Classes:

MWF 1:10-2:00 @ 233 Wellman

Instructor:

Pekka Väyrynen
Email: pekkav @ ucdavis dot edu
Office: 2279 Soc. Sci. & Humanities
Office phone: 530.752.5653
Office hours: M 2:30-3:30, W 9:00-10:00, and by appointment

We routinely cite features of the natural world as justification for claims about what is valuable and what we have reason to do, think, and care about. Perhaps, for example, the simple natural fact that milk contains calcium gives you a reason to drink milk. How (if at all) do such natural facts generate the normative fact that milk's containing calcium is a reason to drink milk, or that drinking milk is a good thing? In general, how (if at all) do reasons and values fit into how science portrays the natural world? What in the world (if anything) grounds and explains the connections which our routine justifications assume to obtain between normative facts and ordinary natural facts? We will examine these and related meta-ethical issues. Our topics will be: ethical naturalism vs. non-naturalism; natural properties; moral supervenience; the relationship between reasons and value; and the so-called "thick" normative concepts.

Non-WEB readings are available for photocopying in two identical folders at the Philosophy Department photocopy room (1243 Soc. Sci. & Humanities). Simply take one out to a copy shop and run a personal copy for yourself. That is perfectly legal, and saves you the currently exorbitant copyright fees that make course readers prohibitively expensive. The WEB readings are available via a direct link from the course web site. Accessing these readings in the Internet requires institutional access via UCD server. If you are a non-UCD ISP user, you need to set your web browser to a proxy server. Instructions are at http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/ul/services/connect/remote.php. We probably won't get through all the readings in the folders, so we'll modify the list as we proceed.

• ca. 10-page paper (40%). First draft due to 2-3 peers Fri. 11/12 Wed. 11/10. Peer comments to the author due Mon. 11/15.
  Final draft due to the instructor Fri. 11/19.
• ca. 10-page paper (40%). First draft due to 2-3 peers Fri. 12/3. Peer comments to the author due Wed. 12/8.
  Final draft due to the instructor Mon. 12/13.
• Participation (20%). Determined by your class participation and peer commentary.

The UC Davis Code of Academic Conduct (see http://sja.ucdavis.edu/pubs.htm) will be strictly observed in this course.

You are responsible for knowing what constitutes academic misconduct. Ignorance is no excuse. In particular, do not think that anything you find on the Internet is public knowledge and doesn't need to be cited; all the same rules apply. If you are unsure about the proper rules for citing sources in a paper or find yourself worrying about whether something is OK or not, do not ignore your instincts. Ask for clarification of the rules. Do so before completing and submitting the assignment!

Classes introduce material not covered in the readings and focus on what is, for our purposes, important in the readings, so it is in your interests to attend class faithfully. You will get by far the most out of classes if you read the assigned material carefully before class.

In compliance with the federal and state law, I provide reasonable and appropriate academic accommodations (which do not include lowering academic standards) to students with disabilities, in order to allow equal access to educational opportunities. If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you should let me know, and you should contact the Student Disability Center, as soon as possible. You will need to present a letter, enumerating identified accommodations, from SDC. For details, visit http://sdc.ucdavis.edu/.

I'd also like you to let me know if you have significant family caretaking responsibilities. I will do my best to work with you to accommodate those responsibilities.

Introduction (10/1)

Alexander Miller: An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics, 1-9

Weeks 1-2 (10/4-10/15)     Moore's Legacy

I'm out of town for a conference on Fri. 10/15 - NO CLASS!

G. E. Moore: Principia Ethica, 58-73, 89-93 + 12-27
Alexander Miller: An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics, 10-25
Nicholas Sturgeon: "Moore on Ethical Naturalism" (WEB)

Weeks 3-6 (10/18-11/12)     Normative and Natural Properties

Jaegwon Kim: "Supervenience as a Philosophical Concept"
Michael DePaul: "Supervenience and Moral Dependence"
Michael Smith: "Does the Evaluative Supervene on the Natural?"
Optional: John Heil: "Supervenience Deconstructed" (WEB)

David Copp: "Why Naturalism?" (WEB)
David Lewis: "New Work for a Theory of Universals," 8-19
Russ Shafer-Landau: Moral Realism, 55-98

Frank Jackson: From Metaphysics to Ethics, 113-153
David McNaughton and Piers Rawling: "Naturalism and Normativity" (WEB)
Jonathan Dancy: Ethics Without Principles, 15-17, 39-43, 63-67
New: Jonathan Dancy: "On the Importance of Making Things Right" (WEB)
Frank Jackson: "Cognitivism, A Priori Deduction, and Moore" (WEB)

Weeks 7-8 (11/15-11/24)     "Thick" Evaluative Concepts

11/26 is Thanksgiving - NO CLASS!

Bernard Williams: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, 128-146
Samuel Scheffler: "Morality Through Thick and Thin," 414-421 (WEB)
John McDowell: "Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following" (focus on 198-203, 216-218)
Simon Blackburn: "Through Thick and Thin"
Simon Blackburn: Ruling Passions, 92-104
Alexander Miller: An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics, 244-256
Jonathan Dancy: "In Defence of Thick Concepts"

Weeks 9-10 (11/29-12/10)     The Buck-Passing Account of Value

T. M. Scanlon: What We Owe to Each Other, 87-100
Jonathan Dancy: "Should We Pass the Buck?"
Philip Stratton-Lake and Brad Hooker: "Scanlon versus Moore on Goodness"
Wlodek Rabinowicz and Toni Ronnow-Rasmussen: " The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting Pro-Attitudes and Value" (WEB)
Jonas Olson: "Buck-Passing and the Wrong Kind of Reasons" (WEB)