Ethics
Prof. Patrick Frierson
http://people.whitman.edu/~frierspr/
My Office hours are 1:20–2:20 pm
on Tuesday, 11-12 am on Wednesday, and 9–10 am on Thursday
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
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/philosophy/faculty/jcruz/writingtutor/.
Because
many students come to Whitman with hang-ups about grades, I have chosen to use a
scoring system rather than a letter-grade system for evaluating papers. Each
paper will get a number from 1-10, and the interpretations of these numbers are
available at http://people.whitman.edu/~frierspr/gradingcriteria.htm.
If you would like to know how these numbers relate to letter grades, you may
send me an email at any time and I will tell you.
Rather
than having you turn in physical versions of your papers, I would like for you
to email
your papers to me at frierspr@whitman.edu.
You should email these papers no later than 1:00 on the day on which they are
due. Papers should be emailed to me in
.DOC (Word) format. If you have a Mac, be sure to save your paper in a PC
friendly format. When you send you paper to me, you should save the paper
with the following title format: [FirstName LastName PaperNumber]. For
example, when I turn in the third paper on the syllabus, I will entitle the
document “Patrick Frierson Paper 3.doc”.
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 (
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals,
ed. by Allen Wood (
Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, Ed. C. Stephen Evans
(Cambridge University Press)
Timeline:
|
Sept. |
1 |
Introduction.
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics,
Book I, chapter one. |
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3 |
Aristotle, Ethics,
Book I, chapters 1-13 and introduction, p. 12. 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.) Quiz on the
Writing Tutor http://www.williams.edu/philosophy/faculty/jcruz/writingtutor/. |
|
|
8 |
Aristotle, Ethics,
Books II-III. Paper due: Using at least one specific example of a character
excellence, explain Aristotle’s view that “excellence . . . depend[s] on
intermediacy” (1107a1) and then either criticize or defend that view. |
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10 |
Aristotle, Ethics,
Book III-IV. |
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15 |
Aristotle, Ethics,
Book V-VI (focus on V). 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. OR: Use a
specific claim that Aristotle makes about justice to clarify or correct an
aspect of his general conception of “ethics” that might otherwise be easily
misunderstood. (For more specific guidance on this paper, click here.) |
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17 |
Aristotle, Ethics,
Book V. |
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22 |
Aristotle, Ethics,
Book VI. Paper Due: For Aristotle, which is the greatest excellence: justice,
wisdom, or intellectual accomplishment? |
|
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24 |
Aristotle, Ethics,
Book VII (chapters 1-14), Book X (chapters 1-5). |
|
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29 |
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 Friday at noon and get approval on your
topic. |
|
Oct. |
1 |
Hellenistic ethics.
Read Epictetus, Enchiridion, http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
and Epicurus, http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/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.) |
|
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6 |
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.)
Paper due:
Of the ancient/medieval systems of ethics, which is the best? Why? |
|
|
8 |
Montaigne, "Of Custom" and "Of
Cannibals", (http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/montaigne/m-essays_contents.html) 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 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.) |
|
|
15 |
Hobbes, Leviathan,
chapters XIII-XV, XVII-XVIII. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html
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? |
|
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20 |
Hume, Enquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix II and Chapters I-II. Paper Due: Who’s moral theory more accurately reflects human nature,
Hume’s or Hobbes’s? |
|
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22 |
Hume, Enquiry,
Chapters II - V. |
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27 |
Hume, Enquiry,
Chapters VI - IX. |
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|
Paper Due: Using
specific examples, discuss whether Hume's ethical theory provides the
necessary and sufficient conditions for moral approval and disapproval. |
|
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29 |
Hume, Enquiry,
Chapter IX and Mill, Utilitarianism,
http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm.
For Mill, read chapters 1, 2, and 4. (Chapters 3 and 5 are interesting and
important, but you should consider these “optional”.) 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. (This paper may be turned in on Tuesday, even if you do not submit any
sort of draft on Thursday. In addition, if you write the Kant paper for
Tuesday, you may submit this Mill paper at any time before Nov. 20.) |
|
Nov. |
3 |
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.) Paper Due: With specific reference to at
least one previous philosopher, assess one of the following Kantian claims:
“There is nothing . . . that can be held to be good without limitation,
excepting only a good will” (Ak. 4:393) OR “the ground of obligation
is to be sought not in the nature of the human being . . . but a priori solely in concepts of pure reason” (Ak
4:389). |
|
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5 |
Kant, Groundwork,
Chapters 1 (pp. 16-19) and 2 (pp. 22-44).
(I will not be in class on this day, but I would recommend that you all
meet anyway. I’ll give more specific instructions next week.) |
|
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10 |
Kant, Groundwork,
Chapter 2 (pp. 22-49). 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. |
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12 |
Day off! |
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17 |
Kant, Groundwork,
Chapter 2 (pp. 22-62). |
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19 |
Kant, Groundwork,
Chapters 2 (pp. 49-62) and 3 (63-71). |
|
Dec. |
1 |
Universal Declaration of Human Rights at http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Paper Due (I VERY strongly recommend that you finish
this paper no later than Nov. 21, but it is not technically due until Dec. 1): 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.) |
|
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3 |
Kierkegaard, Fear
and Trembling, pp. 1-46. Extra Credit: 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.) 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. |
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8 |
Kierkegaard, Fear
and Trembling, pp. 46-71. 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. |
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10 |
Kierkegaard, Fear
and Trembling, pp. 46-71 and Derrida, selections from The Gift of Death. We will also use this class for wrap-up and review (see assignment below). 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. |