PHIL 160 Introduction to Ethics

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PHIL 160Introduction to Ethics

• Prof. Pete Graham

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Organizational Information

• Meeting Times
• Lectures TTh 400 - 450
• (Room Thompson Hall 104)
• Discussion Sections Wednesdays
• TAs
• Josh DiPaolo
• Jesse Fitts
• Dan McGloin
• Josh Moulton
• Course Website TBA

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Discussion Sections

• There are twelve discussion sections
• All are on Wednesday, two each at
• 905 - 955
• 1010 - 1100
• 1115 - 1205
• 1220 - 110
• 125 - 215
• 230 - 320

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Course Overview

• Two Goals
• Provide an introduction to ethical theory
• Hone analytical skills
• Three Parts of the Course
• preliminaries
• moral theories
• contemporary moral issues

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Preliminaries

• arguments
• moral relativism
• simple moral theories

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Moral Theories

• Consequentialism Utilitarianism
• Jeremy Bentham
• John Stuart Mill
• Deontology
• Immanuel Kant
• Virtue Ethics
• Aristotle

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Contemporary Moral Issues

• abortion
• passive and active euthanasia
• moral obligations to those in desperate need
• moral obligations to non-human animals
• morality of warfare

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Assessment (I)

• Three exams
• Exam 1 10 of your total grade
• Exam 2 30 of your total grade
• Exam 3 30 of your total grade
• Two short writing assignments
• These will be very focused writing assignments
  designed to test not only your grasp of the
  material, but also your ability to present your
  ideas clearly and succinctly in written form.
• The first writing assignment will be due half-way
  through the semester and will be worth 10 of
  your total grade.
• The second writing assignment will be due toward
  the end of the semester and will be worth 20 of
  your total grade.

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Assessment (II)

• Exam Dates
• First Exam September 23 (in less than 3 weeks!)
• Second Exam November 2
• Third Exam Final Exam Period
• Exam Info
• All exams will be in the evening
• Times and rooms will be announced
• No class during the regularly scheduled class
  time on exam days
• Study Guides
• Review Sessions
• Weekly ungraded assignments

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Assessment (III)

• Discussion Sections
• attendance is mandatory and essential to doing
  well in the course
• it may sometimes happen that material not covered
  in lecture will be discussed in the discussion
  sections
• attendance will be taken at each meeting
• poor attendance will lower your grade
• ( of section meetings missed/total of section
  meetings)(5 ) point deduction discussion
  section absences.
• good attendance and active/substantial
  participation may raise your grade

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Assessment (IV)

• NO EXTRA CREDIT!

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Course Readings

• There is no required text
• All readings will be available online
• Philosophical writing is often dense, difficult,
  and (sometimes) dry
• The reading assignments are often short
• Read the assigned material closely more than once
  before the class in which it will be discussed.

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Handouts

• I will often post a handout for a lecture the
  night before the lecture.
• Homework to be done prior to each lecture
• Check the website for any announcements
• Print out any handouts for the days lecture

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Lecture Attendance

• Attendance will be taken randomly in lecture.
• Attendance Deduction ( of absences/total of
  times attendance is taken)(5) Lecture absence
  deduction

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Part I - Preliminaries

• Ethics is a branch of philosophy concerning
  questions such as
• What morally ought we to do?
• Normative ethics
• Practical ethics
• What is morally good and what is morally bad?
• Theory of value
• What is moral virtue and moral vice?
• Excellences and deficiencies of moral character
• The stock and trade of philosophy is arguments

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Arguments

• What is an argument?
• An argument is a series of propositions meant to
  establish another proposition
• The series of propositions are the arguments
  premises
• The proposition those premises are offered in an
  attempt to establish is the arguments conclusion

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Some Arguments

• God is conceivable.
• If God is conceivable, then God exists.
• Therefore, God exists.
• If God exists, then there is no unnecessary and
  undeserved suffering in the world.
• It is not the case that there is no unnecessary
  and undeserved suffering in the world.
• Therefore, it is not the case that God exists.

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More Arguments

1. You dont know that youre not dreaming.
2. If you dont know that youre not dreaming, then
   you dont know that you have hands.
3. Therefore, you dont know that you have hands.

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Validity

• In philosophy we are particularly interested in a
  special class of arguments, namely valid ones.
• In philosophy, valid has a very specific
  meaning.
• A valid argument is one for which it is
  impossible for all of its premises to be true and
  its conclusion false.
• Another way of putting it a valid arguments
  premises entail its conclusion.
• (The truth of the premises of a valid argument
  guarantee the truth of its conclusion.)

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Soundness

• An argument is sound if and only if
• it is valid, and
• its premises are actually true.
• Every sound argument has a true conclusion.
• Why?

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Arguments

• In philosophy we strive to construct valid
  arguments.
• Why?
• If an argument is valid then, to know whether we
  should accept the conclusion we need to determine
  only one thing--namely, whether its premises are
  true.
• Why?
• Because if its valid and its premises are true
  then we know that its conclusion must be true.
• And if it is true, clearly we should believe it.