PHIL351 FA26
PHIL351: Political Philosophy
Dr. Per Milam
Mondays & Wednesdays · 9:30am–10:45am · LA2–206
This course introduces students to central questions in political philosophy. What justifies political authority? What limits should be placed on state power? How should a just society balance individual freedom with the common good? We will approach these questions through sustained engagement with the work of John Stuart Mill, whose writings on liberty, utility, and gender remain foundational to contemporary political thought. By reading On Liberty, Utilitarianism, and The Subjection of Women in sequence, along with supplementary readings that apply, extend, and challenge Mill’s views in light of contemporary debates, students will develop a rigorous understanding of liberal political theory. Potential topics include hate speech regulation, religious freedom, democratic theory, conservatism, perfectionism, individuality and conformity, sexual equality, and the politics of homelessness. There are no prerequisites for this course, though students are expected to read carefully and engage critically with difficult texts.
GE/GR areas: upper-division C (humanities) and WI (writing)
Medical Ethics (PHIL403)
Patrick Dieveney
Online asynchronous (section 01)
Jaehyun Lee
Mondays & Wednesdays · 11:00am–12:15pm (section 02) · LA2–206
Mondays & Wednesdays · 12:30pm–1:45pm (section 03) · LA2–206
This course explores a range of issues in contemporary nursing ethics, medical ethics, and bioethics. Topics discussed in the course include ethical issues concerning patient autonomy and consent, human and animal research, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, and social justice and health-care policy. The primary goal in the course is to introduce students to various ethical issues in the biomedical sciences and equip them with the analytical tools necessary to appreciate the various positions and arguments. In the process, students will also gain an understanding of historically prominent theories in normative ethics, such as virtue ethics, deontology, and utilitarianism. The course should prove beneficial to those for whom this may be their only philosophy course (no prior background in philosophy is required), and it will provide a good background for those who might wish to pursue further studies in philosophy.
GE/GR areas: upper-division C (humanities) and WI (writing)
[Back up to current course descriptions]
PHIL402 FA26
Engineering Ethics (PHIL402)
Dr. John Vella
Tuesdays & Thursdays · 11:00am–12:15pm (section 01) · LA2–206
Tuesdays & Thursdays · 12:30pm–1:45pm (section 02) · LA2–206
Engineering Ethics investigates the practical application of normative ethics to real-world issues in engineering professions. Engineers and other technical experts face a host of ethical issues. This course seeks to provide a normative ethical framework to help professional engineers analyze and resolve the practical ethical challenges they confront.
In this framework we will first rehearse some of the concepts and principles of these theories in the moral domain. Common examples are Aristotelian virtue, Pricean intuition, Kantian maxims, Millian utility, etc. The course emphasizes practical application: how shall we deploy these concepts and principles about the moral standards of rightness and wrongness that govern action into workaday professional circumstances? Along the way, the course will also involve the analysis of an array of case studies from aeronautical, civil, electrical, mechanical, chemical and biomedical, agricultural, and architectural engineering. Topics may include technological malfunction; civil disasters; the regulation of vehicular systems; weapons delivery systems; value-sensitive design in machine learning; ethical issues in human × robot interaction; feeding overpopulation; geoengineering; ethics of chemical synthesis; plastics and leaded gasoline; bacteria-resistant drugs; growing in vitro meat; the value of off-grid living; and, finally, the development, maintenance, and dismantling of techno-industrial aspects of society.
GE/GR areas: upper-division C (humanities) and WI (writing)
[Back up to current course descriptions]
PHIL400 FA26 [UHP only]
PHIL400: Business Ethics
Dr. John Vella
Section 07 [UHP only]
Mondays & Wednesdays · 12:30–1:45pm · ED2–174
Ethics is a branch of philosophy. Normative ethics is primarily about the moral standards of rightness and wrongness that govern action. By contrast, applied ethics is concerned with the practical application of normative ethics—that is, with the deployment of normative concepts in present and future situations, and with an eye toward determining what agents ought to do in their workaday circumstances. Among these applications is business ethics, which is the philosophical study of the applied ethical dimensions of productive organizations and commercial activities.
Business Ethics investigates the practical application of normative ethics to real-world issues in business professions. Leaders and employees in business face a host of ethical issues. This course seeks to provide a normative ethical framework to help professional businesspeople analyze and resolve the practical ethical challenges they confront.
Notes:
- This course is reserved for students in the University Honors Program (UHP).
- This course is cross-listed with BLAW400, and so satisfies that requirement for any student in the College of Business.
- This course can satisfy GE areas 3 UD / UD C or 4 UD / UD D
[Back up to current course descriptions]
PHIL400 FA26
PHIL400: Business Ethics
Amy Umaña
Dr. John Vella
Dr. Ryan Harvey
Chavva Olander
Dr. Keith Kaiser
Sections 01–06 [see schedule of classes for dates, times, locations]
Ethics is a branch of philosophy. Normative ethics is primarily about the moral standards of rightness and wrongness that govern action. By contrast, applied ethics is concerned with the practical application of normative ethics—that is, with the deployment of normative concepts in present and future situations, and with an eye toward determining what agents ought to do in their workaday circumstances. Among these applications is business ethics, which is the philosophical study of the applied ethical dimensions of productive organizations and commercial activities.
This course will raise ethical questions both internal and external to business organizations as they arise in our globalized economy. We will consider various important ethical questions pertaining to competitive markets and corporate responsibility, economic justice and consumer rights, the use and protection of information, employee rights and corporate responsibilities, affirmative action, and environmental responsibility.
Notes:
- This course is cross-listed with BLAW400, and so satisfies that requirement for any student in the College of Business.
- This course can satisfy GE areas 3 UD / UD C or 4 UD / UD D
[Back up to current course descriptions]
PHIL690 FA26
Seminar in Special Topics (PHIL690)
Topic: Problems in Democracy
Dr. Amanda Parris
Wednesdays · 5:00pm–7:45pm · LA1–302
There is currently a lot of handwringing about the end of democracy. In this seminar, we will problematize the concept and value of democracy. What is democracy? Whatever it is, is it the best form of political community? What is the relationship between the power of the people and the institutions and techniques of government? Does the state express the will of the people through the constitution, the vote, and abiding by public opinion? What is the relation of the state to the economy in democracy? Is democracy best conceived as a force that challenges all state and economic institutions? Is it a national, global, or social concept? In addressing these and other philosophical questions about democracy, students will better understand debates in democratic theory and use them to formulate and examine problems in existing states that call themselves ‘democratic’.
We will read a wide range of philosophical texts for and against democracy—from Ancient Athens to current-day social movements—and these texts will pose many different concepts of democracy. Representative authors include Plato, Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Jürgen Habermas, John Rawls, Iris Marion Young, Achille Mbembe, Sheldon Wolin, Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, Angela Davis, and Jacques Rancière, among others.
[Back up to current course descriptions]
PHIL382 FA26
Theory of Knowledge (PHIL382)
Dr. Charles Wallis
Mondays & Wednesdays · 2:00pm–3:15pm · LA5–246
Finding satisfactory answers to practical questions presupposes answers to deeper philosophical questions regarding the nature, sources, structure, and extent of human knowledge:
(1) What is the nature of knowledge?
(2) What are the sources of knowledge for humans (and others)?
(3) Is there a relationship or structure between individual bits of human knowledge and if so, what is that structure?
(4) What are the limitations of knowledge for humans (and others)?
An adequate answer to the first question would tell us what sorts of things can be (or are) knowledge, what properties distinguish knowledge from other states (like opinions), and how (and to what extent) knowledge benefits the knower. An adequate answer to the second question would provide a basis for identifying the sources (and potential sources) for human knowledge, how these sources give us knowledge, if these sources would provide knowledge for other creatures, how we could tell if other sources were potential sources of knowledge for some creatures, etc.. Similarly, an answer to the third question would tell us what, if anything, humans cannot know, what conditions would prevent knowledge, and even what humans might find difficult to learn and know.
The study of epistemology enriches our understanding of ourselves as cognitive creatures and leads, potentially to improvements in our efficacy as epistemic agents in the real world. This class looks at answers to the both practical and theoretical philosophical questions underlying our everyday concerns about knowledge and knowing. We will survey the works of historical and contemporary thinkers from philosophy and psychology. The class also examines the background assumptions and methodology behind the views of these thinkers and of contemporary philosophy in general.
GE/GR areas: upper-division C (humanities) and WI (writing)
[Back up to current course descriptions]
PHIL342 FA26
Metaphysics (PHIL342)
Dr. Patrick Dieveney
Mondays & Wednesdays · 9:30am–10:45am · LA5–149
This course is an introduction to contemporary metaphysics. Some of the topics that will be covered include: e.g., identity, change, and time; different views of necessity and possibility; and agent causation and free will. To cover these topics, we will address questions such as: what is the nature of time? How can an object change over time yet remain the same object? What makes a person the same person over time? Is time travel possible? Are our actions free or causally determined? If we lack free will, can we make sense of moral responsibility?
In addition to providing students with a broad background in many of the central issues in metaphysics, another central goal of this course is to illustrate the value of resolving the philosophical problems discussed. To this end, we will periodically evaluate the impact that various answers to central questions from metaphysics have on other areas of philosophy and science. We will compare and contrast the different kinds of reasoning and arguments common to debates in metaphysics with those employed in these other areas. The aim of this interdisciplinary analysis is to illustrate the importance of these debates and consider how resources from other areas of study might shed light on their resolution.
[Back up to current course descriptions]
PHIL492/592 FA26
PHIL492/592: Special Topics in 20th Century Philosophy
Topic: Heidegger
Dr. Kyle Banick
Mondays & Wednesdays · 3:30pm–4:45pm · LA5–246
This course offers a close study of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927) in concert with the ongoing events marking the centenary of its publication. The course emphasizes careful reading of the text itself while also considering the emerging debates about its significance 100 years later. Students with existing background in Heidegger and/or phenomenology will have the opportunity to advance their understanding, and those encountering Heidegger for the first time will gain some familiarity with one of the most influential works of philosophy of the twentieth century.
PHIL491/591 FA26
PHIL491/591: Special Topics in the History of Philosophy
Animal Consciousness in the Early Modern Period
Dr. Lawrence Nolan
Mondays & Wednesdays · 2:00pm–3:15pm · LA5–149
Pet owners are fond of ascribing emotions, feelings, thoughts, desires, and intentions to their animals (e.g., ‘my dog loves me’). Is this a case of anthropomorphism or do our pets really have the same repertoire of mental and affective capacities as we have? Are they even conscious? One of the most fascinating, albeit understudied, debates of the early modern period concerns just these questions. In the late Renaissance, Montaigne and others argued that animals are not only conscious but surpass us in many of their cognitive abilities, including their powers of reasoning. However, Descartes notoriously argued that animals are mere machines and thus completely devoid of thought, reason, and even bare feelings of pain and pleasure. This is known as the ‘beast-machine’ doctrine, and it was as shocking then as it is now. Nevertheless, Descartes had some fascinating and powerful arguments for the doctrine, most notably the language argument, where it is asserted that animals do not use language in the same creative and context-sensitive way that we do. Many of Descartes’ followers endorsed the beast-machine doctrine and developed new arguments of their own. Other major figures in the period such as Locke, Leibniz, and Hume countered the Cartesians, defending the commonsense view that there is great continuity between human and animal mentality. They saw the distinction between human and animal consciousness as merely a difference in degree rather than kind.
In this course, we will analyze and evaluate philosophical arguments for and against animal consciousness from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. We will also attempt to understand the positions and motivations of the participants in this debate within the context of their larger philosophical systems and the scientific advances of the day.
Students in the course will be required to attend class regularly, contribute frequently to discussion, write two papers, and complete one exam. Graduate students will have the option of writing a term paper in lieu of the other written assignments.