Fall, 2004

Instructor: Richard Blanke
Office: Smith House (1007 20th St.)
Telephone: 351-1567
Office Hours: 10:00-11:00 a.m. TTh, and by appointment
E-mail: rablank@yahoo.com

Course Objectives

This course is designed to acquaint students with the history of ethics and, in particular, with the history of normative ethical theories. It is further designed to enable students to apply the concepts, principles, and methodology of these theories to a variety of ethical problems of current social concern and of substantial importance to their lives as students, family members, and future professionals. The purpose is to provide students with an understanding of the nature and significance of these problems, and how a grounding in philosophical theory and methods is valuable in resolving these problems in a way that is both rational and autonomous. In addition, students will acquire a practical understanding of the nature of good and bad arguments.

Outline of Course Content

Normative and Analytic Ethical Theories

Read the chapter entitled "Theorizing about Ethics" in our text. This includes pages three through thirteen. Read these by the end of the first week of class.

What is ethics—the academic discipline?
1. Descriptive ethics, Normative ethics, Analytic Ethics, Applied ethics
2. Normative Ethical Theories and Analytic Ethics
Consequentialist Theories
1. Ethical Egoism
  Leviathan—Thomas Hobbes
2. Utilitarianism
  Utilitarianism—John Stuart Mill
Nonconsequentialist Theories
1. Virtues and the Ethics of Being Good
  Nicomachean Ethics—Aristotle
2. Deontology
  The Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals—Immanuel Kant

Application of Theory to Ethical Dilemmas and Issues that Arise in Various Social Practices—Applied Ethics

Ethical Principles
1. Do No Harm, Beneficence, Utility, Justice. Respect for Autonomy
2. Logic and the nature of good and bad deductive and inductive arguments
3. The Nature and Origin of Moral Dilemmas
4. The Logic of Ethical Decision-Making and its Application to sample dilemmas and case studies.
The following include some but not necessarily all of the ethical issues that we will read and discuss. To some extent, the selection of readings will be based on general interests of the students.
1. Part II—The Personal Life
  1. Family and Friends
    1. "What do Grown Children Owe Their Parents?"
    2. "Morality, Parents, and Children"
    3. "Artificial Means of Reproduction and our Understanding of the Family"
  2. Sexuality
    1. "What's Wrong with Rape"
    2. "Morality and Human Sexuality"
    3. "Plain Sex"
    4. "Why Homosexuality is Abnormal"
    5. "Homosexuality and the Moral Relevance of Experience"
2. Part III—Liberty and Equality
  1. Paternalism and Risk
    1. "Freedom of Action"
  2. Free Speech
    1. "Freedom of Thought and Discussion"
    2. "Sex, Lies, and Pornography
    3. "Pornography, Speech Acts, and Silence"
    4. "MacKinnon's Words"
3. Part I—Life and Death
  1. Euthanasia
    1. "Justifying Physician-Assisted Suicide"
    2. "Against the Right to Die"
    3. "Dying at the Right Time"
  2. Abortion
    1. "A Defense of Abortion"
    2. "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion"
    3. "An Argument that Abortion is Wrong"
  3. Animals
    1. "All Animals are Equal"
    2. "The Moral Community"
    3. "Moral Standing, the Value of Lives, and Speciesism"
    4. "The Case for Animal Rights Animals Again"

Method of Evaluation

Students will be evaluated on a letter-grade basis. There will be a mid-term exam (30%), an end of term exam (40%) and a term paper (30%) of between five and ten pages in length. I will choose topics. Quality of student's participation in classroom discussion will also be used as a basis of evaluation.

Text

Ethics in Practice: An Anthology, edited by Hugh LaFollette. Blackwell. 1997. Second Edition. The text is available at the Bookstop, which is located at 16th St. and 10th Ave.

Office Hours

Tuesday and Thursday, 10:00-11:00 a.m. and by appointment. Office is located in the Smith House--2009 20th St. (across from the UC). Phone # 351-1567. My email is rablank@yahoo.com.