PHI 216 Ethics -- General Course Information

PHI 216-2—Ethics

12:30-1:45 TTh, Pfleiderer 3

Fall 2009

Dr. Close

GENERAL COURSE INFORMATION

Revised 25-Aug-2009

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Anderson, Kent and Norm Freund. 2000. The Last Days of Socrates, 18 April, http://socrates.clarke.edu/index.htm (accessed 24 Aug 2009).

Audi, Robert. [2000], 1981. Philosophy: A Brief Guide for Undergraduates. Newark, DE: American Philosophical Association. ISBN 9-99-197936-0. It is not necessary to purchase this pamphlet. Access and print out the HTML version at http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/publications/texts/briefgd.html.

Close, Daryl and Nicholas Meier. 1995. “Introduction to Ethics in Criminal Justice,” Morality in Criminal Justice: An Introduction to Ethics. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co. Paper copies will be distributed in class.

Olen, Jeffrey, Julie C. Van Camp, and Vincent Barry. 2008. Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings. 9th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth Publishing Company. ISBN 0-495-09499-4. Student Web site: http://www.wadsworth.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M20b&flag=student&product_isbn_issn=9780495094999&discipline_number=5.

Plato. [2000], 4th century BC. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, death scene from Phaedo. Trans. G.M.A. Grube, revised, with notes, by John Cooper in The Trial & Death of Socrates. 3d ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ISBN 0-87220-554-1.

N.B. Students are responsible for obtaining all hand-outs, assignments, software instructions, and class announcements. “Required Texts” means exactly that. If you don’t plan to buy the required books for this course, please drop the course and take something else—you’re wasting your money.

COURSE MOODLE: This course requires enrollment in the course Moodle at http://numu.heidelberg.edu/moodle/course/view.php?id=866. Enrollment key: 22282. The Moodle site is based on your Heidelberg e-mail address and you should check your Heidelberg e-mail on a daily basis to obtain important announcements from me, other instructors, and administrators. Any e-mail communications from me will be made via your Heidelberg e-mail address. Most, but not all, of my hand-outs are available on the course Moodle or on my Web site. You may view some of the Moodle Web site for this course as a guest. Registration is necessary for full access to all of the course activities and documents.

CATALOG DESCRIPTION:

Systematic study of main types of ethical theory such as hedonism, rationalism, utilitarianism, humanism and others. Emphasis on the relation of theory to actual conduct in personal and social life.

COMMENTS ON COURSE CONTENT:

Philosophy is not a body of knowledge; it is an activity. Introduction to Philosophy often precedes an ethics course in the philosophy curriculum. Since Introduction to Philosophy is not a prerequisite for this course, an initial goal of the course is to provide a brief overview of the discipline of philosophy.

Ethics is one of the five traditional subfields of philosophy. The primary goal of PHI 216 is to objectively examine and analyze a number of contemporary moral problems from the perspective of current thinking in moral theory. Included are such topics as abortion, euthanasia, world hunger, racial, sexual, and other forms of discrimination, punishment, the distribution of wealth and income, war and terrorism, the epistemological status of moral claims, and moral theory.

The necessity of justifying one’s personal moral beliefs will be constantly emphasized. We will debunk the popular antirational view that “there is no right or wrong” in the arena of values and that morality is “just a matter of personal opinion.”

Of course, this does not imply that some particular moral doctrine will be taught, but simply that all undefended views must be justified in order to qualify as rationally held beliefs.

COURSE MECHANICS:

Discussion: Most meetings will be discussion-oriented. Credit for participation will have a collective value of 10% of the final grade. Since this course thrives on discussion, it is essential that everyone contribute to the conversation on a regular basis. These are easy points to accumulate, so have fun and join in the arguments!

Quizzes: Three objective reading quizzes will be given. The tentative dates are September 17, October 22, and November 24. The total value of the quizzes is 25% of the final grade. Quiz make-ups will not be given except in cases of serious illness, family emergency, or absences excused by College policy. (Social events and family vacations are not emergencies!)

Make-up procedure: (1) call my voice mail, at 448-2281 (out-of-town: 800-925-9250 ext. 2281), by noon of the day you miss lecture; (2) on the day that you return to classes, contact me by noon to arrange a quiz make-up, should you have missed a quiz. If you are unsure, please talk to me. I strive to be rational!

Individual/Group Writing Assignments: The class will be divided into groups of three or four students. The groups will meet in and out of class from time to time to seek further understanding of the reading assignments and to write papers. You must be present at a group meeting and participate in the group process to receive credit for that particular group assignment. (Students who do not cooperate in the group process are subject to expulsion from the group. If I expel a student from his or her group, that student automatically receives a grade of zero for all group papers subsequent to the time of expulsion. No make-up work is permitted.) Each student will serve as group coordinator and scribe for his or her group at least once during the semester. Some writing assignments may be individual rather than group-based. The total value for this work will be 40% of the final grade.

Final Examination: There will be a final examination worth 25% of the final grade. The final examination schedule is established by the Dean. Please consult it at http://www.heidelberg.edu/currentstudents/academicservices/examschedule. I cannot change the date of your final exam.

Dead Week: I observe Dead Week in all of my undergraduate courses. This means that I do not schedule any quizzes, examinations, or presentations during the last week of the semester. It is my view that the last week of classes should be devoted to preparing for one’s remaining lectures and studying for the final examinations.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY POLICY:

Intellectual honesty is critical to the very life of the scholarly community. “Academic dishonesty” means cheating of any kind associated with scholarship and study. It includes, but is not limited to, plagiarism and theft of intellectual property, falsification or distortion of data, submitting another student’s work or work product as your own, and copying on tests.

Penalties: Evidence of academic dishonesty results in an automatic F for that grade component, and may result in expulsion from the College, given the severity of the offense (theft of an examination, gross plagiarism such as submitting a purchased or borrowed term paper as one’s own, etc.). In any case, a second offense results in an automatic F for the course. Any form of academic dishonesty is bad for the soul and has destroyed many careers. Remember Bertrand Russell’s ninth commandment for beginning philosophers: be scrupulously truthful, even when truth is inconvenient.

Nota bene: Failure to have read this policy does not excuse or forgive any violations of the policy.

CLASS PREPARATION:

Undergraduate: The standard rule-of-thumb for undergraduate preparation is three hours outside of class for each hour of lecture. (This yields a figure of forty-five hours per week for undergraduate preparation, based on five courses.)

One’s first encounter with philosophic argumentation can be somewhat of a shock. It is not like reading a history text or a piece of fiction (excluding James Joyce, perhaps) since you may have to spend several minutes on one sentence. I will give instructions in lecture regarding preparing the readings as well as analytical writing and general class preparation.

ELECTRONIC DEVICES IN CLASS:

Short version: none! Focus on your studies! Cellular phones and MP3 players must be turned off and put away out of sight. Headphones must be put away out of sight. PDAs, pagers, radios, and similar devices must be turned off and put away out of sight. Calculators, computers, and voice recorders are prohibited without my written permission.

ATTENDANCE:

I assign grades strictly on performance (with the exception of cases of academic dishonesty). Like most things in life, attendance is your decision. Please attend. I like you to attend class! Note that since many classes will have some graded activity occurring, attendance will be very important. No absences are excused other than those due to illness, family emergency, or those excused by College policy. Family vacation plans, social events, early rides home for the holidays, etc. are not excused absences!

GRADING SCALE:

I grade on a 50-pass scale: 50, 62.5, 75, 87.5 are the lower-limit cut-offs for D, C, B, and A, respectively. Do not mistakenly conclude that my courses are therefore “easier” than a professor who uses a 60-pass or 70-pass scale. Grading scales are all equivalent and are purely a matter of personal taste. One scale can be easily converted to another with a pencil and a calculator. What makes a course relatively easy or difficult is determined by the actual distribution of grades by a specific instructor. A rough, but reliable indicator of grade achievement difficulty is the location of the class mean for a given grade component. For a normal distribution of grades, we should expect the class mean to fall in the very middle of the C-range of that instructor’s grading scale.