UNIT I
Required Reading: N/A
Supplementary Material—
Reading: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Entry on Ethics, Section 2
Reading: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Entry on Fallacies
Note: Most relevant to the class are Sections 1 & 2, but sections 3 & 4 are very interesting.
Text Supplement: Useful List of Fallacies
2. The Mind’s I
Required Reading: Plato, The Republic, Book II
Note: Read from 357a to 367e.
TL;DR: The School of Life, POLITICAL THEORY: Thomas Hobbes
Advanced Material—
Reading: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Entry on Egoism, Sections 1 & 2
Reading: Thomas Hobbes, On the Social Contract
Reading: Plato, The Republic, Book IX
Book: James Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory
Note: This is a more modern treatment of what is now dubbed “rational choice theory.”
Required Reading: Steven Cahn, God and Morality
TL;DR: CrashCourse, Divine Command Theory
Supplementary Material—
Reading: Michael Austin, IEP Entry for Divine Command Theory
Video: Transliminal, Interview of Ara Norenzayan
Related Material—
Reading: Charles Tilly, Warmaking and statemaking as organized crime
Advanced Material—
Reading: Plato, Euthyphro
Reading: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Entry on Ockham
Note: Read Sections 1, 2, and 6
For historical context on William of Ockham, the interested student can also read Gordon Leff’s, The Fourteenth Century and the Decline of Scholasticism
Book: Ara Norenzayan, Big Gods
Required Reading: Julia Annas, Virtue Ethics
Note: Read at least pages 1-14.
TL;DR: The School of Life, Aristotle
Advanced Material—
Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Reading: Aristotle, Virtues and Vices
Reading: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Entry on Virtue Ethics, Introduction and Sections 3 & 4
Reading: Virginia Held, The Ethics of Care
Required Reading: Gilbert Harman, Moral Relativism Explained
TL;DR: Crash Course, Metaethics
Supplementary Material—
Reading: Theodore Gracyk, Relativism Overview
Reading: James Rachels, The Challenge of Cultural Relativism
Related Material—
Video: Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain
Note: A common analogy used by relativists is the language analogy: Moral systems vary as widely as language systems. This video introduces the viewer to some core concepts in linguistics.
Advanced Material—
Video: Noam Chomsky on Moral Relativism and Michel Foucault
Related Video: The School of Life, Michel Foucault
Reading: Kenneth Taylor, How to be a Relativist
Note: This is a novel, psycho-functional approach to relativism. It is also a very challenging read.
Video: Common Sense Society, Roger Scruton on Moral Relativism
Required Reading: Onora O’Neill, A Simplified Account of Kant’s Ethics
TL;DR: Crash Course, Kant & Categorical Imperatives
Supplementary Material—
Advanced Material—
Reading: Christine Korsgaard, Kant's Formula of Universal Law
Reading: Tim Jankowiak, IEP Entry to Immanuel Kant, Section on Moral Theory
7. Common Sense
Required Reading: Barbara Herman, Integrity and Impartiality
TL;DR: Marianne Talbot, Deontology: Kant, duty and the moral law
Supplementary Material—
Video: The School of Life, Immanuel Kant
Advanced Material—
Reading: Robert Johnson and Adam Cureton, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Kant’s Moral Philosophy, Section 10
Note: This section stresses Kant’s argument that freedom must be a necessary idea of reason. This notion is the strongest link to Kant’s first major work of his critical philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason.
Reading: Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals
Appendix A: Kant’s Empirical Problems
8. The Trolley
Required Reading: John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
(Note: Read chapters I & II.)
TL;DR: Crash Course, Utilitarianism
Supplementary Material—
Video: Julia Markovits, Ethics: Utilitarianism, Part 2
Advanced Material—
Reading: IEP, Entry on Utilitarianism, Section 3
Note: The interested student can refer to the lessons on free will “Laplace’s Demon” and “The Person and the Situation” in Unit II of my Introduction to Philosophy course.
UNIT II
Required Reading: James Rachels, Active and Passive Euthanasia
Advanced Material—
Reading: Peter Singer, Taking Life: Humans
Reading: Franklin G. Miller and Howard Brody, Professional Integrity and Physician-Assisted Death
Reading: John Safranek, Autonomy and
Related Material—
Suggested Reading:
Douglas Husak, Four points about drug decriminalization
George Sher, On the decriminalization of drugs
Related Material—
Video: Democracy Now, Interview with Johann Hari
Audio: NPR's Fresh Air, Interview with Michelle Alexander
Video: Dateline NBC, Implicit Association Test
Reading: German Lopez, For years, this popular test measured anyone’s racial bias. But it might not work after all.
Reading: Alia Wong, History Class and the Fictions About Race in America
Movie Trailer: Kill the Messenger (2014)
Here’s a link to the book.
Advanced Material—
Reading: B. A. Manninen, Medicating the Mind: A Kantian Analysis of Overprescribing Psychoactive Drugs
Reading: Rob Lovering, On Moral Arguments Against Recreational Drug Use
Reading: David J Nutt, Leslie A King, and Lawrence D Phillips, Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis
Reading: Nick Bostrom & Anders Sandberg, Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics, Regulatory Challenges
Related Link: Nick Bostrom’s Home Page
Note: The interested student can find several of Bostrom’s publications and working papers here. Of interest may be his Vulnerable World Hypothesis.
3. The Game
Required Reading: Julian Savulescu, Bennett Foddy, and Megan Clayton, Why we should allow performance enhancing drugs in sport
Supplementary Material—
Video: Frank Frisch at TEDxChapmanU, Just Say Yes to Steroids
Note: Frank Frisch is Professor of Biological Sciences and Scientific Director of the STAR (Science Teaching and Research) Institute at Chapman University.
Advanced Material—
Reading: Robert Simon, Good Competition and Drug-Enhanced Performance
Reading: Warren P. Fraleigh, Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sport: The Ethical Issue
Reading: Harrison G. Pope, Jr. Ruth I. Wood, Alan Rogol, Fred Nyberg, Larry Bowers, and Shalender Bhasin, Adverse Health Consequences of Performance Enhancing Drugs: An Endocrine Society Scientific Statement
Related Material—
Movie Clip: Generation Iron 3 MOVIE CLIP | The Life-Threatening Reality Of Steroids & Bodybuilding
Reading: Phillip Zema, Should Student Athletes Be Paid?
4. The Jungle
Required Reading: Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights
Supplementary Material—
Video: CrashCourse, Personhood
Video: Great Ideas of Science and Philosophy, Interview with Peter Singer
Video: Practical Ethics Channel, Peter Singer tackles the best objections to vegetarianism
Advanced Material—
Reading: Jan Narveson, The Case Against Animal Rights
Reading: Marion Hourdequin, Climate, Collective Action and Individual Ethical Obligations
Related Material—
Video: Big Think, How Healthy Is Vegetarianism...Really?
Other Material—
Material on Animal Treatment
Nita Rao, In the Belly of the Beast
Material on Animal Agriculture and Climate Change
Maurice E. Pitesky, Kimberly R. Stackhouse, and Frank M. Mitloehner, Clearing the Air: Livestock’s Contribution to Climate Change
Material on the Dietary Impact of Climate Change
Reading: Damian Carrington, Eat insects and fake meat to cut impact of livestock on the planet – study
Material on the Exploitation of Agriculture Workers
Reading: Oxfam Report on denial of bathroom breaks in poultry industry
Reading: Thomas Dietz and Amy J. Fitzgerald, Slaughterhouses and Increased Crime Rates
Related Reading: Georgeanne M. Artz, Peter F. Orazem, and Daniel M. Otto, Measuring the Impact of Meat Packing and Processing Facilities in the Nonmetropolitan Midwest: A Difference-in-Differences Approach
Note: This is a response to Dietz and Fitzgerald.
Reading: Marc Linder, The Pillars of an Inexhaustible Supply of Cheap Labor
5. The Gift
Required Reading: Alan Soble, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Philosophy of Sexuality, Introduction and Sections 1, 2, & 3
Supplementary Material—
Video: CrashCourse, Natural Law Theory
Video: The School of Life, Thomas Aquinas
Audio: Freakonomics, The Fracking Boom, a Baby Boom, and the Retreat From Marriage
Video: Father Albert, Interview with Anne Coulter
Advanced Material—
Reading: Debra Satz, Markets in Women’s Sexual Labor
Reading: Childhood Stress is Associated with Reduction of Hippocampus
Reading: John Celock, Donald Pridemore, Wisconsin Legislator, Says Single Parenting Leads To Abuse
Required Reading: Anton Chekhov, The Bet
Supplementary Material—
Reading: John Stuart Mill, Use of the Death Penalty
Related Material—
Audio: NPR, All Things Considered, Botched Lethal Injection Executions Reignite Death Penalty Debate
Short Story: Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony
Podcast: Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, Painfotainment
Required Reading: N/A
Material on Immigration—
Michael Huemer, Is There a Right to Immigrate?
Reading: Robert D. Putnam, E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century (The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture)
Reading: Garrett Hardin, Living on a Lifeboat
Video: Talks at Google, Peter Singer on Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Video: Crash Course, Poverty & Our Response to It
Podcast: Letters and Politics, Interview with John Carlos Frey
Note: This is an interview of John Carlos Frey, the author of the book discussed in class: Sand and Blood: America’s Stealth War on the Mexico Border.
Podcast: Radiolab Presents: Border Trilogy
Material on Licensing Parents—
Reading: Hugh Lafollette, Licensing Parents
Audio: Fresh Air, Interview with Richard Rothstein on his book The Color of Law.
Reading: Noa Yachot, History Shows Activists Should Fear the Surveillance State
Material on Mosquito Annihilation—
Audio: RadioLab, Kill ‘Em All
Reading: Megan Molteni, Here's the Plan to End Malaria With Crispr-Edited Mosquitoes
Reading: Hope Reese, Mosquitoes might be humanity’s greatest foe. Should we get rid of them?
Material on Nuclear Weapons—
Reading: Steven Kuhn, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Prisoner’s Dilemma
Video: Scientific American, What Is the Prisoner's Dilemma?
Podcast: Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, Destroyer of Worlds
Material on Torture—
Reading: Jessica Wolfendale, Training Torturers: A Critique of the "Ticking Bomb" Argument
Reading: Alex Bellamy, No pain, no gain? Torture and ethics in the war on terror
Video: Philip Zimbardo, The Power of the Situation
Note: Zimbardo is most known for the Stanford Prison Experiment; he is also the author of The Lucifer Effect.
Video: When is Torture Justified? | Lt. Col. Jon S. Jackson | TEDxMemphis
Video: How I became a CIA whistleblower | John Kiriakou | TEDxFoggyBottom
Video: NJTV, Interview with John Schiemann
Note: In a recent book, Schiemann uses game theory to argue against the effectiveness of torture.
Required Reading: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Entry on Just War Theory
Material on War—
Related Video: Gwynne Dyer, The Road to Total War
Related Video: Democracy Now, Interview with Gwynne Dyer on his book Climate Wars
Audio: The Lawfare Podcast, Interview with Graham Allison, author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?
Note: There is no transcript for this audio file.
Material on Terrorism—
Retired Lesson: TT&T
Note: This lesson is on whether or not terrorism could ever be justified.
Reading: Lionel K. McPherson, Is Terrorism Distinctively Wrong?
Reading: Michael Walzer, Terrorism and Just War
Reading: Isabelle Duyvesteyn, How New Is the New Terrorism?
Reading: C. A. J. Coady, The Morality of Terrorism
Reading: Leonard Weinberg , Ami Pedahzur & Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler, The Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism
Video: Democracy Now, Noam Chomsky on ISIS
Note: Chomsky is himself an anarchist, although a non-violent anarchist. This is a video of Chomsky discussing his political positions.
9. The Calm Before the Storm
UNIT III
Required Viewing: John Vervaeke, Cognitive Science Rescues the Deconstructed Mind
Supplementary Material—
Video: Closer to Truth, Donald Hoffman on Computational Theory of Mind
Audio: Freakonomics, Does Doing Good Give You License to Be Bad?
Note: This audio has a transcript.
Reading: Paul Thagard, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Cognitive Science
Link: Jonathan Haidt, The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives
Video: Dan Ariely, Our Buggy Moral Code
Required Reading:
John Mackie, The Subjectivity of Values
Kevin DeLapp, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Metaethics Sections 1 and 2
Supplementary Material—
Video: Crash Course, Metaethics
Reading: Richard Joyce, Moral Anti-realism vs. Realism: Explanatory Power
Reading: Richard Joyce, Moral Objectivity and Moral Relativism
Reading: Tom Regan, Some Ways to Not Answer Moral Questions
Advanced Material—
Reading: Sharon Street, Reply to Copp: Naturalism, Normativity, and the Varieties of Realism Worth Worrying About
Related Reading: Tomas Bogardus, Only All Naturalists Should Worry About Only One Evolutionary Debunking Argument
Appendix B: The Mind Spreads Itself (or “The Technical Details of Moral Skepticism”)
Required Reading: Batson et al., Is Empathic Emotion a Source of Altruistic Motivation?
Supplementary Material—
Video: Steven Pinker, A History of Violence
Video: C. Daniel Batson, Empathy Induced Altruism
Note: In this video, C. Daniel Batson, professor emeritus at the University of Kansas, presents on Empathy-Induced Altruism.
Advanced Material—
Reading: Peter Turching, Chapter 3 of Historical Dynamics
Reading: C. Daniel Batson and Adam Powell, Altruism and Prosocial Behavior
Reading: Uwe Peters, Human thinking, shared intentionality, and egocentric biases
Note: Peters gives a thorough summary of the view of Michael Tomasello (covered in class) and critiques of one of his conclusions: that human recursive thinking evolved to enable cooperation. Instead, Peters suggests something closer to what Machiavelli suggested in The Prince.
Appendix C: Batson and The Search for Altruism
4. Death in the Clouds (Pt. I)
Required Reading: John Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence
Supplementary Material—
Video: Crash Course, The Problem of Evil
Video: Bart Ehrman, God and the Problem of Suffering
Note. Bart Ehrman is a biblical scholar. His personal website is here.
Video: Crash Course, Aquinas and the Cosmological Argument
Reading: Randy Firestone, Paley’s version of the Teleological Argument is Based on an Equivocation Fallacy: There is No Order in the Universe Which Resembles the Order of a Watch
Reading: Jeff Speaks, Speaks on Mackie
Advanced Material—
Reading: Peter Van Inwagen, The Problem of Evil
Note: This is a series of lectures for the interested student. Most relevant to the course is Lecture I.
Reading: William Cecil Dampier, Chapter 2 of A HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND ITS RELATIONS WITH PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Reading: Frank Thilly, Chapter 30-33 of A History of Philosophy
5. Death in the Clouds (Pt. II)
Required Viewing: Closer to Truth, Justin Barrett - Does Evolutionary Psychology Undermine Religion?
Related Material—
Don Marquis, Why Abortion is Immoral
Mary Anne Warren, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion
Judith Jarvis Thomson, A Defense of Abortion
Reading: Richard Rokyta, Fetal Pain
Advanced Material—
Reading: Harvey Whitehouse et al., Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history
Required Reading: James Rachels, The Challenge of Cultural Relativism
Supplementary Material—
Video: BBC Ideas, Relativism: Is it wrong to judge other cultures?
Video: Crash Course, Metaethics
Reading: Gilbert Harman, Moral Relativism Explained
Advanced Material—
Reading: Michael F. Brown, Cultural Relativism 2.0
Video: Noam Chomsky on Moral Relativism and Michel Foucault
Related Video: The School of Life, Michel Foucault
Reading: Kenneth Taylor, How to be a Relativist
Note: This is a novel, psycho-functional approach to relativism. It is also a very challenging read.
Video: Common Sense Society, Roger Scruton on Moral Relativism
Required Reading: John Doris and Stephen Stich, et al., Virtue Ethics and Skepticism About Character
Supplementary Material—
Video: Crash Course, Social Influence
Video: Philip Zimbardo, The Power of the Situation
Note: Zimbardo is most known for the Stanford Prison Experiment; he is also the author of The Lucifer Effect.
Audio: Philosophy Bites, Dan Sperber on The Enigma of Reason
Audio: The You Are Not So Smart Podcast, Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory
Advanced Material—
Reading: Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory
Reading: John Doris, Persons, Situations, and Virtue Ethics
Required Reading: Joshua Greene, From neural ‘is’ to moral ‘ought’: what are the moral implications of neuroscientific moral psychology
Supplementary Material—
Video: Talks at Google, Joshua Greene
Related Video: Here's an interview with Stanford scholar, Robert Sapolsky, on evolutionary misfirings when making moral judgments.
Audio: RadioLab, Chimp Fights and Trolley Rides
Related Audio: RadioLab, Driverless Dilemma
Advanced Material—
Reading: John Doris, Moral Psychology: Empirical Approaches
Reading: Elinor Mason, Value Pluralism
Related Material—
Link: The Moral Machine
Note: This is a website that presents the user with different scenarios so as to gather the human perspective of moral decisions made by a machine intelligence.
9. And Then There Were None
Required Reading: N/A
Supplemental Material—
Podcast: Making Sense with Sam Harris, BEING GOOD AND DOING GOOD— A Conversation with William MacAskill
Advanced Material—
Reading: Eric Schwitzgebel, The Self-Reported Moral Behavior of Ethics Professors
Appendices
Appendix A: Kant’s Empirical Problems
Appendix B: The Mind Spreads Itself (or “The Technical Details of Moral Skepticism”)
Appendix C: Batson’s Experiments
Appendix D: Cultural Relativism