This course discusses contemporary moral issues in the context of ethics and political philosophy. Often, when people disagree about an issue such as abortion or welfare, they disagree not only about the facts but about basic ethical issues. In this course we will ask some basic ethical questions, investigate answers proposed by important moral and political philosophers, and think about what those answers mean for contemporary public problems. We will consider the views of Aristotle, Burke, and Mill, applying them to issues of drug legalization and privacy.
Some philosophers think that the right thing to do is whatever is, in the long run, for the best.
We will look at Kant, Bentham, and Mill, testing their views on issues of the environment and sexual behavior. We will turn to Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant for answers, and apply our insights to controversies over abortion and capital punishment. We will examine Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Rawls, and Nozick for answers in theory, and consider issues of welfare and affirmative action for answers in practice. Not all parts of this page are operational. Information should be here at least a week before it is covered in class, however.