Readings

Several readings are from the two course textbooks, abbreviated as follows in the table below:

Buy at Amazon DMI = Timmons, Mark, ed. Disputed Moral Issues: A Reader. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780195177633.

Buy at Amazon TWP = Bedau, Hugo. Thinking and Writing About Philosophy. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002. ISBN: 9780312396534.

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction

TWP, read pp. vii-ix and chapter 1. Chapter 2 recommended but not required.

Read chapter 1, pp. 1-6, in DMI.
I. Value and the good life
2 Hedonism

Buy at Amazon Bentham, Jeremy. "Classic Hedonism." In Morality Matters: Race, Class, and Gender in Applied Ethics. Edited by Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2002, pp. 42. ISBN: 9780072840759.

Buy at Amazon Nozick, Robert. "The Experience Machine." In Morality Matters: Race, Class, and Gender In Applied Ethics. Edited by Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2002, pp. 45. ISBN: 9780072840759.
3 Desire satisfaction and the good

Buy at Amazon Brandt, Richard B. "Goodness as the Satisfaction of Informed Desire." In A Theory of the Good and the Right. Revised ed. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998. ISBN: 9781573922203.

TWP, read chapter 3.
4 Objective goods

Kraut, Richard. "Desire and the Human Good." Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 68, no. 2 (1994): 39-54.

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Nussbaum, Martha. "A Conception of the Human Being." Chapter 1 in Sex and Social Justice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780195110326. Skip sections I, II, and VII.
5 Immortality

Buy at Amazon Williams, Bernard. "The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality." Chapter 6 in Problems of the Self. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 82-100. ISBN: 9780521290609.

TWP, chapter 5. Chapter 4 recommended but not required.
6 Three moral theories

DMI, Introduction sections 2A (pp. 6-11), 2C (pp. 15-20), 2E (pp. 23-24).

Recommended

Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey. "Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Very Brief Selective Summary of Sections I and II." University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2000. (PDF)
7 Film: "The Global Banquet: Politics of Food"  
8 Film: "Skin Deep"  
II. The moral community
9 Animal rights

Singer, Peter. "All Animals Are Equal." DMI, pp. 477.

Pollan, Michael. "An Animal's Place." The New York Times Magazine, November 10, 2002.
10 Consuming animals

Cohen, Carl. "In Defense of Speciesism." DMI, pp. 485.

Wenz, Peter. "An Ecological Argument for Vegetarianism." Ethics and Animals, no. 5 (1984).
11 The value of nature

Baxter, William. "People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution." DMI, pp. 513.

Leopold, Aldo. "The Land Ethic." DMI, pp. 517.
12 Environmentalism

Taylor, Paul W. "The Ethics of Respect for Nature." DMI, pp. 522.

Thomson, Janna. "A Refutation of Environmental Ethics." DMI, pp. 533.

Recommended

Hill Jr., Thomas E. "Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving the Natural Environment." DMI, pp. 542.
III. Obligations to others

A. Global justice
13 The distant needy

Hardin, Garrett. "Lifeboat Ethics." DMI, pp. 447.

Singer, Peter. "Famine, Affluence and Morality." DMI, pp. 452.
14 Famine relief O'Neill, Onora. "A Kantian Approach to World Hunger." DMI, pp. 467.
15 Addressing structural injustice

Pogge, Thomas. "Eradicating Systematic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources Dividend." Journal of Human Development 2, no. 1 (2001): 59-77. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Crocker, David. "Hunger, Capacity and Development." Chapter 58 in Ethics in Practice. 2nd ed. Edited by Hugh LaFollette. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. ISBN: 9780631228349.

B. Racism, sexism and speech
16 Racism: attitudes and structures

Buy at Amazon Appiah, Kwame Anthony. "Racisms." Chapter 1 in Anatomy of Racism. Edited by David Theo Goldberg. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780816618040.

Buy at Amazon Frye, Marilyn. "Oppression." In The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1983, pp. 1-15. ISBN: 9780895940995.

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Frye, Marilyn. "Sexism." In The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1983, pp. 17-40. ISBN: 9780895940995.
17

Affirmative action

Guest lecture: Adam Hosein, MIT Linguistics and Philosophy

Pojman, Louis P. "Why Affirmative Action is Immoral." DMI, pp. 218.

Hill Jr., Thomas. "The Message of Affirmative Action." DMI, pp. 227.
18 Racist speech Phillips, Michael. "Racist Acts and Racist Humor." DMI, pp. 196.
19 Hate speech

Lawrence III, Charles R. "Racist Speech as the Functional Equivalent of Fighting Words." DMI, pp. 121.

Arthur, John. "Sticks and Stones." DMI, pp. 125.
20 Free speech and pornography

The Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. "Pornography and Harm." DMI, pp. 92.

Dworkin, Ronald. "Liberty and Pornography." DMI, pp. 107.

Recommended

Mill, John Stuart. "On Liberty." London, UK: Longman, Roberts & Green, 1869.
21 Pornography and equality

Hill, Judith. "Pornography and Degradation." DMI, pp. 113.

Buy at Amazon Garry, Ann. "Sex, Lies and Pornography." Chapter 35 In Ethics in Practice. 2nd ed. Edited by Hugh LaFollette. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. ISBN: 9780631228349.

C. Sexual morality and marriage
22 Film: "Tying the Knot"

Human Rights Campaign. "Massachusetts Marriage Decision Questions and Answers."

Recommended

Goodridge, et al. Department of Public Health.
23 Sexual morality

"Vatican Declaration on Some Questions of Sexual Ethics." DMI, pp. 41.

Buy at Amazon Punzo, Vincent C. "Morality and Human Sexuality." Chapter 24 in Ethics in Practice. 2nd ed. Edited by Hugh LaFollette. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. ISBN: 9780631228349.

Recommended

West, Robin. "Sex, Law and Consent." Georgetown Law. Georgetown Law Faculty Working Papers. Paper 71, July 23, 2008.

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Contra Gentiles . Book 3: 122.
24 Homosexuality

Corvino, John. "Why Shouldn't Tommy and Jim Have Sex? A Defense of Homosexuality." DMI, pp. 68.

Lloyd, Elisabeth. "Pre-theoretical Assumptions in Evolutionary Explanations of Female Sexuality." Philosophical Studies 69 (1993): 139-153.
25 Gay and lesbian marriage Buy at Amazon Calhoun, Cheshire. "Defending Marriage." Chapter 5 in Feminism, Family and the Politics of the Closet: Lesbian and Gay Displacement. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780199257669.
26 Final lecture, exam questions distributed  

 

Additional Recommended Readings

Buy at Amazon Annas, Julia. "Virtue Ethics." Chapter 18 in The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory. Edited by David Copp. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780195325911.

Buy at Amazon Harris, Luke Charles, and Uma Narayan. "Affirmative Action as Equalizing Opportunity: Challenging the Myth of "Preferential Treatment." Chapter 46 in Ethics in Practice. 2nd ed. Edited by Hugh LaFollette. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. ISBN: 9780631228349.

Loeb, Don. "Full Information Theories of the Individual Good." Social Theory and Practice 21, no. 1 (1995): 637-658.

Buy at Amazon Ezorsky, Gertrude. "Overt and Institutional Racism." Chapter 1 in Racism and Justice: The Case for Affirmative Action. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780801499227.

West, Robin. "The Harms of Consensual Sex." The American Philosophical Association Newsletters 94, no. 2 (1995): 52-55.

Bittman, Mark. "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler." The New York Times, January 27, 2008.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "Moral Relativism." Look especially at section 2.

Buy at Amazon Mill, John Stuart. "Utilitarianism." In Morality Matters: Race, Class, and Gender in Applied Ethics. Edited by Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2002, pp. 47. ISBN: 9780072840759.

Buy at Amazon Kant, Immanuel. "The Categorical Imperative." In Morality Matters: Race, Class, and Gender in Applied Ethics. Edited by Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2002, pp. 51. ISBN: 9780072840759.

Buy at Amazon Aristotle. "Virtue Ethics." In Morality Matters: Race, Class, and Gender in Applied Ethics. Edited by Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2002, pp. 60. ISBN: 9780072840759.

Lakoff, George. "What's in a Word? Plenty, if it's "Marriage."" Rockridge Institute, July 22, 2005.

Card, Claudia. "Why Gays Shouldn't Marry." The Little Magazine, vol. 2, no. 3, "Belonging."