Ethics/Metaethics

Why be moral? Is there any principled distinction between matters of fact and matters of value?  What is the character of obligation?  What is a virtue?  In this course we will read, think, and write about twentieth century Anglo-North American philosophical attempts to give a systematic account of morality. (I) (A) 

“Epicurus's old questions are yet unanswered. Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?” This course will consider the challenge posed by the existence of evil to the rationality of traditional theistic belief. Drawing on both classic and contemporary readings, we will discuss atheistic arguments from evil in both “logical” and “evidential” forms. We will analyze attempts by theistic philosophers to construct “theodicies” and “defenses” in response to these arguments, including the “free-will defense” and “soul-making theodicies.” We will also consider critiques of such theodicies as philosophically confused, morally depraved, or both; and we will discuss the problems of divinely commanded or enacted evil and of divine hiddenness.

If you had been brought up in a different family, or a different culture, your religious and moral beliefs would likely have been very different than they are—perhaps even your beliefs about the world  around you.  Should this fact bother us?  Should the origin of our beliefs and values make us skeptical about them, or should it lead us to revise them?   Historians and social scientists, from Marvis Harris to Ian Morris, have regularly proferred etiological/explanatory accounts and think they have debunking implications; recently, a number of Anglophone philosophers have begun to address the question, including G.A. Cohen, George Sher, Roger White, and Amia Srinivasan, among others.  But interest in the etiology (or genealogy) of beliefs and values, and its significance, long predates these 20th-century writers.  We will also give extended consideration to at least Herder, Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche—time permitting, perhaps some others.

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.

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)

Topic: Moral Luck (instructor: P. Brixel)

Late in his career, the English philosopher Bernard Williams wrote, ‘Philosophy, and in particular moral philosophy, is still deeply attached to giving good news.’ In particular, he thought that the philosophical tradition that we have inherited is attached to the consoling thought that how well we live is in the most important respects under our control. This thought can be defended on the basis of a pair of commitments: that how well we live from a moral point of view is under our control, and that moral considerations are the most important considerations. Williams challenged both of these commitments, arguing that morality does not have the supreme importance traditionally attributed to it and that moral value is not immune to luck—that there is such a thing as ‘moral luck’. In this course, we will examine these ideas. More specifically, we will cover three topics: 1. In the first part of the course, we will examine the idea that certain activities or onditions are of supreme importance, all other things being worthless in omparison. This idea is associated with the ancient thought that the virtuous person cannot be harmed. In relation to this idea, will discuss the meaning and the possibility of tragedy. 2. In the second part of the course, we will examine the idea that moral value is immune to luck. We will discuss the problem of moral luck due to incomplete control over the morally significant consequences of one’s actions (‘consequential luck’), moral luck due to incomplete control over morally significant aspects of one’s character (‘constitutive luck’), and moral luck due to ignorance of the moral significance of what one is doing (‘moral ignorance’). 3. Throughout the course, we will aim to gain clarity about the metaphysics of agency, control, luck, and the self.

Topic: Contemporary Liberalism (instructor: J. Butcher)

Liberalism is the dominant tradition of political thought in contemporary political philosophy, and its vocabulary is the lingua franca of the political discourse of Western political societies. One of the chief commitments of liberalism is that a just society is necessarily a free society. Otherwise put, liberalism conceives of citizens as having an overriding interest in some type of freedom. But this abstract commitment is susceptible to a wide variety of competing and incompatible specifications. In this course, we will examine the ways in which various liberal political philosophers have specified the notion of freedom and conceived of its role in the just society. The guiding questions of the course are: (1) What does it mean to say that citizens have a fundamental interest in freedom, and (2) What obligations of justice does this fundamental interest generate on the part of the state? We will begin by reading a sizeable portion of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (weeks 1-3), which contains his argument that citizens have a right to a set of basic liberties that cannot be given up even if it is in citizens’ economic interest to do so. In week 4, we will consider an objection to Rawls’s argument advanced by H.L.A. Hart and Rawls’s response. Next, we will consider various alternatives to Rawls’s approach (weeks 5-6), namely those of Joseph Raz, Philip Pettit, and Martha Nussbaum. These alternatives conceive of freedom as autonomy (the capacity to make certain choices), non-domination (freedom from dependence on the choices of others), and capability (the opportunity to develop one’s capacities to become a fully functioning human being), respectively.  We will then move onto a view called political liberalism (weeks 7-9). This view holds a conception of freedom according to which a citizen is free when he is capable of endorsing the legal framework of his society - in particular the way this framework employs coercive power against and determines the life chances of citizens. We will conclude (week 10) with Joseph Raz’s influential criticism of this view.

Topic: Philosophical Conceptions of Pleasure in Classical Antiquity (instructor: D. Jagannathan)

What is pleasure? In what way is it valuable? How does pleasure relate to action, passion, and the good life? These are the questions we shall investigate in this course by working through the leading theories of pleasure in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy from Aristippus of Cyrene through Plato and Aristotle down to the Stoics and the Epicureans. In addition to proceeding chronologically and seeing how later thinkers respond to or refine the arguments of earlier ones, the course will take up three broad themes: (i) the value of pleasure, (ii) what sorts of pleasures there are and whether pleasure is unified, and (iii) how pleasure figures in goal-directed behavior in us and in animals. The final week of the course will be devoted to the reception of ancient ideas about pleasure in two modern thinkers, John Stuart Mill and Gilbert Ryle. Some experience working with Plato and Aristotle is desirable; no knowledge of Greek or Latin is required.

Topic: Moral Luck (instructor: P. Brixel)
Late in his career, the English philosopher Bernard Williams wrote, ‘Philosophy, and in particular moral philosophy, is still deeply attached to giving good news.’ In particular, he thought that the philosophical tradition that we have inherited is attached to the consoling thought that how well we live is in the most important respects under our control. This thought can be defended on the basis of a pair of commitments: that how well we live from a moral point of view is under our control, and that moral considerations are the most important considerations. Williams challenged both of these commitments, arguing that morality does not have the supreme importance traditionally attributed to it and that moral value is not immune to luck—that there is such a thing as ‘moral luck’. In this course, we will examine these ideas. More specifically, we will cover three topics: 1. In the first part of the course, we will examine the idea that certain activities or onditions are of supreme importance, all other things being worthless in omparison. This idea is associated with the ancient thought that the virtuous person cannot be harmed. In relation to this idea, will discuss the meaning and the possibility of tragedy. 2. In the second part of the course, we will examine the idea that moral value is immune to luck. We will discuss the problem of moral luck due to incomplete control over the morally significant consequences of one’s actions (‘consequential luck’), moral luck due to incomplete control over morally significant aspects of one’s character (‘constitutive luck’), and moral luck due to ignorance of the moral significance of what one is doing (‘moral ignorance’). 3. Throughout the course, we will aim to gain clarity about the metaphysics of agency, control, luck, and the self.

Topic: Contemporary Liberalism (instructor: J. Butcher)

Liberalism is the dominant tradition of political thought in contemporary political philosophy, and its vocabulary is the lingua franca of the political discourse of Western political societies. One of the chief commitments of liberalism is that a just society is necessarily a free society. Otherwise put, liberalism conceives of citizens as having an overriding interest in some type of freedom. But this abstract commitment is susceptible to a wide variety of competing and incompatible specifications. In this course, we will examine the ways in which various liberal political philosophers have specified the notion of freedom and conceived of its role in the just society. The guiding questions of the course are: (1) What does it mean to say that citizens have a fundamental interest in freedom, and (2) What obligations of justice does this fundamental interest generate on the part of the state? We will begin by reading a sizeable portion of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (weeks 1-3), which contains his argument that citizens have a right to a set of basic liberties that cannot be given up even if it is in citizens’ economic interest to do so. In week 4, we will consider an objection to Rawls’s argument advanced by H.L.A. Hart and Rawls’s response. Next, we will consider various alternatives to Rawls’s approach (weeks 5-6), namely those of Joseph Raz, Philip Pettit, and Martha Nussbaum. These alternatives conceive of freedom as autonomy (the capacity to make certain choices), non-domination (freedom from dependence on the choices of others), and capability (the opportunity to develop one’s capacities to become a fully functioning human being), respectively.  We will then move onto a view called political liberalism (weeks 7-9). This view holds a conception of freedom according to which a citizen is free when he is capable of endorsing the legal framework of his society - in particular the way this framework employs coercive power against and determines the life chances of citizens. We will conclude (week 10) with Joseph Raz’s influential criticism of this view.

Topic: Philosophical Conceptions of Pleasure in Classical Antiquity (instructor: D. Jagannathan)

What is pleasure? In what way is it valuable? How does pleasure relate to action, passion, and the good life? These are the questions we shall investigate in this course by working through the leading theories of pleasure in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy from Aristippus of Cyrene through Plato and Aristotle down to the Stoics and the Epicureans. In addition to proceeding chronologically and seeing how later thinkers respond to or refine the arguments of earlier ones, the course will take up three broad themes: (i) the value of pleasure, (ii) what sorts of pleasures there are and whether pleasure is unified, and (iii) how pleasure figures in goal-directed behavior in us and in animals. The final week of the course will be devoted to the reception of ancient ideas about pleasure in two modern thinkers, John Stuart Mill and Gilbert Ryle. Some experience working with Plato and Aristotle is desirable; no knowledge of Greek or Latin is required.

An exploration of some of the central questions in metaethics, moral theory, and applied ethics. These questions include the following: are there objective moral truths, as there are (as it seems) objective scientific truths? If so, how can we come to know these truths? Should we make the world as good as we can, or are there moral constraints on what we can do that are not a function of the consequences of our actions? Is the best life a maximally moral life? What distribution of goods in a society satisfies the demands of justice? Can beliefs and desires be immoral, or only actions? What is “moral luck”? What is courage? (A)

What is death, and what is its significance for our lives and how we lead them? In this course we will tack back and forth between the metaphysics of death (What is nonexistence? Are death and pre-birth metaphysically symmetrical?) and the ethical questions raised by death (Is death a misfortune—something we should fear or lament? Should we be glad not to be immortal? How should we understand the ethics of abortion and capital punishment?) Our exploration of these issues will take us through the work of many figures in the Western philosophical tradition (Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger), but we will be concentrating on the recent and dramatic flowering of work on the subject.