Genealogies of Morals

(Philosophy 340A)

Fall, 2001

There are three main sorts of questions that one can ask about morality. What is good? Why is something good? Or, How do people come to consider some things good? The first two questions address the content and justification of morality, and these are the issues most commonly addressed by philosophers. The last question is about the origin, or genealogy, of morality. This question has been addressed throughout the history of philosophy, but today it is often done more in psychology or sociology departments than in philosophy. This course will explore several attempts to trace the origins of morality. In some of these cases, a genealogy is used to justify morality, in others to undermine morality. In some cases, the genealogy merely explains a moral system as it happens to be. In others, a genealogist seeks to change his readers' moral convictions by showing from whence they come. And in some cases, the genealogist specifically distances himself from issues of justification or the content of morality, taking the standpoint of a "mere" scientist describing phenomena. Throughout the course we will seek to understand not only the particular theories of the origin of morality, but also how these theories interact with claims about the legitimacy and content of morality. We will study genealogies by such thinkers as Moses, Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Mandeville, Rousseau, Hume, Smith, Kant, Nietzsche, Freud, Darwin, and Foucault.