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  Philosophy and Modernity (1):

Week by Week

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In the Spring semester of 2002 we will be working through a selection of the topics listed here, which we will choose during our first meeting. We will begin, however, with the first listed topic which is:

 Week One:Morality and Disagreement
  

Reading: J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong.

Susan Hurley, 'Objectivity and Disagreement'.

   
  

 Week Two: Realism and Best Explanations
    Reading: Bernard Williams, Morality, pages 28-50
John Mackie, Ethics, chapter one.
A.J. Ayer, 'Critique of Ethics and Theology' in Language, Truth and Logic, Penguin 1982, chapter 6.
Gilbert Harman, The Nature of Morality, 'Ethics and Observation'
Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, Lecture One.
Renford Bambrough, Moral Scepticism and Moral Knowledge, read as much as you choose.
    
  

 

Week Three: Moral Motivation
   Reading: Thomas Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism, O.U.P. 1970
Michael Smith, 'The Humean Theory of Motivation', Mind 96, 1987.*
Jay Wallace, 'How To Argue About Practical Reason' Mind 99 1990.
Jonathan Dancy, Moral Reasons, Basil Blackwell 1993, chapters 1-3*
  

  

Week Four: Secondary Property Moral Realism
    Reading: Hilary Putnam 'Facts and Values' in Reason Truth and History, Cambridge University Press (1981)*
David McNaughton, Moral Vision, Basil Blackwells.
John McDowell, 'Virtue and Reason', The Monist, 62 (1979)*
David Wiggins, 'Truth, Invention and the Meaning of Life'*, 'A Sensible Subjectivism?'* in Needs, Values, Truth, Basil Blackwell, 1991.
Bernard Williams, 'Knowledge, Science, Convergence' in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Faber, 1985.*
  
  

Week Five: Virtue Ethics
    Reading: Pence, G. 'Recent Work on the Virtues', American Philosophical Quarterly 21, 1984.*
Joel Kupperman, 'Character and Ethical Theory', Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 13, 1988.
Robert Louden, Morality and Moral Theory, Oxford University Press. Chapter 2
Lawrence Becker, 'The Neglect of Virtue', Ethics 85, 1975.
R. Crisp, (ed.) How Should One Live? Oxford U.P. 1996. Up to date and useful anthology.
Michael Slote, From Morality to Virtue, Oxford U.P.*
Justin Oakley, 'Varieties of Virtue Ethics', Ratio, Vol IX, no. 2 (1996)*
  
  

Week Six - Reading Week
  
  

Week Seven: Consequentialism
    Reading: Jonathan Glover, Utilitarianism and Its Critics, Macmillan. Very useful anthology.
T.M. Scanlon, 'Rights, Goals and Fairness', in Samuel Scheffler, (ed.) Consequentialism and Its Critics, Oxford Readings in Philosophy.
A, Sen, 'Rights and Agency', in Samuel Scheffler, (ed.) Consequentialism and Its Critics, Oxford Readings in Philosophy.
Shelley Kagan, The Limits of Morality, Oxford U.P.
Shelley Kagan, 'Does Consequentialism Demand Too Much?', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 13 (1984).
    
  

Week Eight: Hybrid Theories
    Reading: Phillipa Foot, 'Utilitarianism and the Virtues', in Samuel Scheffler, (ed.) Consequentialism and Its Critics, Oxford Readings in Philosophy.
Samuel Scheffler, The Rejection of Consequentialism, Oxford University Press. Second Edition - very useful appendices.
Shelley Kagan, 'Does Consequentialism Demand Too Much?', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 13 (1984).
  
  

Week Nine: Deontic Constraints
   Reading: Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere, Oxford University Press, chapters VIII to X
Nancy Ann Davies, 'Deontological Ethics' in Peter Singer (ed) Companion to Ethics (Basil Blackwell).
Samuel Scheffler, ed. Consequentialism and its Critics, Oxford Readings in Philosophy. A very useful collection: read the papers by Williams 'Integrity' , Rawls, Nagel, 'War and Massacre', and Nozick 'Side-Constraints'.
Frances Myrna Kamm, 'Non-consequentialism, the Person as and End In Itself, and the Significance of Status', Philosophy and Public Affairs 21 number 4 Fall 1992.
  
  

Week Ten: Killing and Letting Die
    Reading: Phillipa Foot, 'The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect', reprinted in Virtues and Vices, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978)
Judith Jarvis Thomson, 'The Trolley Problem', in Rights, Restitution and Risk, ed. William Parent, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P. 1986).
Warren Quinn, 'Actions, Intentions and Consequences: The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing', Philosophical Review, 98 (1989)
- 'Actions, Intentions and Consequences: The Doctrine of Double Effect', in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 18, no. 4 (Fall, 1989).
F.M. Kamm, 'Killing and Letting Die: Methodological and Substantive Issues', Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64 (1983), pp. 297-312
- 'Harming, Not Aiding and Positive Rights', Philosophy and Public Affairs 15, no. 1 (Winter, 1986).
- 'Harming Some to Save Others', Philosophical Studies, 57 (1889), 227-60
Frances Myrna Kamm, Morality, Mortality, (two volumes), Oxford U.P. Volume Two.
Jonathan Bennett, 'Morality and Consequences', The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, II, (Salt Lake City, Utah Press, 1981), pp. 110-111
  
  

Week Eleven - Second Reading Week
  

Week Twelve - Optional Topic of your choice - to be arranged
  

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 Copyright a.p. thomas 2002