Professor: William Sweet
Office: 606 Nicholson Tower
Telephone: 867-2341
Office Hours: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; 3.45-5 pm, and by arrangement.
Course web page: http://people.stfx.ca/wsweet/philosophy331.html

This class meets in the 'Q' time block (T/Th 2.15-3.30)

The object of the course is to introduce students to some major ethical theories. (This will serve as a foundation for later courses in applied and professional ethics, and for the philosophical discussion of a number of contemporary moral and social issues.)

The class will have a 'lecture and discussion' format. The professor will introduce a topic with a summary of the relevant arguments or a commentary on a text. This will be followed by questions and discussion of the material by the class as a whole (e.g., points of clarification or criticism and of comparison; comments on the relations between or among different issues).

Students are expected to have prepared the readings before class, to attend all of the classes and to participate in discussion. It is essential in learning how to do philosophy that students be prepared to ask and answer questions in class.

• Introduction
• What is ethics? What is its relation to ethical reasoning?
  
• What is it to be moral?
• to do what is in my self interest (egoism) or what I think is moral (subjectivism)
• to do what my culture says is moral (cultural relativism / cultural subjectivism)
• to do what reason commands (Kant)
• to promote the greatest amount of happiness (Mill)
• to become the best person I can be (perfectionism and virtue theory - Aristotle)
• to follow the natural law (Maritain)
• Summary

• What is the standard for right action? (What makes an act "moral" or "right"?)
• How can this standard be determined?
• To whom does it apply?
• How is between being "ethical" distinct from following law, custom, prudence, personal inclination or love of self?

Texts / Readings:

1. Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues, ed Steven Cahn and Peter Markie, 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. [This book will also be used in Philosophy 332]

• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) (selections).
• Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, OR use the text from the Internet site.
• J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, OR the text from the Internet site.
• Aristotle, Selections from Nicomachean Ethics, OR the text from the Internet site

Supplementary reading:

• Edward Westermarck, Ethical Relativity (1932).
• Bernard Mandeville (1670 - 1733) (on egoism) "The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (1714)" and "The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves Turn'd Honest (1705)."

Method of Evaluation:

• Written assignment (November) 25 %
• Test (October) - 20%
• Class summaries - 10 %
• Christmas examination 45 %