Philosophy 102 - Contemporary Moral Problems

Course Syllabus

Philosophy 102 - Contemporary Moral Problems

Fall 2014

Instructor:Tim Linnemann

206-919-6934

Office Hours: B100A Monday 12:30-1:30 PM

Text:All readings will be available electronically. I will be emailing attachments with the reading selections which you can then print at your discretion.

Course Description: Ethics, along with Aesthetics, comprises Value Theory – one of the three major areas of study in modern analytic philosophy (the others being Epistemology and Metaphysics). Ethics divides further into three branches: Meta-Ethics, Normative Ethics, and Applied Ethics. While all areas of ethics are generally concerned with the normative questions of how to act and what is good, the three branches explore separate levels to those queries. At the bottom (and least abstract) is Applied Ethics which focuses on the acts themselves – evaluating what is appropriate and not appropriate to do, either as an individual (whether it is moral for a mother to get an abortion for example) or as a society (should we make it legal for people to be able to get abortions). Normative Ethics deals with the justifying principles behind our ethical judgments – the different answers we give to the question: what is ethically significant? To continue our example, Normative Ethics would ask if getting an abortion is wrong, what is it that makes it wrong? Furthest up the ladder is Meta-Ethics which seeks to understand what we mean when we make ethical judgments (semantics) and what the relationship is between ethics and the world (metaphysics). Meta-Ethics would ask the question, what is happening when someone judges that getting an abortion is wrong? This course will make its way through all three areas, addressing some of the most significant contributions to each. Taken together, Ethics studies one of the more peculiar aspects that arises in our experience of the world: that things can have meaning and value and also that we are the kinds of beings who are explicitly sensitive to such dimensions.

Objectives & Outcomes: This class aims to accomplish two things. First, to familiarize you with some of the most prominent ethical thinkers(those contemporary and the classical moral philosophers they build upon), their ideas, and the tensions those ideas exert on each other. Second, this class attempts to develop your ability to navigate and discuss ethical questions, quagmires, and conflicts. Thus, class time will be split between discussion and lecture, with most days involving both. Attendance and participation in discussion are important aspects to this class and will be incorporated into your final grade. A short journal entry on the material also will be expected on Mondays at the start of class. In addition, there will be three short essay take-home tests to conclude each of the three sections of the course material.

Grading:Attendance/Participation20%

Reading Comments15%

Journal Response15%

Short Essay Prompts (3)50% (divided proportionately)

Reading Comments: These assignments will be composed of at least 3 questions or comments you have prepared for class discussion.There will be one reading comment assignment linked to every individual reading we’ll cover (with the occasional extra assignment for our very long readings that cover more days). Consider them as possible contributions you’d make in class – so about as much as you’d say if you raised your hand in class to ask a question or respond to an idea being presented. Another analogy to help you think about what I’m looking for here would be to just transcribe the kinds of things you might write in the margins as notes to yourself as you’re working through the reading.Commentson a reading will be due on the day we are planning to begin covering that reading. I want these in hardcopy (typed or handwritten), turned in at the beginning of the class. These do not need to be extensively explained, but they should be pursued thoughtfully. Nor is it required that you actually share these contributions in class discussion, but the hope is that in doing these short assignments as you work through the reading, you may find it easier to make contributions in our class discussions since you already know what you’d want to say.

Journal Entries: Once a week you will be asked to write a short 1-2 page response on the material for the week. The journals are intended to be a forum for you to explore your ideas regarding the issues under consideration and have some practice in articulating them in an argumentative style. These are informal and will be graded only on a simple plus/check/minus system. The journals and class discussion go hand-in-hand and I will be trying to cater discussions to the interests I see students expressing. I am willing to comment on journal entries if students are interested – let me know if you don’t want them!Journals are due on the Friday of each week (with some TBA exceptions I will indicate).You have two options for turning these in: 1) hardcopy brought to class on Friday 2) email by midnight Friday night. (Note: posting your journal to Canvas DOES NOT count as turning it in! I appreciate you posting it there too, but because the Canvas post is optional, I’m asking you use one of these two channels as the official submission).

There are three important instructions for these journals. First, just pick one thing to talk about – a claim, argument, position, etc. You don’t need to try to cover the entire week – don’t try! I prefer a deeper treatment of a smaller scope over a superficial treatment of a broad area. Second, the first half of your journal should be spent explaining the idea you want to discuss. Describe it as though you were presenting it to someone not in the class as much as possible. In other words, don’t write it for me! Be sure to not spend more than half the journal doing this. Lastly, the second half of the journal should see you responding to and evaluating the idea you presented. Tell us what you think of this idea – it is useful? Misguided? Needs fixing? Be sure to not just register your opinion, but to argue for it. Defend your stance as much as possible. This is the work of the philosopher and I’d like to see you getting into the game!

In addition, I’ll be making available online forums on our Canvas site for you to post your journals publically if you are inclined to do so. These posts will be open for comment, so I encourage you to check out your classmates’ ideas and get into wonderful dialogue and discussion!

Short Essay Prompts:As we complete each section of the course there will be a short take-home writing assignmenttargeting the material we covered in that section. Most of the essay questions will involve presenting, in your own words, the contributions of one of the philosophers we have read, or comparing and contrasting a couple of them. These essays are primarily focused on evaluating your ability to demonstrate understanding of the material. I will require your answers to the test prompts to be turned in to me electronically via email within a week from when they were assigned.

I will be talking more in class about these as they get closer to help you prepare, but I’m also happy to be providing ALL of the essay prompts to you from the beginning of the quarter! You can find them posted on the Canvas website.

Class Participation:I am making participation part of your final grade to emphasize the importance of philosophic engagement in its social dimension. I will be striving to create a classroom atmosphere where these debates can be pursued productively and comfortably, but I will need your help in realizing this project. Three things will be of particular advantage: mutual respect as a standard for discussion, careful listening, and critical engagement.

For our purposes, respect must not be a conclusion, but rather a premise. Disrespectful engagement is unprofessional and unphilosophical regardless of whether it is offensive. As an example, to consider a certain line of thinking is indicative of a lack of intelligence does nothing to provide a reasonable argument for why we should consider such reasoning philosophically problematic. The disrespectful attitude does nothing to add to the debate (whatever else it does contribute).

Careful listening and critical engagement are very closely connected. To properly respond to an idea, one must first understand it as thoroughly as possible. But just understanding the point of someone’s idea is also not enough – we must analyze its virtues and deficiencies. Our discussions will always be oriented toward gauging the strength of proposed ideas, and in as much as we will contribute ideas of our own, we will be assessing how well our attempts fare as well. When engaging in this way with one another an open audience is as crucial as a critically invested audience – respect helps prepare us for both.

Finally, back by popular demand, if you have 7 or more absences you will automatically fail the course! A lot of this course happens in the classroom, and you’ve got to show up!

Discussion Labs: I am super excited to announce that starting this quarter I will be holding an optional discussion lab once a week on Fridays starting at 12:30. I pledge to stay for at least an hour, but I don’t want to necessarily limit ourselves to that! Location is TBA.

These labs are intended to be another useful supplement to the coursework. They will be an opportunity for you to ask more questions about the ideas in the readings, and to have more extended discussions about those ideas in a more informal setting. I’m quite open to adapting the format to suit the needs and preferences of those students who attend, but I’m hoping that two goals are getting met no matter what we do: 1) that students who want to increase their mastery of the material achieve that goal and 2) that students have the opportunity to engage more directly in conversation and debate with each other (and not necessarily with me!). I encourage this in the classroom too of course, but sometimes a more informal setting is more conducive for this.

If the time doesn’t fit with your schedule and you want to attend, please let me know!

Student academic conduct: The principle of academic honesty underlies all that we do and applies to all courses at Bellevue College. One kind of academic dishonesty is plagiarism, which may take many forms, including, but not limited to, using a paper written by someone else, using printed sources word-for-word without proper documentation, and paraphrasing or summarizing the ideas of others without acknowledging the source. Plagiarism can also occur when non-written ideas are taken without documentation--using someone else's design or performance idea, for example. In short, plagiarism is passing off someone else's ideas, words, or images as your own; it amounts to intellectual theft--whether or not it was your intention to steal. Bellevue College instructors have access to commercial plagiarism detection software, so please be advised that any work you submit may be tested for plagiarism.

Participating in academic dishonesty in any way, including writing a paper or taking a test for someone else, may result in severe penalties. Dishonestly produced papers automatically receive a grade of "F" without the possibility of make-up. The Dean of Student Services will also be notified of such conduct, and repetition of the behavior will result in progressively more serious disciplinary action (for example, an instructor may recommend that the student fail the course for a second offense or even that a student be expelled for a serious offense, such as stealing an exam).

Grades lowered for plagiarism or other forms of dishonesty may be appealed through the regular channels, and any further disciplinary action taken by the Dean may also be appealed through existing processes.

Information about Bellevue College's copyright guidelines can be found at:

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If you work late and are uneasy about going to your car, Public Safety will escort you to your vehicle. To coordinate this, please phone ahead and let Public Safety know when and where you will need an escort.

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1) Take directions from those in charge of the response - We all need to be working together.

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Please do not hesitate to call Public Safety if you feel safety questions or concerns at any time.

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to make any changes to the course (content, grading, etc.). Further, I reserve the right to establish procedures for grading of students in exceptional cases. All and any modifications to this syllabus will be in accordance with the rules and regulations of Bellevue College. This syllabus does not constitute a contract between any combination of the student, the professor, or Bellevue College.

Topics and Reading Assignments

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