GOV 335M / PHL 342:

ETHICS:

WITH ATTENTION TO THE ETHICAL

FOUNDATIONS OF POLITICS

Professor Budziszewski

Under development

 

This online summary of the syllabus includes only the general design of the course.  It does not include detailed information such as the course calendar, which changes from semester to semester.

 

Prerequisites and other boilerplate

If the course is taken as Gov 335M, enrollment requires six semester hours of lower-division government.  This number may be repeated when topics vary.  The course can also be taken as Phl 342, but enrollment is limited.  Whether listed as Government or as Philosophy, it carries a writing flag and fulfills part of the basic education requirement in writing.  Within the Government Department, its field is Political Theory.

 

Description

This course is an introduction to the Western ethical tradition and its critics.  Most introductory ethics courses are not really about ethics, but about contemporary meta-ethics.  What that means is that they don’t study questions of right and wrong per se, for example, “Is theft wrong?  Could it ever be right?  What is theft, anyway?  Instead they consider modern-day theories about what makes right acts right and what makes wrong acts wrong, for example consequentialism, Kantianism, divine command theory, and virtue ethics.  I find such approaches misleading because they are ahistorical; they more of less ignore the fact that Western civilization embodies a tradition of ethical reflection, and that most of the contemporary meta-ethical approaches represent detached pieces of that tradition -- or even reactions against that tradition -- beginning in the early modern period and continuing until present times.  One would almost think that there had never been a Western ethical tradition.

This course takes a different approach.  In the first place, before considering meta-ethics, we begin with everyday ethics.  Second, rather than organizing the meta-ethical part of the course around contemporary theories, I organize it around the challenges which various thinkers have offered to each of the various elements of the classical tradition, and how the representatives of that tradition reply.  I treat these challenges and responses as ongoing, because they are not something that ended a long time ago – the debate is going on vigorously today.

Although the final unit of the course, “Can Politics Be More Ethical?”, reflects the fact that I am offering it through the Government Department, I intend the course to be interesting and valuable to students of all backgrounds and disciplines.

 

Requirements

For Unit 1, a required analytical outline.  For Units 2, 3, 4, and 5, three-page take-home essays.  Short-answer quizzes, roughly one on each new reading.  Each of the five unit grades counts the same, and the curved quiz average counts the same as a unit.  For Units 2, 3, 4, and 5, I also offer extra credit for analytical outlines (up to 5 points added to the grade for each units).

My grading scale is as follows.  A+, 100;A, 95; A-, 92; B+, 88; B, 85; B-, 82; C+, 78; C, 75; C-, 72; D+, 68; D, 65; D-, 62; F+, 58; F, 55; and F-, 50. 

 

Texts

A readings packet will be available for purchase, including a large number of brief readings from ancient times to the present.  Additional readings will be available online.  All required readings will be either online or included in the packet.

The readings packet is still in development, but you can check back here from time to time to see what authors I am including, from ancient times right up to the present.

 

Units

1.  Introduction:  What Is Right?  What Is Wrong?

2.  The Western Ethical Tradition

3.  Challenges and Responses

4.  Contemporary Ethical Issues

5.  Can Politics Be More Ethical?