • The Paradox of Deontology
  • The Case of Jim and the Indians
  • Agent-Relativity

W 4/11

• The Concept of a Prima Facie Duty
• Examples
• Ross' List of Seven Basic Prima Facie Duties
• Counterexample to the Duty of Fidelity??
• Ross' Theory

F 4/13

• Pop Quiz #7
• Ross' Theory
• An Illustration of Ross' Theory
• Ross' Argument from Promises against Utilitarianism
• Is Deontology Irrational?

Week 11

M 4/2

• Returned and reviewed Exam 2, Paper 1, and quizzes

W 4/4

• Pop Quiz #6
• Kant's Categorical Imperative
  • maxims
  • universalizibility
  • two requirements for universalizable maxims
  • KCI
  • examples

F 4/6

• A Recipe for Applying KCI
• Problem for KCI
  • The Problem of Innocent-but-Non-Universalizable Maxims
  • The Problem of Subjectivism

Week 10

M 3/19

• The Experience Machine Argument against Hedonism about welfare
• The Desire Theory of Welfare
  • The Scope Problem
• The Objective List Theory of Welfare
  • Internalism about welfare

W 3/21

• REVIEW FOR EXAM #2

W 3/23

• EXAM #2 -- BRING A BLUEBOOK! And a blue- or black-ink pen.

Week 9

M 3/12

• Four uses of 'good' and 'bad' (and related notions)
• Our focus: welfare
• Intrinsic vs. instrumental value.
• A way to test for intrinsic value: the isolation test
• Whether being alive is intrinsically good for people

W 3/14

• Pop Quiz #5
• A Common Taxonomy of Theories of Welfare: Hedonism, Desire Theory, Objective List Theory
• Hedonism about Welfare
• The Argument from Psychological Hedonism (for Hedonism about Welfare)
• Psychological Hedonism
• Why the Argument from Psychological Hedonism backfires

F 3/16

• Clarifying hedonism
  • Not a theory of right action
  • Contrasts with 'Hedonism' of ordinary English
  • Not a theory of the value of situations, but of the value of situations for people
• Three Versions of the Argument from Malicious Pleasures
  • Version 1 confuses 'good' and 'good for'
  • Version 2 claims that Bundy's malicious pleasures
  didn't make his life better
  • Version 3 claims that malicious pleasures (e.g., from snuff films) aren't as good (intrinsically) as innocent pleasures

Week 8

M 3/5

• Features of AU:
  • consequentialism
    • Other possible additional intrinsic values: justice, excellence
  • no absolute rules (cf. 10C)
  • no moral dilemmas (cf. 10C, mistaken formulations of AU)
  • "the ends justify the means" (?)
• An Epistemic Objection to AU, and two possible utilitarian replies: (1) distinguish the moral rightness and wrongness of actions from judgments of agential blame, judgments of intentions, etc.; and (2) move to expected utility.
• Esoteric Morality

W 3/7

• The Lack-of-Time Objection to AU
• The Organ Harvest Objection to AU

F 3/9

• A Reply to the Organ Harvest Objection

Week 7

M 2/27

• Returned and reviewed Exam #1.
• Discussed Paper #1 (due next Friday) and Paper Guidelines.

W 2/29

• A Map of Moral Philosophy: Normative Ethics: the Normative Ethics of Behavior, Axiology, Virtue/Vice Theory, the objects of evaluation for each, the terms of evaluation for each.
• The Fundamental Project of the Normative Ethics of Behavior, Statements of Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for an Act's Rightness
• Fully General Moral Principles (vs. Not Fully General Principles), Theories of Rightness.
• Sample theories; how to evaluate a moral theory: come up with a counterexample; or expose an internal consistency.
• Mill passage.

F 3/2

• Had Pop Quiz #4
• Why there must be explanations for the moral status of particular actions
• Formulating Mill's theory
• Hedonic utility, maximization
• Our formulation of act utilitarianism (AU)

Week 6

M 2/20

• Review of Non-Naturalism/Intuitionism and moral knowledge
• Problems for Intuitionism (Mackie)
  • The Arguments from Queerness (supervenience, motivation, normativity, knowledge)
  • The Argument from Relativity/Disagreement
• The Argument from Relativity/Disagreement (Mackie, Huemer)

W 2/22

• Review for Exam #1 (for Exam #1, bring a bluebook and blue or black ink).

F 2/24

• Exam #1

Week 5

M 2/13

• Collected homework.
• Two Kinds of Reductionism: Analytic and Synthetic
• A Simple Version of Analytic Reductionism
• How moral epistemology works on this theory
• Ayer's Argument as against this theory
• Hare's "Speech Act" Argument as against this theory

W 2/15

• Handed out and reviewed Metaethical Debate Handout
• Non-Naturalism/Intuitionism
• Nihilism/The Error Theory

F 2/17

• Had Pop Quiz #3
• Epistemic justification
• The regress problem in epistemology
• The moral knowledge regress problem
• Non-inferential justification
• Putative examples of non-inferentially justified beliefs
• Intuition, and its possible role in non-inferential justification

Week 4

M 2/6

• The Sidgwick/Moore Argument as applied to Simple Subjectivism, Cultural Relativism, Divine Command Theory, and Ideal Observer Theory.
• Divine Command Theory (as a set of metaphysical claims)
• DCT and Atheism

W 2/8

• The Euthyphro Problem for DCT
• The Arbitrariness Problem (what 'arbitrary' means, why it follows from Horn 1, why it's a problem)
• How Euthyphro applies to other forms of constructivism

F 2/10

• What is reductionism?
• What is naturalism?
• What is at stake
• Two versions of reductionism: analytic and synthetic
• A Simple Version of Realist Analytic Reductionism (SVR)
• Homework assignment:
  • Everyone re-read four paragraphs of Ayer, from p. 104 top ("A question which is ... ") to p. 105 last full paragraph (" ... of any kind")
  • Everyone re-read six paragraphs of Hare, §5.4 and the last paragraph of §5.7.
  • If your last name is A-L, extract an argument from Ayer in the third paragraph of the four I've asked you to read.
  • If your last name is M-Z, extract an argument from Hare contained in the last paragraph of §5.7, in particular the passage from "Now our attack ... " on p. 90 to "in order to commend A's which are C" on p. 91.
  • To extract the argument:
    • Start with the conclusion; figure out the view your argument is attacking; make your conclusion the claim that this view is false
    • Figure out the main premises the author uses to reach this conclusion; put these premises together so that they logically entail the conclusion; you may have to "read between the lines" to some extant
  • Be prepared to discuss your argument in class on Monday: to explain it, and to say whether you think it is a good argument.
  • I plan to collect these.

Week 3

M 1/30:

• Problems for Non-Cognitivism
• Simple Subjectivism
• Homework assignment:
  • read the Sidgwick and the Moore
  • extract the main argument from one of these readings
  • put it in this form: (P1) If Simple Subjectivism is true, then _______ ; (P2) But it's not the case that ________ ; (C) Therefore, Simple Subjectivism is not true.
  • be prepared to give the rationale for each premise of your argument (this is the reason the author would give for thinking that the premise is true)
  • be prepared to give your own evaluation of the argument.

W 2/1

• The metaphysical part of Simple Subjectivism
• Two interpretations of Sidgwick's argument
• My interpretation of Sidgwick's argument
• Two interpretations of Moore's argument

F 2/3

• NO CLASS -- SNOW DAY

Week 2

M 1/23:

• What is ethics?
• What is metaethics?
• Evaluative statements / moral statements.
• Three main kinds of question in metaethics.
• Subjective vs. Objective Properties
• Natural Properties

W 1/25:

• A Taxonomy of Metaethics

F 1/27:

• Non-Cognitivism
• The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction
• The A Priori/Empirical Distinction
• Empiricism
• Why Ayer is a Non-Cognitivist

Week 1

W 1/18: First day stuff (introductions, roll, syllabus).

F 1/20: Our initial views in metaethics.

home

F 4/15: Started off Friday right. QUIZ #9.

Week 14:

M 4/18: Some possible solutions to the Trolley Problem (1) 1 in Switch assumes risk; (2) 1 in Footbridge would be treated as a mere means [but consider Loop]; (3) 1 in Footbridge would be physically touched [but consider Trapdoor]; (4) Thomson's answer.

W 4/20: Listened to first segment of Radiolab's program "Morality," on the trolley problem. Discussed how empirical evidence might yield results in moral philosophy.

F 4/22: NO CLASS

Week 15:

M 4/25: REVIEW FOR EXAM #3

W 4/27: EXAM #3. Bring a bluebook and blue or black ink. Don't write your name on the bluebook yet, since we'll be trading them.

F 2/29: SECOND PAPER DUE (see paper guidelines and prompts). FCQ's. Return and review Exam #3. Review course grades.

Finals Week

W 5/4: OPTIONAL TAKE-OVER EXAM, 7:30 p.m.