Moral Responsibility: Doubt, Debate, and Dialogue
PHIL 271
Fall 2021 not offered
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This intermediate philosophy course will investigate conflicting ideas about moral responsibility and develop skills in understanding and critiquing the arguments associated with each view.
Key themes include: (1.) For what can we hold people responsible? For their intentions? For consequences? For their character? For other implications of their action? (2.) How much do concepts of moral responsibility reflect particular (and questionable) cultural ideals? (3.) Can we hold someone morally responsible even when there is a good causal explanation for their conduct?
(4.) What is our aim and purpose in holding ourselves and others responsible, and how else might such purposes be achieved? |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA PHIL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: [PHIL212 or ENVS212] OR [PHIL215 or ENVS215] OR PHIL217 OR PHIL218 |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (CIVI-MN)(PHIL)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus) |
Major Readings:
Pereboom, ed., 1997. Free Will (Hackett)
May, Larry, 1992. Sharing Responsibility (University of Chicago Press).
Walker, Margaret Urban, 1998. Moral Understandings: a Feminist Study in Ethics (Routledge).
Additional readings available via ERes and photocopies.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Each week, on BlackBoard, class members will post an argument analysis (reconstruction and diagram) for at least one interesting or provocative argument-sequence from an assigned reading. Those posts need to be available to other students by 9pm the evening before class.
For each class session, a pair of students will be responsible for initiating critical discussion of one of the arguments posted by other students. This work will require both critical attention to the other students' BlackBoard work and critical attention to the argument itself. What objections might be raised? How might the author reply? What implications hang in the balance if the argument in question does not work well? |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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