PHIL

Students writing senior essays register once for PHIL 29901, in either the Autumn or Winter Quarter, and once for PHIL 29902, in either the Winter or Spring Quarter. (Students may not register for both PHIL 29901 and 29902 in the same quarter.) The senior seminar meets all three quarters, and students writing essays are required to attend throughout.

Topic: What is Moral Skepticism? (Instructor: C. Kirwin)

Philosophical investigations of morality and ethics are often haunted by the shadowy figure of the ‘moral skeptic’. Who is this person, and what does he want from us? In fact, there seem to be many different kinds of ‘moral skeptic’, and a clear and comprehensive account of the various different forms of skeptical challenge does not yet exist. In this course, we’ll investigate a number of different doubts about and challenges to morality and ethics. We shall read texts from Plato and Nietzsche, as well as more recent authors such as Susan Wolf and Bernard Williams, to helps us consider the classical skeptical question – why should I be moral? We shall then turn to a more recent incarnation of skepticism, in the form of meta-ethical debates concerning whether or not there are such things as moral facts or properties in the first place, and if so, whether they are independent of our minds. In analyzing all of these texts, we will have in mind three philosophical goals: 1. We shall be attempting to develop a sort of taxonomy of moral skepticisms: we shall try to determine how many different sorts of challenges are being raised, and whether some collapse into others (or perhaps into incoherence). 2. We shall be assessing the relative significance of the different sorts of skeptical challenge: which skeptics pose threats that a moral theory must be able to answer if it is to be successful? Are there any skeptics that we need not answer? Does the internal incoherence of a particular skeptical ‘position’ mean that we can ignore it, or do we still have philosophical work to do in responding to the challenge? 3. We shall try to develop a picture of what sort of answer might be appropriate for each of our various kinds of skeptic. Would it help, for example, to be able to show that morality is in my own interest? Or could we see off certain skeptics by showing morality to be grounded in my autonomy? Should we instead reject the underlying assumptions that lead skeptics to their doubts in the first place? Or is the skeptic really in need of a kind of therapy, rather than philosophical engagement? At the end of the course, we may not yet be able to answer the moral skeptics that trouble us most, but we should at least have a clearer idea of the nature of the challenge we face, and of where we might look to start constructing such an answer.

Topic: Self Knowledge and Knowledge of Others (instructor: R. O'Connell) Philosophers have long been concerned with understanding the nature of - and even expanding the reach of - self-knowledge. What is it to know oneself, or to be self-conscious? What is the value of self-knowledge? Equally important, though, is the nature of our knowledge of others. To what extent can I know another’s mind? What kind of impingements does another person’s thought make upon my own? In this course we shall investigate the relation between these two kinds of knowledge. We shall attempt to unfold of both (i) their inter-dependence, and (ii) their source in a common ‘principle’: rational self-consciousness. To this end we will be confronting such topics as first person authority, the problem of other minds, individual self-consciousness, second-person thought, the social nature of thought and language. We shall draw both on contemporary work as well as readings from the tradition.

Topic: Kant and Existentialism (Instructor: F. Russell) In this course we will first analyze Kant’s conception of autonomy and then will see how this concept was taken up and transformed by two key philosophers in the existentialist tradition (Nietzsche and de Beauvoir).  Kant thought that the only thing that is good without qualification is the good will, and that the good will is the free or autonomous will: the will that gives itself its own laws.  Though many existentialist philosophers claimed to reject Kant’s moral philosophy, in many ways they can be read as developing and radicalizing some version of his idea of autonomy.  In this course we will read Kant, Nietzsche, and de Beauvoir, in order to grapple with the following questions: how should we understand ‘autonomy’ and what is its value?  Just how free is the will, and how radical is this freedom?  What, if anything, should constrain my freedom and/or my conception of right and wrong?  What role do material conditions or relations with other people play in either constraining or conditioning this freedom?  The aim of the course is a) to foster an understanding of Kant’s practical philosophy, and in particular his concept of autonomy; b) to understand how the idea of autonomy is taken up and transformed in existentialist philosophy; and c) to examine what kind of ethics an “ethics of autonomy” can provide.

Topic: What is Moral Skepticism? (Instructor: C. Kirwin)
Philosophical investigations of morality and ethics are often haunted by the shadowy figure of the ‘moral skeptic’. Who is this person, and what does he want from us? In fact, there seem to be many different kinds of ‘moral skeptic’, and a clear and comprehensive account of the various different forms of skeptical challenge does not yet exist. In this course, we’ll investigate a number of different doubts about and challenges to morality and ethics. We shall read texts from Plato and Nietzsche, as well as more recent authors such as Susan Wolf and Bernard Williams, to helps us consider the classical skeptical question – why should I be moral? We shall then turn to a more recent incarnation of skepticism, in the form of meta-ethical debates concerning whether or not there are such things as moral facts or properties in the first place, and if so, whether they are independent of our minds. In analyzing all of these texts, we will have in mind three philosophical goals: 1. We shall be attempting to develop a sort of taxonomy of moral skepticisms: we shall try to determine how many different sorts of challenges are being raised, and whether some collapse into others (or perhaps into incoherence). 2. We shall be assessing the relative significance of the different sorts of skeptical challenge: which skeptics pose threats that a moral theory must be able to answer if it is to be successful? Are there any skeptics that we need not answer? Does the internal incoherence of a particular skeptical ‘position’ mean that we can ignore it, or do we still have philosophical work to do in responding to the challenge? 3. We shall try to develop a picture of what sort of answer might be appropriate for each of our various kinds of skeptic. Would it help, for example, to be able to show that morality is in my own interest? Or could we see off certain skeptics by showing morality to be grounded in my autonomy? Should we instead reject the underlying assumptions that lead skeptics to their doubts in the first place? Or is the skeptic really in need of a kind of therapy, rather than philosophical engagement? At the end of the course, we may not yet be able to answer the moral skeptics that trouble us most, but we should at least have a clearer idea of the nature of the challenge we face, and of where we might look to start constructing such an answer.

Topic: Self Knowledge and Knowledge of Others (instructor: R. O'Connell)

Philosophers have long been concerned with understanding the nature of - and even expanding the reach of - self-knowledge. What is it to know oneself, or to be self-conscious? What is the value of self-knowledge? Equally important, though, is the nature of our knowledge of others. To what extent can I know another’s mind? What kind of impingements does another person’s thought make upon my own? In this course we shall investigate the relation between these two kinds of knowledge. We shall attempt to unfold of both (i) their inter-dependence, and (ii) their source in a common ‘principle’: rational self-consciousness. To this end we will be confronting such topics as first person authority, the problem of other minds, individual self-consciousness, second-person thought, the social nature of thought and language. We shall draw both on contemporary work as well as readings from the tradition.

Topic: Kant and Existentialism (Instructor: F. Russell)

In this course we will first analyze Kant’s conception of autonomy and then will see how this concept was taken up and transformed by two key philosophers in the existentialist tradition (Nietzsche and de Beauvoir).  Kant thought that the only thing that is good without qualification is the good will, and that the good will is the free or autonomous will: the will that gives itself its own laws.  Though many existentialist philosophers claimed to reject Kant’s moral philosophy, in many ways they can be read as developing and radicalizing some version of his idea of autonomy.  In this course we will read Kant, Nietzsche, and de Beauvoir, in order to grapple with the following questions: how should we understand ‘autonomy’ and what is its value?  Just how free is the will, and how radical is this freedom?  What, if anything, should constrain my freedom and/or my conception of right and wrong?  What role do material conditions or relations with other people play in either constraining or conditioning this freedom?  The aim of the course is a) to foster an understanding of Kant’s practical philosophy, and in particular his concept of autonomy; b) to understand how the idea of autonomy is taken up and transformed in existentialist philosophy; and c) to examine what kind of ethics an “ethics of autonomy” can provide.

This seminar will be a close reading of Kierkegaard's text, written under the pseudonym of "Johannes Climacus".  Among the topics to be discussed are: the nature and task of subjectivity, what it is for subjectivity to be truth, irony and humor, what it is for a communication to be successful, ethical versus religious outlooks, the peculiar requirements of being a Christian.

A survey of the thought of some of the most important figures of this period, including Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.

Human life is filled with repetition. Most obviously, we need to eat, drink, and sleep, to urinate and defecate, at regular intervals, and for our entire lives. Recent advances in technology, and changes to the organization -- especially the division -- of labor in the modern economy have only added new kinds of repetition, particularly in what we now call our "working lives.'' These changes have arguably only intensified a necessary feature of human life, indeed, of living as such. But this intensification has arguably also given rise to something new: an experience of profound boredom -- an experience, though, not of having nothing to do (as when a child complains of being bored), but of having, rather, to do (anymore, again) at all. This course is an investigation of the relation between repetition and the experience of (this peculiar kind of) boredom. Readings will be drawn from both philosophy and literature, and may include Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Samuel Beckett, and David Foster Wallace.

In this class we will investigate what it is for a society to be just. In what sense are the members of a just society equal? What freedoms does a just society protect? Must a just society be a democracy? What economic arrangements are compatible with justice? In the second portion of the class we will consider one pressing injustice in our society in light of our previous philosophical conclusions. Possible candidates include, but are not limited to, racial inequality, economic inequality, and gender hierarchy. Here our goal will be to combine our philosophical theories with empirical evidence in order to identify, diagnose, and effectively respond to actual injustice. (A)

From Plato to the present, notions of happiness have been at the core of heated debate in ethics and politics. Is happiness the ultimate good for human beings, the essence of the good life, or is morality somehow prior to it? Can it be achieved by all, or only by a fortunate few? These are some of the questions that this course engages, with the help of both classic and contemporary texts from philosophy, literature, and the social sciences. This course includes various video presentations and other materials stressing visual culture. (A)

Course begins in late Spring quarter and continues in the Autumn quarter. Pass/Fail.