2017-2018

I shall present a new interpretation of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil and discuss Nietzsche's book form the beginning to its end in detail.

Emotions figure in many areas of the law, and many legal doctrines (from reasonable provocation in homicide to mercy in criminal sentencing) invite us to think about emotions and their relationship to reason. In addition, some prominent theories of the limits of law make reference to emotions: thus Lord Devlin and, more recently, Leon Kass have argued that the disgust of the average member of society is a sufficient reason for rendering a practice illegal, even though it does no harm to others. Emotions, however, are all too rarely studied closely, with the result that both theory and doctrine are often confused. The first part of this course will study major theories of emotion, asking about the relationship between emotion and cognition, focusing on philosophical accounts, but also learning from anthropology and psychology. We will ask how far emotions embody cognitions, and of what type, and then we will ask whether there is reason to consider some or all emotions "irrational" in a normative sense. We then turn to the criminal law, asking how specific emotions figure in doctrine and theory: anger, fear, compassion, disgust, guilt, and shame. Legal areas considered will include self-defense, reasonable provocation, mercy, victim impact statements, sodomy laws, sexual harassment, shame-based punishments. Next, we turn to the role played by emotions in constitutional law and in thought about just institutions - a topic that seems initially unpromising, but one that will turn out to be full of interest. (A) (I)

That we think, that we remember past events, that we perceive objects in the world around us, that we feel pain and other sensations, that we have emotions, that we formulate plans and work to put them into action - these are among the most quotidian, undeniable realities of human life as we know it and experience it. And yet philosophers and scientists have long struggled to find a place for such "mental" phenomena within a conception of the world as natural and un-mysterious. In recent decades, the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science has proposed a new form of solution to this age-old quandary. We will explore foundational questions raised by the cognitive-scientific approach. Readings are drawn from a range of historical and contemporary sources in philosophy and psychology. (B)

Practical reason can be distinguished from theoretical or speculative reason in many ways. Traditionally, some philosophers have distinguished the two by urging that speculative or theoretical reason aims at truth, whereas practical aims at good. More recently, some have urged that the two are best known by their fruits. The theoretical exercise of reason yields beliefs, or knowledge, or understanding whereas the practical exercise of reason yields action, or an intention to do something, or a decision about which action to choose or which policy to adopt. In this course, we will focus on practical reason, looking at dominant accounts of practical reason, discussions of the distinction between practical and theoretical reasons, accounts of rationality in general and with respect to practical reason, and related topics.

Is opera an archaic and exotic pageant for fanciers of overweight canaries, or a relevant art form of great subtlety and complexity that has the power to be revelatory? In this course of eight sessions, jointly taught by Professor Martha Nussbaum and Anthony Freud, General Director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, we explore the multi-disciplinary nature of this elusive and much-maligned art form, with its four hundred-year-old European roots, discussing both historic and philosophical contexts and the practicalities of interpretation and production in a very un-European, twenty-first century city. Anchoring each session around a different opera, we will be joined by a variety of guest experts, including a director, conductor, designer and singer, to enable us to explore different perspectives. The tentative list of operas to be discussed include Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Rossini's La Cenerentola, Verdi's Don Carlos, Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Wagner's Ring, Strauss's Elektra, and Britten's Billy Budd. (A) (I)

Human rights are claims of justice that hold merely in virtue of our shared humanity. In this course we will explore philosophical theories of this elementary and crucial form of justice. Among topics to be considered are the role that dignity and humanity play in grounding such rights, their relation to political and economic institutions, and the distinction between duties of justice and claims of charity or humanitarian aid. Finally we will consider the application of such theories to concrete, problematic and pressing problems, such as global poverty, torture and genocide. (A) (I)

Any language contains terms that apply truly, and in the same sense, to indefinitely many things; for instance, species- or genus-terms, such as hippopotamus or animal. How things admit of such "universal" terms has engaged philosophers ever since Plato, who proposed participation in the forms. In the third century, the neoplatonist Porphyry wrote an introduction to Aristotle's Categories, in which he raised, but did not even try to answer, three metaphysical questions: whether genera and species are real or only posited in thoughts; whether, if real, they are bodies or incorporeal; and whether, if real, they are separate entities or belong to sensible things. A century or so later, Augustine, though not addressing Porphyry's questions, offered a neoplatonically-inspired Christian alternative to Plato's forms. Then at the beginning of the medieval period, yet another neoplatonic thinker, Boethius, took up Porphyry's questions. He offered a strict definition of universals, explained the difficulty of the questions, and proposed (without fully subscribing to) what he took to be Aristotle's way of answering them. Boethius's treatment oriented the approach to universals by philosophers up through the 12th century. The tools at their disposal, however, were mostly those provided by ancient logical works; and perhaps for this reason, the discussion reached a kind of impasse. But then there appeared translations of numerous hitherto unknown writings of Aristotle and Arab thinkers. Aristotle's hylomorphism and his doctrine of (what came to be called) abstraction, together with the notion of "common nature" proposed by Avicenna (also a neoplatonist), seemed to show a way out of the impasse. But they also raised new questions of their own - partly because of their sheer difficulty, and partly because of theological pressures, in the late 1200s, against the standard Aristotelian account of individuation by "matter." The topic of universals thus tracks various other prominent themes in medieval metaphysics. We will look at background passages in Aristotle and Porphyry, and study texts of some of the most important authors, including Augustine, Boethius, Abelard, Avicenna, Albert the Great, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham.

This course provides an introduction to the major ethical positions from the Enlightenment era, with primary focus give to Hume, Smith, Rousseau, and Kant. These positions have shaped our popular thinking about ethics, moral psychology, and moral education. They also continue to directly inform dominant views in contemporary philosophy. As we read through selections from major works, we will be guided by questions about the foundations of morality and the nature of moral motivation. For example, what is the source of our distinction between good and bad? Is our moral judgment grounded in reason or the senses? How can we make sense of motivation to do the right thing, sometimes even at great personal cost? As we will see, the answers to these questions are directly tied to the larger question of how to understand human nature and the relationship between our capacity to reason and our capacity to feel.

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.