Postgraduate Course: Ethics (Online) (PHIL11129)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course examines to what extent we can find a place for ethics in a naturalistic, scientific picture of the world.
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| Course description |
We start with the issue of whether or not we have free will. On the face of it this seems to be a precondition for the possibility of holding people morally responsible for their actions, and thus a precondition for there being moral requirements at all. We then move on to examine the nature of ethics, beginning with the topic of moral realism and the arguments for it. We then examine various challenges to the realist view, including challenges from evolutionary theory and neuroscience. We end by revisiting moral realism and asking what difference it makes whether or not moral realism is true.
Syllabus:
Free Will and Responsibility
Week 1: Introduction to free will and moral responsibility (Synchronous seminar)
Week 2: Incompatibilism (Synchronous seminar)
Week 3: Compatibilism (Asynchronous forum seminar)
Metaethics
Week 4: Introduction to metaethics,moral realism (Synchronous seminar)
Week 5: Error theory (Asynchronous forum seminar)
Week 6: Expressivism (Synchronous seminar)
Week 7: The challenge from evolution (Asynchronous forum seminar)
Week 8: The challenge from neuroscience (Synchronous seminar)
Week 9: The explanatory challenge (Asynchronous forum seminar)
Week 10: Moral realism revisited (Synchronous seminar)
Week 11: (Asynchronous forum seminar)
This may be subject to change; the final syllabus will be posted on Learn course page.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2016/17, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
| Course Start Date |
19/09/2016 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Summative Assessment Hours 4,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
162 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
85 %,
Practical Exam
15 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Students will be assessed by a 2500 word essay due at the end of the semester (85%) and successful participation in the on-line activities associated with the course (15%). How the participation component will be assessed will be made clear to the students at the start of the course.
Essay deadline: Monday 19th December 2016 by 12 noon
Word limit: 2500 words maximum (excluding references)
Return deadline: Friday 20th January 2017 |
| Feedback |
Students have the opportunity to submit a formative essay by week 6 deadline on Turnitin via Learn. The essay cannot be draft of summative essay but it can be on the same topic.
Formative essay deadline: Thursday 27th October 2016 by 12 noon
Return deadline: Friday 18th November 2016 |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- have a grasp of fundamental issues and views in philosophy of free will and moral responsibility, e.g. determinism, compatibilism, incompatibalism, libertarianism.
- have a grasp of fundamental issues and views in metaethics, e.g. moral realism, error theory, expressivism and of some of the implications of evolutionary theory and recent work in neuroscience for meaethics.
- be able to critically analyse and engage with literature by key philosophers in this field.
- be able to present arguments clearly and concisely both within a classroom context and in a 2,500 word essay.
- gain transferable skills in research, analysis and argumentation
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Reading List
Class Readings:
1. Kane, R. (2005) 'The Free Will Problem' in his A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Hoefer, Carl, "Causal Determinism", The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Spring 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
3. Strawson, G. (1994) 'The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility' Philosophical Studies, 75: 5-24.
4. van Inwagen, P. (1975) 'The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism', Philosophical Studies, 25: 185-99.
5. Clarke, R. (2002). 'Libertarian Views: Critical Survey of Noncausal and Event- Causal Accounts of Free Agency.' In The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, Robert Kane (ed.), New York: Oxford University Press, 356-85.
6. Hume, D. (1748) 'Of Liberty and Necessity (in two parts)' in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Tom L. Beauchamp (ed), Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1999
7. Frankfurt, H. (1969) 'Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility', Journal of Philosophy, 66: 820-39
8. Strawson, P.F. (1962) 'Freedom and Resentment', Proceedings of the British Academy, 68: 187-211.
9. Moore, G. E. (1903) 'The Subject Matter of Ethics' in his Principia Ethica, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10. Cuneo, T. (2007) 'Moral Realism of a Paradigmatic Sort' in his The Normative Web, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. Mackie, J.L. (1977) 'The Subjectivity of Values' in his Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong London: Penguin.
12. Joyce, R. 'Moral Anti-Realism', The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
13. Blackburn, S. (1988) 'How to be an ethical anti-realist' Midwest Studies in Philosophy 12(1):361-75
14. Chrisman, M. (2011) 'Ethical expressivism' in The Continuum Companion to Ethics London: Bloomsbury
15. Street, S. (2006) 'A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,'
Philosophical Studies 127: 109-66.
16. Kahane, G. (2011) 'Evolutionary Debunking Arguments' Nous 45(1): 103-125
17. Greene, J. and Haidt, J. (2002) 'How (and where) does moral judgment work?' in Trends in Cognitive Sciences vol 6, 517-523.
18. Joyce, R. (2008) 'What Neuroscience can (and Cannot) Contribute to
Metaethics', in Moral Psychology vol. 3, ed. Sinnott-Armstrong
19. Harman, G. (1977) The Nature of Morality, New York: Oxford University Press, Chapter 1.
20. Sturgeon, N. (1985) 'Moral Explanations', in Morality, Reason, and Truth, D. Copp and D. Zimmerman, (eds.), Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld.
21. Sturgeon, N. (1986) 'What Difference Does It Make Whether Moral Realism is True?' Southern Journal of Philosophy 24 (S1):115-141.
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Additional Information
| Course URL |
Please see Learn page |
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research, critical analysis, argumentation skills (both written and oral).Critical reading skills. |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
Priority for this course will be given to online MSc/Dip/Cert Epistemology, Ethics and Mind students. |
| Keywords | Ethics,Metaeethics,Free Will,Determinism,Compatibilism,Incompatibilism,Moral Realism |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Deborah Roberts
Tel: (0131 6)51 5171
Email: D.Roberts@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Lynsey Buchanan
Tel: (0131 6)51 5002
Email: Lynsey.Buchanan@ed.ac.uk |
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