INSTRUCTOR: Joel Anderson Office: Busch Hall
225E Phone: 935-7147 E-mail: anderson@artsci.wustl.edu
Office hours:
Thursdays 12-4 and Friday, 8:30-9:30 a.m. -- if possible, please let me
know when you will be there.
TEXTS FOR THE COURSE
PRESENTATION (15%): A ten-minute, 1500-word presentation, which should identify a few key claims made in the reading, present alternatives to each (what the author is not defending or is actively rejecting), and, with regard to each claim, both the reasons there are for preferring one side of the debate and a way of framing the issue for further discussion. The written version of this presentation should be in everyone's mailbox (virtual or real) by 4 pm on the day before the seminar meeting. Two-thirds of your grade for the solo presentation will be based on your written presentation and one-third on your oral presentation and your moderation of the discussion (until the seminar break). You are responsible for the optional reading as well. Unless necessary, presentations will not be held on days when there is an "issue statement" due.
ISSUE STATEMENTS (20%, that is, 5% each for the best 4 you turn in) These are one- to two-page thought pieces on an issue that you find particularly interesting in the relevant reading. It should (1) frame the context of your discussion (the current state of a debate, standardly made assumptions, etc.), (2) identify a problem that needs to be addressed, and (3) offer a sketch of how to address the problem. One way to think about this is as the introduction to a final paper for the course. In preparing these, you are encouraged to have a look at published discussions of the reading(s) in question. Short assignments will be circulated in advance to other members of the seminar. They should be sent electronically by 6 p.m. on Sunday evening. In other words, the actual due date is Sunday evening. You are encouraged to turn in all five assignments, but only the best four will count toward your grade for the course.
SEMINAR PARTICIPATION: While no formal grade is given here, this can significantly influence your final grade. In order to pass the course, regular attendance and participation is necessary. What counts here is your regular attendance, the quality (rather than mere quantity) of your participation, and the degree to which your participation clearly indicates that you have done the reading. To facilitate continuation of the discussions outside of class, there will be a listserver for the course. Send email to "phil535@artsci.wustl.edu", and everyone in the class will receive classes.
Possibility to consider: "PROTOCOLS" (neither graded nor required): The idea here is to provide ourselves, at the end of the semester, with a summary of the discussions throughout the course. It may also serve to help keep us on track. My proposal is that everyone (including visitors) take turns writing up a rough one-page summary of the discussion from the previous session, to be reviewed briefly at the beginning of the next session, and then revised to a final format. Those who pull their weight will get a copy of all of the protocols. This worked well in a seminar two years ago, and I still refer back to those notes occasionally.
SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS
DATE | READING (<60 pp per week) | Presentation/Assignment |
Jan 24 | Introduction and overview | |
Jan 31 | Full-information accounts of a person's good
Brief excerpt from Richard Brandt, The Right and the Good, pp. 10-13 Peter Railton, "Facts and Values" Philosophical Topics 14 (1986): 5-31. Connie Rosati, "Persons, Perspectives, and Full Information Accounts of the Good" Ethics 105 (1995): 296-325. Optional: David Lewis, "Dispositional Theories of Value" |
|
Feb. 7 | The irreducibility of subjective and objective perspectives
Thomas Nagel, "The Limits of Objectivity" (Tanner Lectures) Brief excerpt from Hume's Treatise Optional: Nagel, The View from Nowhere, ch. XI ("Birth, Death, and the Meaning of Life") |
Issue Statement #1 on Railton, Rosati, Brandt, or Nagel due. |
Feb 14 | That the objective matters only if it matters to us
Bernard Williams, "Internal and External Reasons" Bernard Williams, "The Truth in Relativism" Optional: John McDowell, "Might There Be External Reasons?" |
|
Feb 21 | The volitional objectivity of subjective value
Harry Frankfurt, "The Importance of What We Care About" Harry Frankfurt, "On Caring" Harry Frankfurt, "Necessity of Ideals" |
Issue Statement #2 on Williams and/or Frankfurt Due
(My remarks on the normativity of "self-betrayal".) |
Feb 28 | Objectivity as a condition for the possibility of subjective experiences
of value
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, ch. 1-2 Optional: Joel Anderson, "The Personal Lives of Strong Evaluators" |
|
March 6 | SPRING BREAK | |
March 13 | Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity,
ch. 3
John Mackie, "A Refutation of Morals" John McDowell, "Value and Secondary Qualities" Excerpt from Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (on sensus communis) |
|
March 20 | More on "response-dependent" views - why values are like color judgments
David Wiggins, "Truth, Value, and the Meaning of Life" (1975) Optional: Wiggins, "A Sensible Subjectivism?" Optional: Mark Johnston, "Dispositional Theories of Value" |
Issue Statement #3 on transcendental value realism due. |
March 27 | Objectivity and intersubjective agreement (a noncognitivist approach)
Allan Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings, ch. 1, 8, and 9. Excerpt from David Hume, On the Standard of Taste |
. |
April 3 | Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings, ch. 10-13.
Jürgen Habermas, "Towards a Communication-Concept of Rational Collective Will-Formation", Ratio Juris, 2 (1989) |
Issue Statement #4 on Gibbard
(My remarks on"cooperative" basis of normativity (Habermas/Gibbard)) |
April 10 | Having your own reasons: Gerald Gaus's "weak foundationalism"
Gerald Gaus, Justificatory Liberalism, pp. 3-62 |
|
April 17 | Gerald Gaus, Justificatory Liberalism, pp. 63-129
Optional: Jürgen Habermas, "On the Practical, Ethical, and Moral Employments of Practical Reason" |
|
April 24 | Gerald Gaus, Justificatory Liberalism, pp. 130-194 | Issue Statement #5 on Gaus due |
May 8 | FINAL PAPER DUE | FINAL PAPER DUE |