First-Year Seminar |
Here is a detailed but tentative list of readings for the course, to be modified if necessary as the semester progresses. All readings are from Pojman, ed., The Moral Life, unless otherwise noted.
| Date | Topic | Assignment |
| Thursday, Jan 16 | Introduction to the course | none |
| The Purpose of Morality | ||
| Tuesday, Jan 21 |
What is morality? Does it have a purpose, and if so, what? |
Golding, from Lord of the Flies |
| Good and Evil | ||
| Thursday, Jan 23 | Good and evil (1) | Melville, "Billy Budd" Styron, from Sophie's Choice |
| Tuesday, Jan 28 | Good and evil (2) | Hallie, "From Cruelty to Goodness" Benn, "Wickedness" presenters: Holly Denham, Jennifer Yu |
| Thursday, Jan 30 | Good and evil (3): Nietzsche | Nietzsche, from Beyond Good and Evil Conard, "Thus Spake Bart: On Nietzsche and the Virtues of Being Bad" (handout) presenters: Alicia Flarity, Lisa Thoman |
| Tuesday, Feb 4 | Good and evil (4): the problem of evil | Dostoevsky, from The Brothers Karamazov Mackie, "Evil and Omnipotence" (handout) rough draft of short paper 1 due presenters: Stefanie Frisby, Christine Thiering |
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Moral Relativism |
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| Thursday, Feb 6 | Moral Relativism (1): Theoretical Views | Herodotus, "Custom is King" Benedict, "The Case for Moral Relativism" Pojman, "The Case Against Moral Relativism" presenters: Lauren Hughes, Sylvia Suciu |
| Tuesday, Feb 11 | Moral Relativism (2): Judgmentalism | Jean Bethke Elshtain, "Judge Not?" Ibsen, from The Enemy of the People short paper 1 due |
| Utilitarianism | ||
| Thursday, Feb 13 | Utilitarianism (1): Theoretical Views | "Seaman Holmes . . ." Bentham, "Classical Utilitarianism" Nielsen, "A Defense of Utilitarianism" Williams, "Against Utilitarianism" presenters: Katy Hummel, Carolina Palacios |
| Tuesday, Feb 18 | Utilitarianism (2): Literary Examples | LeGuin, "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" Huxley, from Brave New World presenters: Sarah Jones, Maryam Naderi |
| Deontological Ethics | ||
| Thursday, Feb. 20 | Deontology (1): Kantianism | Kant, "The Moral Law" Lawler, "The Moral World of the Simpson Family: A Kantian Perspective" presenters: Alicia Kerr, Laura Melton |
| Tuesday, Feb. 25 | Deontology (2): Prima Facie Duties | W. D. Ross, "Intuitionism" Fried, "The Evil of Lying" presenters: Justin Massey, [round 2 begins] Holly Denham |
| Thursday, Feb 27 | Deontology (3): Challenges | Bierce, "A Horseman in the Sky" Nagel, "Moral Luck" presenters: Alicia Flarity, Jennifer Yu |
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Virtue Ethics |
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| Tuesday, March 4 | Virtue Ethics (1): Aristotelianism | Aristotle, "Virtue Ethics" Halwani, "Homer and Aristotle" (handout) short paper 2 due |
| Thursday, March 6 | Virtue Ethics (2): Virtue vs. Duty? | Hugo, "The Bishop and the
Candlesticks" Mayo, "Virtue and the Moral Life" presenters: Stefanie Frisby, Lisa Thoman |
| March 8 - 16 |
SPRING BREAK |
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| Tuesday, March 18 | Virtue Ethics (3): Literary Examples | Hawthorne, "The Great Stone Face" Bennett, "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn" presenters: Lauren Hughes, Christine Thiering |
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Egoism and Altruism |
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| Thursday, March 20 | Egoism and Altruism (1): is altruism a bad thing? | Plato, "The Ring of Gyges" Ringer, from Looking Out for Number One (handout) Rand, from Atlas Shrugged (handout) presenters: Katy Hummel, Sylvia Suciu |
| Tuesday, March 25 | Egoism and Altruism (2): why be altruistic? | Rachels, "Ethical Egoism" Pojman, "Egoism, Self-Interest, and Altruism" presenters: Sarah Jones, Carolina Palacios |
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Absurdity and Meaning |
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| Thursday, March 27 | No Class - Instructor out of town | |
| Tuesday, April 1 | What gives life meaning? (1) Nothing | Camus, "Life is Absurd" Nagel, "The Absurd" (handout) presenters: Alicia Kerr, Maryam Naderi |
| Thursday, April 3 | What gives life meaning? (2) Pleasure | Epicurus, "Hedonism" Nozick, "The Experience Machine" short paper 3 due |
| Tuesday, April 8 | What gives life meaning? (3) Control over desire | Epictetus et al., "Stoic Catechism" Buddha, "Four Noble Truths" presenters: Justin Massey, Laura Melton |
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Why Literature? |
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| Thursday, April 10 | What gives life meaning? (4) Religion; no general answer | Walker, "Religion gives meaning to
life" Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning" |
| Tuesday, April 15 | Literature as Moral Philosophy | Nussbaum, "Flawed Crystals: James's The Golden Bowl and Literature as Moral Philosophy" |
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Topics in Applied Ethics |
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| Thursday, April 17 | Sexual Morality | Vatican Declaration; Belliotti; Punzo |
| Tuesday, April 22 | Abortion | Noonan, Warren |
| Thursday, April 24 | Drug Legalization | Wilson, "Against the Legalization of Drugs"; Block, "Drug Prohibition" (handouts) |
| Tuesday, April 29 | War | National Security Strategy of the United States (esp. section 5); United Nations Charter (see articles 2, 51); "The Bush Doctrine Makes Nonsense of the UN Charter" (Guardian, June 7, 2002) |
| Thursday, May 1 | Animal Ethics; wrapping up | Orwell, Singer, Cohen |
| Monday, May 5 |
final draft of final paper due |
Last update: March 25, 2003. |