Ethics

Prof. Patrick Frierson

frierspr@whitman.edu

http://people.whitman.edu/~frierspr/

Office Hours (Olin 151): T 11-12, W 9-10, 11-12

Ethics lunches, by request, on Tuesdays.

How should I live my life? What ought I do? What makes a person or action good? In this course, we focus on answers to these questions at the most general level. This course is not primarily focused on concrete ethical questions, although some will be discussed. The purpose of this course is to help you think more carefully for yourselves about broad ethical questions. This course will familiarize you with the most important arguments and positions in ethics and teach you to think critically about them. In addition, you will develop your skills at reading philosophical texts and expressing your thoughts in papers and orally.

Assignments:

Class Participation: Active engagement in class discussion is a crucial part of this class. You should come to every class having read the material closely more than once and thought about it carefully. Participation will not count for any specific percentage of your grade, but I will adjust final grades based on it. After the first week of class, there will also be a listserver for this course. Active involvement on that listserver is expected and will be factored into my overall assessment of your participation.

8 short papers (400 – 800 words, include a word count at the end of the paper)

For each week of the semester, there is a question based on the readings. I take papers very seriously, and I give significant feedback on papers that you write. Writing these papers and reading my feedback is one way to get the one-on-one attention that is the hallmark of Whitman College. The more papers you write, the more of this attention you will get. You are required to write short papers answering 8 of these. (If you turn in more than 8 papers, your 8 highest grades will count.) You must write at least one paper on each of the following philosophers: Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard. Because the papers often will be discussed in class on the day in which they are due, there are no extensions. However, you are welcome to hand-write comments on your papers in class, and I will take these into account in assigning your grade on the paper. Due dates marked with an asterix* can be extended over the weekend, if you finish your “initial notes” – see online Writing Tutor – by the original due date. These papers are worth 80% of your final grade (10% each).

The primary purpose of these short papers is to help you read the assigned material closely and think about it carefully before coming to class, but they will also teach you to express yourself more clearly in writing. For advice on writing papers in philosophy, I strongly recommend that you refer to Joe Cruz’s Writing Tutor at http://www.williams.edu/acad-depts/philosophy/jcruz/writingtutor/.

Final Exam

At the end of the semester, you will have a 4-hour take-home exam. The exam will be closed book and will consist of at least three essay questions, of which you must answer two. I will hand out the exams on the last day of class, and they will be due at the time of our class’s scheduled exam. The exam is worth 20% of your final grade.

Books (Be sure that you have the correct editions!!):

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, edited by Sarah Broadie (Oxford University Press)

David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. by Tom Beauchamp (Oxford University Press)

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. by Allen Wood (Yale University Press)

Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, ed. Hong (Princeton University Press)

Timeline:

Aug.	31	Introduction. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, chapter one.
Sept.	1	Aristotle, Ethics, Book I, chapters 1-12 and introduction, p. 12.
		Quiz on the Writing Tutor (http://www.williams.edu/acad-depts/philosophy/jcruz/writingtutor/)
	2	Aristotle, Ethics, Book I, chapter 13.
		Paper due: According to Aristotle, what is the aim of a good life? How does Aristotle justify his claim? (Be as specific as possible when describing the aim of a good life.)
	7	Aristotle, Ethics, Books II-III.
	8	Aristotle, Ethics, Book III.
	9	Aristotle, Ethics, Book IV.
		Paper Due: Choose one particular excellence and use it to illustrate and/or criticize Aristotle's general theory of human excellence. The particular excellence you choose can be one that Aristotle discusses or something that you consider to be a genuine human excellence that Aristotle does not discuss.
	14	Aristotle, Ethics, Books V-VI (focus on V).
	15	Aristotle, Ethics, Books V.
	16	Aristotle, Ethics, Books VI.
		Paper Due: Which is the greatest excellence: justice, wisdom, or intellectual accomplishment?
	21	Aristotle, Ethics, Book VII (chapters 1-10).
	22	Aristotle, Ethics, Book VII (chapters 11-14), Book X (chapters 1-5).
	23	Aristotle, Ethics, Book X (chapters 6-9).
		Paper Due: Is Aristotle correct that reflective activity is the highest excellence? (Be sure to discuss the extent to which this claim relates to “what was said before” (1177a20). If you agree with Aristotle, why? If not, how much of his theory must be rejected if we reject this conclusion?)
		Option: You may write on any issue in Aristotle's Ethics. You must send me an email by Wednesday at noon and get approval on your topic.
	28	Hellenistic ethics. Read Epictetus, Enchiridion, http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html and Epicurus, http://www.atomic-swerve.net/tpg/fragments.html (focus on fragments 8, 10-12, 23, 28-30, 33, 36-54, 57-87), http://classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/menoec.html
		(Read passages on all three sites.)
	29	Hebraic and Christian ethics. Exodus 19-21, Romans 1-4 (focus on Romans 2:15-16).
		Aquinas Summa Theologica, I-II, QQ 90 (Articles 1, 2, and 4), 91 (Articles 1-4), and 94 (Article 4). (http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/FS.html#TOC09.)
	30	Presidential Debate between Epictetus, Epicurus, Moses, and Aquinas. Prepare to defend your candidate and bring at least one question for each of the other candidates.
		Paper due*: Of the ancient/medieval systems of ethics, which is the best? Why?
Oct.	5	Montaigne, "Of Custom" and "Of Cannibals"
		(http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/montaigne/m-essays_contents.html)
	6	Mandeville, "The Fable of the Bees" http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/hive.html Optional: read http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~landc/html/mandeville.html ("On the Origin of Virtue and Vice") For a complete and searchable text of the full version of this book, see http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/LFBooks/Mandeville0162/FableOfBees/0014-01_Bk.html#hd_lf14v1.head.032
	7	Mandeville debate. Think about whether you would prefer to be in the hive or in the tree. Come to class prepared to convince others to join you.
		Paper Due*: Criticize either Aquinas's ethics or Aristotelian ethics using Montaigne and Mandeville. (If you would like, you may use the style of Aquinas’s questions for this paper.)
	12	Mid-semester Break.
	13	Hobbes, Leviathan, chapters XIII-XV.
		http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html
	14	Hobbes, Leviathan, chapters XVII-XVIII.
		Paper due*: Does Hobbes’s ethics adequately respond to the problems raised by Montaigne and/or Mandeville? Does it raise any problems of its own?
	19	Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix II and Chapters I-II.
	20	Hume, Enquiry, Chapters II - V.
	21	Hume, Enquiry, Chapters VI - IX.
		Paper Due*: Using specific examples, discuss whether Hume's ethical theory provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for moral approval and disapproval.
	26	Hume, Enquiry, Chapter IX and Appendixes I and III.
	27	Hume review.
	28	Hume review/Presidential Debate between Hume, Hobbes, and a third party candidate.
		Paper Due*: Write a letter from Hume to one of the other ethical theorists we have studied, in which Hume shows how his ethical theory addresses a problem that the other theorist might have in a way that would be helpful to the other theorist. Start the letter with "In your last letter, you asked about . . ."
Nov.	2	Mill, Utilitarianism, http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm.
	3	Mill, Utilitarianism, http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm.
	4
		Paper Due*: Using a specific example of an ethical decision, explain the differences between Mill and Hume and argue that one is better than the other.
	9	Kant. Groundwork, Preface and chapter One (pp. 3-21) and Baron, "Acting from Duty" (pp. 92-110). (You might also check out Schneewind, "Why Study Kant's Ethics?," pp. 83-91.)
	10	Kant, Groundwork, Chapters 1 (pp. 16-19) and 2 (pp. 22-44).
	11	Kant, Groundwork, Chapter 2 (pp. 44-49).
		Paper due*: Pick a short passage (a sentence or a paragraph) from either Aristotle or Hume and write a Kantian commentary on that sentence. Use your commentary to explain what you take to be the most important difference between Kant and the other philosopher, and be sure to offer specific Kantian arguments to defend that difference.
	16	Kant, Groundwork, Chapters 2 (pp. 49-62) and 3 (63-71).
	17	Kant review. You should also read Shelly Kagan's "Kantianism for Consequentialists," pp. 111-56 in Kant's Groundwork.)-
	18	Universal Declaration of Human Rights at http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
		Paper Due*: Discuss one or two articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the form of a dialogue between Kant and Mill. (The best papers will show evidence of having read the essays by Baron and Kagan.)
	30	Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 1-25. Extra Credit (participation): Bring your own story of Abraham and Isaac. Try to write a story that makes Abraham look more admirable than the Abraham’s in Kierkegaard’s stories. (I may ask you to read this story in class.)
Dec.	1	Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 25-53. Extra credit: Write a story describing an event in the life of a knight of faith, a knight of infinite resignation, or a “frog of the swamp.” You should know which of these your story describes, but it should not be totally obvious. We’ll read those in class and your classmates will have to guess which character you’ve described.
	2	Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 54-67.
		Paper Due*: Choose one of the moral theories we have studied this semester. From the standpoint of Johannes de Silencio, explain what is good about that moral theory and how (if at all) it fails to properly account for Abraham.
	7	Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 68-81 and Derrida, selections from The Gift of Death.
	8	Kierkegaard review.
		Questions for Final Exam due. Before class (by 8:30 AM), you should email me a question that you think will be suitable for the final exam. I will choose the best 10 of these, along with 2 of my own and put together a study sheet that you can use to review for the final. The final exam will draw from the questions on the study sheet. These questions will count towards your participation.
	9	Wrap-up and review.