Phil 340: Moral Emotions

The primary goal of this course is to help you develop skills of philosophical reflection through reading, discussing, writing, and analyzing important historical and contemporary texts that discuss moral emotions. We will explore the relationship between morality and emotions in three main ways. First, we will consider the questions of whether, how, and to what extent emotions are susceptible of moral evaluation and assessment. Second, we will consider to what extent morality as such is or can be grounded in emotion. And finally, we will investigate moral dimensions of several specific emotions, such as resentment, shame, and compassion. Throughout, you will develop skills at close and careful reading of challenging texts, integrating material from different readings, expressing your own ideas orally and in writing, and reflecting on your own life and experience in the light of the philosophical perspectives of our readings and your classmates (including your professor).

Requirements:

• Attendance, Reading, and Participation (10%). You are expected to read and reread the assigned texts for each class with thoughtfulness and care. Merely passing your eyes over the relevant pages is not reading. You need to engage with the material, thinking through passages that you find confusing until you are able to either understand them or clearly articulate the nature of your confusion. You should constantly assess how the readings relate to one another and to your own emerging thoughts about what it means to be a human being. You should bring this deep understanding of and insightful questions about the texts to class with you each week, prepared to contribute in substantive ways to our cooperative class project of coming to a deeper understanding of what it is to be human. You are required to attend every class and are expected to participate in a learning community of mutual respect.
• Seminar Paper (20%). For one of our weekly meetings, you will be expected to write a seminar paper of approximately 2000-4000 words that engages with the material assigned for the day and may incorporate additional readings you find on your own. Your paper may develop a thesis that answers the assigned prompt for the day, or you may write on another issue related to the general theme for the day. You must distribute this paper no later than noon on the Sunday preceding class, in order to give all of us enough time to read the paper carefully. A seminar paper that is late will automatically suffer a one grade point drop (from a B to a C, for instance). If the paper is more than 24 hours late, it will receive an F. The seminar paper should not be “exploratory,” but rather a well-reasoned argument that defends a specific and interesting thesis related to the topic for the day. Because of the expectations for this seminar paper, you should not wait until the week that it is due to begin writing it. Although each week’s reading builds to some extent off of previous weeks, each week’s reading also stands largely on its own. You should start the reading for your seminar paper at least three weeks before it is due and have started writing (at least brainstorming) at least two weeks before the paper is due. You must send me a draft of the paper no later than 9 AM on the Wednesday before the paper is due. I also strongly encourage you to meet with me on Wednesday (between 1 and 2 pm or by appointment) to discuss this draft and ideas for improving the paper.
• Presentation (20%). For at least one of our weekly meetings, you will be expected to give a presentation. The primary focus of this presentation should be the seminar paper written for that week’s meeting. You should very briefly explain what you take to be the central thesis of that seminar paper and what you take to be the core argument for that thesis. You should then raise significant objections and/or suggest ways that the argument of the paper could be fruitfully developed. (You might also use this opportunity to defend alternative positions that are neglected or insufficiently treated in the paper.) You should feel free to connect your comments on the paper with your own interests, but the focus should be on the arguments and ideas in the seminar paper. Your introductory comments should not take longer than 10 minutes. In addition, you should come with specific questions to guide discussion. (This might include passages from the reading that you want to read closely in the context of the seminar paper, or passages from the seminar paper that you want to look at more closely.) Because the oral portion of your presentation will be brief, I strongly recommend including a handout with your presentation. Your handout might include such things as: a summary of the thesis and main argument of the seminar paper; brief bullet points with your central questions, criticisms, extensions, and observations about the paper; quotes for discussion (from the paper and/or readings for the day); and/or key questions that you hope we will discuss as a class.
• Weekly Responses (20%). On weeks that you are neither writing a paper nor giving a presentation, you are expected to write a short response to the readings. You should email me a brief (1-2 page) response to the assigned readings, including the following: (a) a brief statement of the main point of each reading, (b) a summary of the argument(s) used to establish that main point, (c) a reference to the most important passage in the reading and a brief explanation of why that passage is so important, (d) questions you have about the reading (i.e. stuff you don’t understand), and (e) at least one key objection to or extension of arguments or positions in the reading. These are due by noon on the day we will discuss the reading. Because the purpose of these is to enrich our discussion, there are no extensions. The purpose of these responses is to ensure that you are on top of your reading and to make me aware of specific difficulties you are having with it. In addition to these responses to the main readings, you must submit, either as an extra paragraph in your initial email or as a separate email sent to me no later than 5 PM, a short paragraph that states the main thesis of the seminar paper for the day, at least one concrete suggestion for improving that paper, and at least one objection to or extension of the argument of the seminar paper. You should send these to me as well as the author of the seminar paper.

The responses will receive a check-plus, check, or check-minus. A check means that your paper shows solid engagement with and comprehension of the text. A check-plus shows that you have dramatically exceeded my expectations for a Whitman student and have written a truly exceptional short response. The best way to get a check-plus is to combine a clear and concise summary of the main argument of the reading with an original and insightful objection to or extension of that argument (along with, of course, a good passage and explanation of that passage). You should not expect to get check-pluses regularly. They are given only for extraordinary responses. A check-minus will be given to any response that fails to show basic comprehension of the text, or fails to engage thoughtfully with the issues in the text, or includes grammatical or spelling errors, or fails to address one of the five points – (a) through (e) – mentioned above.

• Final Paper (30%). At the end of the semester, you will be required to turn in a substantive research paper of at least 4500 words. This paper should engage with at least some of the material we discuss in class and at least some additional material beyond what we read in class. The topic of these papers is open-ended, but the general idea is to contribute to recent discussions about moral emotions by entering into conversation with the material we have read together over the semester.

Timeline

Date	Topic	Readings	Paper	Presentation
Jan 27	Moral Emotions/ Sentimentalism	Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereafter TMS), Part One (pp. 1-66). Angela Smith, “Responsibility for Attitudes,” Ethics 115 (2005), read pp. 236-42, 249-57, 263, 270-71. Nancy Sherman, “Taking Responsibility for our Emotions,” Social Philosophy and Policy 16 (1999):294-323. Martha Nussbaum, “Emotions and Upheavals of Thought,” from Anger and Forgiveness (OUP 2016). Antti Kauppinen, “Moral Sentimentalism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014)	Patrick F.	Reza D.
Feb 3	Empathy	Smith, TMS, Part One (pp. 1-66). Michael Slote, Moral Sentimentalism, Introduction and Chapter 1. Remy Debes, “The Authority of Empathy” Diana Tietjens Meyers, “A Modest Feminist Sentimentalism” Christian Miller, Moral Character, chapter 5 (pp. 102-130).	Sophia G.	Jesse Z.
Feb 10	Reactive Attitudes: Resentment	Smith, TMS, pp. 67-108. Strawson, “Freedom and Resentment” Martha Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness, selections.	Siri D.	Hannah R.
Feb 17	President’s Day (No Classes)	We will something fun TBD for this week.
Feb 24	Sentiment and Impartiality	Smith, TMS, pp. 109-178. Roderick Firth, “Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer” Martha Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge, pp. 335-346. Seyla Benhabib, “The Generalized and the Concrete Other” Samuel Scheffler, “Morality and Reasonable Partiality”	Madison B.	Andreas G.
March 2	Guilt and Regret	Smith TMS, pp. 109-112. Christian Miller, Moral Character, chapter 2 (pp. 29-56). Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, Chapter Three, selection entitled “The more enduring social…” (pp. 87-93 of the book, pp. 100-106 of the pdf). Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, Second Essay (Guilt, Bad Conscience, and related matters). (Use your copy from Encounters if you have it.)	Jesse Z.	Andrew P.
March 9	Disgust	Martha Nussbaum, Hiding Our Humanity, chapters 1 and 2. Kelly and Wilson, Yuck!, chapters 4 and 5. Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, chapter 4. Paul Rozin et. al, The CAD triad hypothesis	Reza D.	Siri D.
SPRING BREAK
March 30	Shame (Visit from Krista Thomason! – Cancelled)	Martha Nussbaum, Hiding Our Humanity, Introduction and chapters 4-6. Krista Thomason, Naked, Introduction and Chapters 3 and 4. Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, chapter 5.	Andreas G.	Alison C.
April 6	The Embodiment of Emotion	Rene Descartes, The Passions of the Soul William James, Principles of Psychology v. 2, “Emotion” Jesse Prinz, Embodied Emotions. (A prepublication version is available here if you can’t access the previous link.)	Sorcha M	Patrick F.
April 13	Jealousy and Envy	Sara Protasi, “I’m not envious, I’m just jealous…” Justin D’Arms, “Envy” Krista Thomason, “The Moral Value of Envy” Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, “Are Envy, Anger, and Resentment Moral Emotions”	Alison C.	Danny C-S
April 20	Fear and Anxiety	Nussbaum, The Monarchy of Fear, chapter two. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pp. 65-85. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 179-82, 228-35, 331	Hannah R.	Sorcha M.
April 27	Friendship and Romantic Love	Dean Cocking and Jeannette Kennett, “Friendship and the Self” Marylin Friedman, “Romantic Love and Personal Autonomy” Simon Keller, “How do I love thee: Let me count the properties” One additional reading to be chosen by Danny. (You might check out the chapters of Badhwar’s Friendship: A philosophical reader, one chapter of which I almost included here. The SEP entries on Love and on Friendship are also helpful.)	Danny C-S	Madison B.
May 4	Compassion (Visit from Annalise Acorn!)	You might go back and reread the discussion of “social sentiments” from Part One of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. Martha Nussbaum, “Compassion: The basic social emotion”, Upheavals of Thought, pp. 297-456. Lawrence Blum, “Compassion” Annalise Acorn, Compulsory Compassion (chapter 6)	Andrew P.	Sophia G.
May 11	Last Class Day	Final Papers Due.