School of Arts

& Humanities
Department of Philosophy

4AANA002 Ethics
Syllabus – Academic year 2015/16

Basic information

Credits: 15
Module Tutor: Clayton Littlejohn
Office: 412
Consultation time: TBD
Semester: Autumn
Lecture time and venue*: TBD

*Please note that tutorial times and venues will be organised independently with your teaching tutor

Module description (plus aims and objectives)

To communicate to students some of the central issues of moral philosophy;

To teach them to read with close and disciplined attention inevitably difficult philosophical texts;
To be intellectually open in a way that is necessary to anyone who studies a discipline that is
continuously self-critical and reflective about its assumptions.

By the end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable, and practicable
skills appropriate to a Level 4 module and in particular will be able to demonstrate: that they understand
some of the central problems of moral philosophy, why they have arisen and why they continue to
occupy moral philosophers. that they are able to make the detailed distinctions necessary for disciplined
thought in philosophy while at the same time understanding the wider systematic issues raised.

Assessment methods and deadlines

Summative assessment: one x two-hour exam in May/June (100%)
Formative assessment: two x 1,000-word essays
 First formative essay due 16:00 on Friday 30.10.2015
 Second formative essay due 16:00 on Friday 11.12.2015
Formative work must be submitted by these deadlines to receive feedback. NB Please note that for
semester I-only Study Abroad students, assessment requirements may vary. In particular, May exams
will be replaced by summative essays to be submitted by the end of term. (The due date for this
summative work will be determined later.)

Outline of lecture topics (plus suggested readings)

The readings will all be available through Keats (or a link found on our Keats page) as pdf files. There is
no assigned book for this course, but good introductory level textbooks have been written by Jussi
Suikkanen, Julia Driver, Fred Feldman, and Krister Kykvist.

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Week 1 – Death
Epicurus, Selections
Lucretius, Selections
Frances Kamm, “The Asymmetry Problem: Death and Prenatal Nonexistence”
Recommended
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on ‘Death’

Week 2 – Well-Being
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia
Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons
Recommended
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on ‘Well-Being’

Week 3 – Consequentialism
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica
Judith Jarvis Thomson, “The Right and the Good”

Week 4 – Consequentialism (II)

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
Peter Vallentyne, “Against Maximizing Act Consequentialism”
Alastair Norcross, "Two Dogmas of Deontology”

Week 5 – Virtue Ethics

Philippa Foot, “Utilitarianism and the Virtues”
Julia Driver, “Virtue Theory”

--Break for Reading Week!--

Week 6 – Kantian Ethics

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Marcia Baron, "On the Alleged Repugnance of Acting from Duty"

Week 7 - Animals
Peter Singer, "All Animals are Equal" [Good to refer to because it is a classic in the field, but the
important argument is the marginal cases argument and you can find that in the Norcross reading. The
Norcross reading is much more entertaining and it touches on some important questions about
responsibility that we’ll discuss in the lecture.]
Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics
Christine Korsgaard, “Fellow Creatures”
Alastair Norcross, “Puppies, Pigs, and People”

Week 8 – Pluralism & Particularism

W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good
Jonathan Dancy, “Ethical Particularlism and Morally Relevant Properties”
McNaughton, “An Unconnected Heap of Duties?”

Week 9 - Freedom and Moral Responsibility

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Peter van Inwagen, "The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism"
Harry Frankfurt, "Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility"
Maria Alvarez, "Actions, Thought-Experiments, and ‘The Principle of Alternate Possibilities’"

10 – Moral Scepticism
J.L. Mackie, The Invention of Right and Wrong
John McDowell, “Values and Secondary Qualities”

Suggested essay questions

1. Is death bad for the one who dies? If so, why? If it is not, why not?
2. Would it be bad for a person to be plugged into the experience machine?
3. Can a reasonable and morally conscientious person decide to do something that they know isn’t for the
best?
4. What is the separateness of persons objection? What, if anything, does it tell us about
consequentialism?
5. What is wrong with the utilitarian conception of beneficence?
6. Would a morally good person be moved by the motive of duty?
7. Is it ever permissible to make a lying promise?
8. What is the strongest argument for pluralism/particularlism (pick one)?
9. Can we be morally responsible for our actions if the universe is deterministic?
10. What is the strongest argument for Mackie’s error theory?

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