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Oce SGW, building S-M, room S-210 (i.e., 2145 Rue Mackay).
Units 3.
2 Disclaimer
In the event of circumstances beyond my control, the course contents, evaluation
scheme and other parts of this syllabus are subject to change.
3 Course Objectives
Philosophy classes usually teach four things: (1) knowledge about the specic
class topic, (2) knowledge about the history of ideas, (3) general reasoning skills
and (4) analytic writing skills. In this class you will learn about:
Central debates in metaethics, such as: the relation between factual and
normative judgments, the relation between happiness and moral goodness,
the relation between the personal and the general good, and questions
about the semantics of good.
This course consists of two lectures plus one conference per week.
Each week will be spent on 1-2 new texts. You must read each new text
before the lecture and you need to bring the text with you. (Either
electronic or paper version are ne.) The lectures are not intended to
present completely new material to you; they are supposed to guide you
through pre-read material. If you do not prepare, you will not be
able to follow.
You will get the most out of this course if you proceed as follows:
Before the Lecture:
Take notes.
Raise any of the questions that you had at home during the
lecture time that I allocate to questions.
If you nd that you can't answer these, write down what seems un-
clear and raise it during your conference.
During Conferences:
They can only be eective, however, if you bring your readings and
notes, join the group discussion, volunteer to present results, ask
questions etc.
Most readings can be downloaded from the electronic course reserve (via
the library website or via Moodle).
You will only be required to buy one book, which is available at Concor-
dia's book store:
What answer would you give to this question? How you would try
to refute the respective argument? Etc.
Main part: How does the author try to achieve their aim? What is
the function of each section of the article? E.g., (1) the author might
be specifying a claim and giving a denition of the main terms in
the rst section, (2) explain the historical background of this claim
in the next section (who held it? why? what does it entail?), (3) list
possible objections that they want to put aside for the purpose of the
article in the third section, etc.
4.3 Communication
For help and feedback: Please see your TA or me in person if you would
like to discuss a seminar topic in more depth, if you would like more
detailed feedback on your paper, you have diculty writing the paper,
and so forth. If you just have a very short question (e.g.: When will
Paper 2 be returned?), it's ne to email.
100%
Starting from week 2, there will be a short quiz on the new text.
They are accessible during a specic time frame before the lecture on the
respective text (see Sect. 12 below).
The quizzes are timed: Once you start a quiz, you only have a certain
number of minutes to answer it. You hence need to have read the text
before starting the quiz.
There are 12 quizzes overall, but only your best 11 quizzes will count; i.e.,
you can miss 1 quiz without penalty.
6.2 Exam
It is not possible to write exams or quizzes that you missed. If you miss without
an excuse, you will receive an F for the respective exam or quiz. If you miss for
an exceptionally good reason (such as an urgent medical condition documented
by a doctor's note), and you have informed me in advance where that was
possible, then the value of the missed assignment will be rolled into the value
of the other assignments as follows:
Missed exam: The total of your papers will count for 70% instead of 50%;
the total of your quizzes will count for 30% instead of 20%.
Missed quiz: Each of your quizzes will count more proportionally. (This
also applies in the case of late enrollment.)
7 Papers
7.1 Expectations and Evaluation Criteria
In general, philosophy papers are about arguments. For example, (1) you
give arguments for a view that you support/against a view that you reject,
or (2) you explain an argument from the readings and evaluate it, (3) or
you apply an argument from the readings to a new case etc.
The grading will focus on these arguments. Central questions will be: Does
your conclusion follow from your premises? Are these premises themselves
plausible/well-supported? Is your argument creative/original? Is the op-
ponent's argument depicted correctly? Does the failure you detect in it
concern a central point?
You can consult literature beyond the class readings, but this is entirely
optional. If you choose to include additional texts, make sure you ac-
knowledge these properly. (To search for additional texts, I recommend
the online database PhilPapers.)
The grading is anonymized. Neither the le name nor the document should
hence contain your name.
The document must contain your student ID as the rst line of the
text. (Do not put it in the header only.)
The le name must contain your student ID. (Name your le some-
thing like: ID 12345, Paper 1.)
Your le name must not contain special characters, such as #. Moo-
dle cannot handle these
You must keep a copy of all your workyour original submissions as well as
graded copies returned to you. It hence is a good idea to regularly back up
your data. To prevent loss of your work in progress, use an online storage
system (such as DropBox or SugarSync), activate your word processor's
timed auto-recover function, and save your document under a new name
each time you make major changes.
Late submissions are marked down two steps for each day. Examples:
If submission time is 14:00, everything from 14:01 that day and until
13:59 the following day will count as 1 day late, and will be marked
down 2 grade steps (e.g. from B+ to B−).
This means that if your original submission had been an A+, it will
be an F six days after the deadline.
Papers will be returned via Moodle, often within two weeks. A teaching
assistant will provide written comments on your paper (except for the last
paper). These comments will hopefully enable you to understand your
paper's individual strenghts and weaknesses.
If the comments say that your paper had serious stylistic weaknesses,
show your next paper to Concordia's Writing Assistance Program
before submitting. They can help you improve individual assignments. In
the long run, however, the only way to become a good writer is through
practice: You simply need to read and write a lot.
If you have received a paper grade that is below your expectations, and
you would like to improve: Read the TA's comments carefully and reread
my handout How to Write a Philosophy Paper . If you nd that you still
don't understand what went wrong, write down concrete questions and
either ask the TA or bring them to my oce hours.
Students often email me or come to oce hours with the following ques-
tion: My grade in the term paper was ... How can I improve? My reply
to this will be: Read the comments carefully and reread my handout How
to Write a Philosophy Paper . The comments should give you a clear idea
of where your personal writing can be improved, and my handout should
give you a clear idea of what the general expectations are. Unless you nd
that something in either is unclear, there is nothing more I could tell you.
Please note that ACSD does not forward this letter to your instructors!
ACSD only sends a notication that you are registered with them. In
order to receive special accommodations, (1) you
need to forward me
your assessment letter 1 week before the rst scheduled exam
or paper deadline (whichever is earlier), and (2) you need to let me
know what you are requesting for my class in particular for each type of
assignment.
1. The Undergraduate Calendar 16.3 species that As, Bs, and Cs are for
outstanding, very good and satisfactory work, respectively. The Phi-
losophy Department interprets this to mean that: Cs are awarded for work
that is adequate, yet in some way fails to completely meet all expectations
and requirements; Bs are awarded for work that fully meets all expecta-
tions and requirements; As are reserved for outstanding work that exceeds
expectations and requirements by, e.g., demonstrating outstanding rigour,
clarity, or insight.
2. In 200 & 300 level courses with over 30 students, it is normally expected
that: the grade average will be in the C+ to B- range ; there will be
no more than 25% As.
Here's how the dierent grading schemes map onto each other:
10 Academic Integrity
You are required to follow Concordia's Academic Code of Conduct. The most
common violation of this code is plagiarism, which the code denes as the
presentation of the work of another person as one's own or without proper
Do not copy, paraphrase or translate
acknowledgment. In simple words:
anything from anywhere without saying from where you obtained it!
Plagiarized material could be material copied word by word from books,
journals, internet sites, professor's course notes, etc. It could be material that is
paraphrased but closely resembles the original source. It could be the work of a
fellow student, for example, an answer on a quiz, data for a lab report, a paper
or assignment completed by another student. It might be a paper purchased
through one of the many available sources. Notice that plagiarism does not refer
to words aloneit can also refer to copying images, graphs, tables and ideas.
Presentation is not limited to written work. It also includes oral presentations,
computer assignments and artistic works. Finally, if you translate the work of
another person into French or English and do not cite the source, this is also
plagiarism.
Violations of the Acadmic Code of Conduct can be unitentional, so please fa-
miliarize yourself with it! At: http://library.concordia.ca/help/howto/citations.
html, you nd practical guidance, such citation styles, online citation tools etc.
If still in doubt how to cite something correctly after consulting these sources,
please ask me.
Should any form of academic dishonesty be detected, including plagiarizing
from the internet, from books, journals, other students etc., I will report it
directly to the Vice-Dean of Academic Aairs. The penalties for plagiarism
tend to be rather severe. Please cite your sources and inspirations; this enriches
your ideas by showing their roots in the thoughts of other people, and it also
shows that you did some additional reading.
The majority of students who fail to complete their degree are hindered by
preventable circumstances: nancial, psychological, academic and others. The
services below are intended to help you in such circumstances. Please keep this
list for future reference and contact these services at any point in your student
career where you feel you could use help.
concordia.ca/conted/resources.html ca/students/counselling.html
Other resources include the Centre for Gender Advocacy and the CSU
Advocacy Centre.
12.1 Preliminaries
Read :
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12.2 Metaethics
Read : Peter Geach, Good and Evil. Analysis 1956, Vol. 17 (2), pp. 33-42.
Read :
1
A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic. Dover Publ. 1952 ( 1936).
Read: Excerpt from Ch. 6 (Critique of Ethics and Theology.)
Read : (1) Elizabeth Anscombe, On Brute Facts. In: Ethics Religion and
1
Politics (= Collected Papers 3). Blackwell 1981 ( 1958), pp. 22-25.
(2) Handout: Sections from David Hume's Treatise.
Read :
Deadlines :
Read : Foot, Natural Goodness: Ch. 2 (Natural Norms) & Ch. 3 (Tran-
sition to Human Beings)
Deadlines :
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Read :
Read :
1
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals ( 1785).
1
Transl. by Mary Gregor (2nd ed.). Cambridge UP 2012 ( 1998).
Read: Section 1.
Read :
Deadlines :
Read :
1
Christine Korsgaard, Kant's Formula of Universal Law ( 1985).
In: Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.): Ethical Theory: An Anthology (2nd
ed.). Wiley 2013, pp. 499-509.
Read :
Read : John Harris, The Survival Lottery. Philosophy 1975, Vol. 50 (191),
pp. 81-87.
Read :
1
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism ( 1863). Read: Excerpt from
Ch. 2 (What Utilitarianism Is) in: Shafer-Landau, Ethical The-
ory, pp. 417-422.
Read :
Read : John Taurek, Should the Numbers Count? Philosophy & Public
Aairs 1977, Vol. 6 (4), pp. 293-316.
Read :
Deadlines :