Reqs: HU

How are we to come to grips with the moral questions we encounter in our lives? Doing so requires understanding as well as motivation, and moral philosophy is an area of inquiry dedicated to promoting such understanding. Moral philosophers seek to develop the concepts and principles needed to understand the nature and the origin of our fundamental values, how (if at all) these values might be justified, and what implications they have for how we should live our lives — as individuals and as a society. The lecture portion of this course provides a systematic introduction to the concepts and principles of moral philosophy, and also to the dominant traditions in Western moral thought. The discussion sections will each have a sustained focus on a particular domain of contemporary moral concern. The overarching goal of the lecture and sections, taken together, is to give students the resources they need to analyze difficult and controversial moral issues, to think about these issues in clear and critical ways, and to challenge and to develop their own moral views. Throughout, an effort will be made to tie theoretical questions to the actual questions we face in daily life, and to draw upon insights about morality arising from research done in other disciplines, such as psychology, social and political theory, anthropology, and decision theory and game theory.

Intended audience: 1st Year Students and Sophomores from all academic areas.

Course Requirements: All students must be enrolled in both the lecture and in one discussion section. There will be weekly reading in connection with both the lecture and the discussion section. Required assignments will include a mid-term and a final examination on the lecture material, and also various quizzes, short writing assignments, or other class exercises linked to the individual discussion sections.

Class Format: 2 hours/week lecture format; 2 hours/week discussions.

Individual Discussion Topics by Section:

Discussion Sections led by Alex Plakias (002 & 003): This class will focus on a range of ethical issues that we face in everyday life. Three main topics covered will be the ethics of food (is it wrong to use animals for food? what kind of food policy should we adopt?) the ethics of sexuality (is homosexuality immoral? should the state recognize gay marriage?) and questions of moral status (do we have moral obligations to animals? to ecosystems? to robots or other forms of artificial intelligence?). Examining these and related questions will help us better understand some of the issues raised in lecture and apply them to questions we face every day.

Discussion Sections led by Jason Konek (004 & 005): In lecture, Professor Railton will provide a systematic introduction to ethical theory. In section, we'll explore the lecture material and apply it to a selection of ethical issues that arise in medical contexts and from the application of biotechnology to plants and animals.

Discussion Sections led by David Wiens (008 & 009): This section explores different applications of moral philosophy to international affairs. Our investigation will be guided by the following questions. What obligations do we have to those who live beyond our country's borders? How do these obligations limit our attempts to promote our own interests? Topics may include: international trade; foreign aid; immigration; terrorism; military intervention; interstate war; secession and self-determination; immigration; climate change; and global public health.

Credit Exclusions:

Credit is granted for only one of PHIL 180 or 201.

PHIL 180 is a combination of formal and "informal" logic. It covers diagramming argument structures, fallacy theory, Mill's methods, intensional vs. extensional definitions, syllogistic logic, and propositional logic.

Science Fiction and Philosophy

Reqs: HU

Other: FYSem

Science fiction and philosophy are deeply linked through their common use of "thought experiments." Our main goal will be to motivate and explore philosophical questions by appeal to thought experiments from important works of science fiction. We will read the novels Hyperion (Dan Simmons), The Ophiuchi Hotline (John Varley), and Manifold Time (Stephen Baxter), as well as a number of shorter works. Philosophical topics to be covered include skepticism about knowledge, anthropic reasoning, and personal identity, as well as ethical topics surrounding religious belief, cloning and human genetic engineering. Students will have the option to write a short piece of science fiction in fulfillment of the final essay requirement.

Advisory Prerequisites:

Enrollment restricted to first-year students, including those with sophomore standing.

Reqs: HU

Credit Exclusions:

No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in PHIL 181, 182, 231, 232, 234, or 297.

This course introduces students to philosophy through an examination of some central philosophical problems. We will focus on these questions:

1. What is the extent and nature of our knowledge?
2. Does God exist?
3. What is the nature of the mind?
4. Are there objective ethical truths?

This course will emphasize regorous argumentation, and some elementary tools from formal logic will be introduced. Requirements include several short, critical papers, a midterm exam, and a final exam. The course is taught in sections of 25 students, which will allow for ample discussion.

Reqs: HU

Credit Exclusions:

No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in PHIL 181, 182, 231, 232, 234, or 297.

This course introduces students to philosophy through an examination of some central philosophical problems. Topics might include some of the following:

• Are minds immaterial spirits, or are minds brains and hence nothing but complex physical objects?
• If human actions are causally determined by heredity and environment, is there any moral responsibility?
• Is abortion, or euthanasia, or suicide, morally permissible?
• Is the nature and extent of our moral obligations determined by our feelings, self-interest, social convention, Divine commands, or something else?
• What are the reasons for preferring one kind of social, political, and economic organization to another?
• Are there good reasons for believing that God exists? How do we know that anything exists, other than ourselves? Some sections focus on major historical figures, e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and Kant; others focus on writings of twentieth century philosophers.

Requirements usually include a number of short, critical papers. The course is taught in sections of 25 students, which should allow for ample discussion.

Reqs: HU

Credit Exclusions:

No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in PHIL 181, 182, 202, 231, 232, or 297.

An introduction to philosophy. The course considers some chief types of philosophical thinking by readings in and discussion of important, representative philosophers. The course provides an introduction to some fundamental problems and methods of philosophy by presenting them in historical perspective. The course is taught by lecture and discussion sections.

Reqs: HU

Other: WorldLit

This interdisciplinary and multimedia course is taught jointly by faculty specialists in Chinese philosophy, religion, cultural history, history of art, drama, literature, and visual culture. It is not a survey course. Instead the main task will be the sustained and critical study of a number of significant and representative works in order to present some major themes and art forms of the distinct and complex civilizations of China. In spite of inner tensions, this is a cultural tradition that can be seen as a highly integrated system composed of mutually reinforcing parts, making such an interdisciplinary and multimedia approach particularly effective. Toward the end of the term we will observe the system's collapse as it struggles to adapt to the modern world, and consider how our themes continue, persist, or change. We will conclude our course with discussions of art, poetry, and cinema from contemporary China. Background lectures on language and early culture will be followed by topics and readings that include:

• “Confucianism” (Confucius and Mencius),
  “Daoism” (Laozi and Zhuangzi),
  the art of argumentation;
• themes in Chinese religiosity,
  Chan (Zen) Buddhism;
• lyricism and visual experience in poetry and painting;
• music;
• traditional storyteller tales;
• poetic-musical theater; modern fiction and culture; and
• Chinese film.

The format of the course consists of three hours of lectures and one hour of discussion. The lectures will be given by

• Baxter (language);
• Brown (early culture, “Confucianism,” and the art of argumentation);
• Lam (music);
• Lin (“Daoism,” poetry, and garden);
• Tang (modern culture and literature);
• Nornes (film);
• Powers (painting);
• Brose (religion);
• Rolston (theater and traditional fiction).

Students should register for both the lecture section, and one of the three discussion sections. No prerequisites.

Requirements: occasional brief responses to readings, three short papers, and final exam.

Reqs: HU

Other: Honors

Credit Exclusions:

No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in PHIL 181, 182, 202, 231, 232, or 234.

This course will introduce students to philosophy by focusing on four classic puzzles, one from each of four subfields: ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and epistemology. Each simple puzzle raises complex issues at the center of contemporary philosophical debates. We will start with the trolley problem and related moral dilemmas, studying how we use our intuitions about thought experiments to build general moral theories. Then we will compare this philosophical method to contemporary approaches to puzzles about persistence, vagueness, and skepticism. Requirements include extensive careful reading, several quizzes, two papers, and a final exam.

Advisory Prerequisites:

Honors students or permission of instructor.

Reqs: BS, MSA

Credit Exclusions:

No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in PHIL 203, 296 or 414.

Historically, at least two concerns have driven the development of formal systems of logic to make explicit principles of good reasoning and to systematize inquiry in mathematics and the physical sciences. Central to these concerns is the idea that good reasoning is 'truth-preserving' reasoning. ('Truth-preserving' reasoning cannot fail to take one from true premises to true conclusions.) One goal we have in the study of logic is to get a grasp on which forms of argument are truth-preserving and which are not. In this course, we study two simple yet powerful systems of formal logic — 'sentential' logic, which takes sentences as the basic unit of logical analysis, and 'predicate' logic, which takes predicates and terms as the basic units. In the course of learning these systems, we will have the chance to apply formal techniques in analyzing ordinary, garden-variety arguments, and in solving various practical problems. After mastering these logics, we'll raise some important questions concerning their power and dependability. In order to answer our questions we will have to develop a 'meta-theory' for the systems we've studied. And along the way, we will learn to employ the extremely important tool of mathematical induction. No previous training in logic is required. Frequent homework assignments, two midterm examinations, and a final examination.

Reqs: HU

A study of the structure of language; the psychological mechanisms underlying language; the nature of meaning; and the relations among language, thought, and the world.

Advisory Prerequisites:

One philosophy course.