Spring

We will begin with a sampling of theories of democracy as an ideal of justice. We will then consider recent empirical work suggesting that federal legislation in the United States is responsive only to the preferences of wealthy citizens. Juxtaposing the normative accounts of democracy and these disturbing results, we will ask whether the USA is in fact a democracy. We will be concerned with what turns on this question of classification. Is the denial or affirmation that we live in a democracy a mere rhetorical ploy? Is it a matter of only taxonomic interest? Or does the classification have important normative and practical implications for political action and thinking about justice under the nonideal condition in which we find ourselves? (I)

This course will have three foci: 1) a close reading of some of the central parts of Wittgenstein’s difficult and puzzling early work, the Tractatus, along with related writings by Wittgenstein, 2) an equally close reading of G. E. M. Anscombe’s under-appreciated classic An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus , and 3) a discussion of some of the related recent secondary literature on the Tractatus, as well as on Anscombe’s reading of it. Readings will include texts by Conant, Diamond, Frege, Geach, Goldfarb, Kremer, Ramsey, Ricketts, and Sullivan. (III)

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)Other topics will be included as time permits. 

Modal information—information conveyed by sentences such as ‘Mary might be at home’ or ‘Charles ought to give to the poor’—play an outstanding role in everyday discourse and reasoning. The goal of this class is to explain and evaluate contemporary semantic theories of modality by discussing a wide range of linguistic phenomena from the perspective of these theories. After introducing possible worlds semantics for modality developed in modal logic, we will consider current theories of modal semantics within linguistics as well as the most important empirical areas of research. Throughout, we will keep an eye on the relation between modality and other topics that are prominent in linguists and philosophy, including tense, conditionals, and discourse meaning. (B)

The problem of free will stands at the crossroads of many of the central issues in philosophy, including the theory of reasons, causation, moral responsibility, the mind-body problem, and modality. In this course we will draw on ancient, early modern, and current work to try to understand, and gather the materials of a solution to, the problem.

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)

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) 

The academic study of opera all too often considers the score and libretto in a void, ignoring performance. But opera is a multi-dimensional art-form in which performance (staging, scene design, costume, musical direction, and of course the artistic interpretations of singers) makes an enormous contribution to the realization of the work. This course will study opera as drama in performance, asking how performance both realizes and renders determinate a musical and textual blueprint. Visitors to the class will include expert contributors in each of the major areas of operatic performance. The tentative list of operas to be studied includes: Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppaea, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Verdi’s Don Carlo and Otello, Wagner’s Lohengrin, and Strauss’s Elektra.

This course will examine two main questions: what bearing or importance does narrative film have on philosophy? Could film be said to be a form of philosophical thought? a form moral reflection? of social critique? Second, what sort of aesthetic object is a film? This question opens on to several others: what is the goal of an interpretation of a film? Is there a distinct form of cinematic intelligibility? What difference does it make to such questions that Hollywood films are commercial products, made for mass consumer societies? What role does the “star” system play in our experience of a film? We will raise these questions by attempting close readings of the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Films to be discussed: Shadow of a Doubt; Notorious; Strangers on a Train; Rear Window; Vertigo; North by Northwest; Psycho; Marnie. Selected critical readings will also be discussed. (I)

By a “final end” we mean any purpose, pursued by a human being, whose attainment is not viewed as instrumental to any further purpose. In the philosophical tradition there have been controversies about a set of issues surrounding that notion, and this class is going to introduce you to the most important ones. 1) Is the pursuit of a final end inevitably determined by your desire and nothing else (as Humeans and preference utilitarians think), or are final ends determined / imposed on us by any objective standard / requirement (as assumed by Kantians and classical utilitarians as well as ancient and medieval philosophers)? 2) Does the teleological structure of human agency imply that there must be a final end, and precisely one? 3) If - as many philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant and Mill, assume - a single overall end is imposed on us by an objective determinant, what is this determinant? Is it represented by a conception of human nature (rationality?), of well-being, happiness, of moral or some other type of perfection? Is it individual or social? Is it state or activity? 4) How can the answer to such questions be known? 5) In what sense can an objective end be “imposed on us”, or “binding”? 6) Does the existence of a final end - whether determined by desire or independently of it - imply that all practical reasoning should, at least implicitly, start from a conception of it? Or should you pursue such ends obliquely (Kierkegaard: The door to happiness opens outward)? - The lectures will be complemented by preparatory readings from classical and contemporary texts as well as by your own contributions to the discussion of that vital question: Can we say what we live for?