2010-2011 University Catalog 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
2010-2011 University Catalog archived

Philosophy (PHIL)


Pierre S. duPont Foundation

Professor Sessions
Associate Professors Mahon, Cooper, Gregory, Smith
Assistant Professors Bell, Goldberg, Verhage
Visiting Assistant Professor Lowney

HONORS: An Honors Program in philosophy is offered for qualified students; see department head for details.

Degrees/Majors/Minors

Major

Minor

Courses

  • PHIL 101 - Problems of Philosophy


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

    Open to first-year students and sophomores only.An introduction to some of the major ethical, political, and social problems we persistently confront. Selected readings from major philosophers.Staff.



  • PHIL 102 - Problems of Philosophy


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

    Open to first-year and sophomores only. PHIL 101 is not a prerequisite for this course.An introduction to some of the major problems that arise in inquiry into the nature of knowledge and reality. Selected readings from major philosophers.Staff.



  • PHIL 106 - Introduction to Logic


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

    The study of argumentation and modern formal logic. This course explores the basic principles of deductive and inductive reasoning. Students learn to symbolize and evaluate natural language arguments. Topics covered include the study of formal and informal fallacies, propositional and predicate logic, scientific induction, and probabilities.Goldberg, Gregory, Jackson.



  • PHIL 108 - Ethics and the Environment


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall

    This course is a philosophical exploration of one’s responsibilities to the natural world. It has three main objectives: first, to provide an understanding of different dominant ethical theories and their application to animals, plants, and ecosystems; second, to provide an understanding of major environmental issues in current political debates, such as climate change, species preservation, and sustainable development; and third, to facilitate the development of a student’s own ethic towards the environment.Lowney.



  • PHIL 141 - Ancient Philosophy


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall

    An examination of the metaphysics of the pre-Socratic philosophers, especially the Milesians, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and the Atomists, and the ethics and political philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Topics include the origin and nature of the kosmos, the nature and existence of the god(s), the trial and execution of Socrates, theories of virtue, the nature of knowledge and truth, justice and the ideal state, the nature of eudaimonia (happiness, flourishing), and the possibility of akrasia (weakness of the will).Mahon.



  • PHIL 142 - Modern Philosophy


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An examination of the metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion in the rationalist philosophers Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Willhelm von Leibniz, and the empiricist philosophers John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. Topics include skepticism about the external world, mind-body dualism, the existence and nature of God, theories of substance, free will and determinism, personal identity, and causation.Mahon, Goldberg.



  • PHIL 144 - 20th-Century Philosophy


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    An examination of philosophical issues in recent Western thought, from logical atomism to deconstructionism: Husserl, Russell, Heidegger, Dewey, Wittgenstein, Quine, and others.Sessions.



  • PHIL 168 - Chinese Philosophy


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Not offered in 2010-2011

    An introductory course focusing on classical (Zhou period) Confucian and Taoist philosophers. No background in Chinese studies is presupposed.Sessions.



  • PHIL 180 - FS: First-Year Seminar


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Each first-year seminar topic is approved by the Dean of the College and The Committee on Courses and Degrees. Applicability to FDRs and other requirements varies.



    Topic for Fall 2010:

    PHIL 180: FS: The Concept of Honor (3). First-year seminar. What is honor? It lies at the heart of Washington and Lee’s values, yet its hold on the wider American society is tenuous, and its meaning is unclear to many, not least to students struggling to comprehend a revered honor system. This course seeks to explore the concept of personal honor in historical, literary, and philosophical texts. We examine some key moments in this concept’s development from ancient Greece to our own times, exploring a variety of philosophical perplexities along the way. We read literary texts such as the Iliad, Gawain and the Green Knight, and To Kill a Mockingbird, some biography (Robert E. Lee) and autobiography (Frederick Douglass), and a philosophical manuscript entitled “Honor for Us”, and view a variety of films (such as The Good Shepherd, Troy, The Last Samurai, Glory)–each of which casts different light on honor. We also explore honor’s reach in our contemporary society, from the military to sports, from politics to religion. At the end of the course, we focus on Washington and Lee’s own honor system, in order to clarify and deepen our own sense of local personal honor. Students participate in seminar discussion on the texts and films and the issues they raise. The course’s central philosophical question is this: how can honor, born and reared in hierarchical, patriarchal, warrior societies, live or even thrive in a more egalitarian and peaceful home, such as Washington and Lee in the 21st century? (HU) Sessions




  • PHIL 195 - Seminar for First-Years and Sophomores


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter, Spring



    A consideration of selected issues in philosophy. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.

    Topic for Winter 2011:

    PHIL 195: Personal Identity (3). “Who am I?” This question, so centrally important to any individual, is the main topic of this seminar. We trace the question of selfhood, agency, and personal identity through the history of Western philosophy, contemporary analytic philosophy, post-modern theory, and feminist thought. We discuss what it means to be a person, how identity is constituted, and how well I can know myself. Among other questions, we explore: am I the same person I was in the past, and if I lose my memory, am I still ‘me’? Am I just a body, or an ‘immaterial self,’ or am I nothing? Do I ‘own’ my mental states, my body? Where am I, can I be replicated or wake up in another body’s skin? Am I my brain, my body, or am I no more and no less than the story I tell about myself? Through an in-depth discussion of personal identity, students study questions of metaphysics, knowledge acquisition, and ethical and/or political theory. (HU) Verhage.



  • PHIL 205 - Philosophy of Language


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall

    A survey of central topics in the field, including some or all of the following: reference, meaning, truth, analyticity, speech acts, pragmatics, verificationism, indeterminacy, innateness, metaphor, and development of language in the species and in the individual.Gregory.



  • PHIL 206 - Problems in Logic


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall 2010 and alternate years.

    Prerequisite: PHIL 106 or permission of the instructor.An examination of alternative formal logics and issues in the philosophy of logic. Topics include formal ways of modeling possibility, actuality, and necessity; obligation and permissibility; pastness, presentness, and futurity; and others. They also include informal considerations of topics like conditionals, counterfactuals, intuitionism, and others.Goldberg.



  • PHIL 207 - Aesthetics


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Not offered in 2010-2011

    A consideration of the basic issues in philosophy of art. Selected viewings and readings from contemporary sources.Staff.



  • PHIL 208 - Philosophy of History


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall 2011 and alternate years

    Who makes history, individual human beings, social or economic classes, or broad and deep circumstances, such as climate, disease, currency exchange rates, or the collective psyche? How are explanations of historical events different from explanations in physics, biology, psychology, or economics? How is our understanding of historical events influenced by ethical, aesthetic, or ideological considerations? Is history just one thing happening after another, or is there a discernable pattern or meaning in it? What role do theories play in our understanding of history? What do historians and artists have in common? What does history tell us about ourselves? Readings include works by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Arendt, and contemporary authors.Lambert.



  • PHIL 212 - Philosophy and Religion


    (REL 212)FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall

    An exploration of selected issues, such as mystical and numinous experiences and doctrines, theistic arguments, faith and reason, religion and morality, and science and religion.Sessions.



  • PHIL 215 - Social Inequality and Fair Opportunity


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An exploration of the different range of opportunities available to various social groups, including racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, women, and the poor. Topics include how to define fair equality of opportunity; the social mechanisms that play a role in expanding and limiting opportunity; legal and group-initiated strategies aimed at effecting fair equality of opportunity and the theoretical foundations of these strategies; as well as an analysis of the concepts of equality, merit and citizenship, and their value to individuals and society.Bell.



  • PHIL 216 - Feminist Social and Political Philosophy


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall 2010 and alternate years

    This course critically examines the gender norms that pervade our identities, govern our everyday behavior, and organize our social life. Questions addressed may include: What is gender? In what ways does it affect the quality of women’s and men’s lives? Is gender difference natural? Is it valuable? Can it contribute to, or interfere with, human flourishing? Can a gendered society be just? What can any of us do to promote good relations among women and men?Bell.



  • PHIL 219 - Philosophy of Sex


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall

    This course explores questions related to contemporary conceptions of sexuality and its proper role in our lives. Questions addressed include: What is the purpose of sex? Are sexual practices subject to normative evaluation on grounds of morality, aesthetics, and/or capacity to promote a flourishing human life? We consider the relation between sex and both intimacy and pleasure, viewed from the perspective of heterosexual women and men, and gay men and lesbians. What are our sexual practices and attitudes toward sex? What should they be like?Bell.



  • PHIL 221 - Plato


    (CLAS 221)FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    A close study of one or several dialogues.Smith.



  • PHIL 222 - Aristotle


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    A study of Aristotle’s comprehensive philosophy of man and nature, including his logic, physics, metaphysics, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics.Sessions.



  • PHIL 248 - Ethics of War


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 4
    Planned Offering: Spring 2011 and alternate years

    An investigation of important ethical issues concerning the justification, conduct, and consequences of war. The course concentrates, in particular, on traditional just war theory and on recent challenges that have been raised to the central tenets of this theory in light of the rise of terrorism and “asymmetric conflict” (i.e., conflicts waged between state and non-state parties), on the one hand, and reflection upon the moral responsibility of individuals who choose to support or participate in unjust wars, on the other. We address questions such as the following: Should we regard all combatants in war as having the same moral status, regardless of whether they are fighting for a “just cause”? Is it ever morally permissible to attack non-combatants? Is terrorism ever morally justified? Is torture ever morally justified? Is there a moral obligation to engage in humanitarian intervention to stop genocide? Can the conditions of war constitute an excusing condition for acts of moral atrocity?Smith.



  • PHIL 251 - Existentialism


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall

    Overview of existential thought in the 19th and 20th centuries. The course presents core existentialist thinkers and their critics - e.g. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Fanon, Heidegger, Camus - and explores important existential themes such as human experience, anxiety, freedom, authenticity, and absurdity.Verhage.



  • PHIL 255 - Philosophy of Science


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    Discussion of philosophical issues raised by the natural sciences. Topics include the nature of scientific theories, evidence, and explanation, the demarcation of science from non-science, scientific revolutions, the unity of science, and scientific realism.Gregory.



  • PHIL 256 - Philosophy and Literature


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall

    Great literature is often profoundly philosophical and great philosophy sometimes takes the form of powerful fiction. This course considers the many philosophical themes in the writings of 19th- and 20th-century authors, including Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Chinua Achabe, Toni Morrison, Jorge Luis Borges, and Robert Musil.Verhage.



  • PHIL 257 - Philosophy of Biology


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Not offered in 2010-2011

    An examination of philosophical issues raised by biology, with an emphasis on current evolutionary theory. Topics include the structure of the theory of evolution by natural selection, an examination of the concepts of fitness and adaptation, the role of teleological explanation in biology, reductionism, the nature of biological species, individuality, levels of selection, and sociobiology.Staff.



  • PHIL 258 - Philosophy of Law


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An examination of topics in the philosophy of law, such as the concepts of a law and of a legal system; Natural Law theory; legal positivist and legal realist theories of law; the nature of the relationship between law, morality, and religion; civil disobedience; rights in the U.S. Constitution; freedom of speech and pornography; abortion and the right to privacy; punishment and the death penalty; and different forms of legal liability. Readings include United States Supreme Court opinions.Bell, Mahon.



  • PHIL 259 - Philosophy of the Family


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter 2011 and alternate years

    This course considers philosophical issues raised by family as a social institution and as a legal institution. Topics addressed include the social and personal purposes served by the institution of family, the nature of relationships between family members, the various forms that family can take, the scope of family privacy or autonomy, and how family obligations, mutual support, and interdependency affect individual members of families.Bell.



  • PHIL 260 - Philosophy of Nature


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Not offered in 2010-2011

    An examination of various understandings of nature and the natural from the ancient Greeks to the present. The course includes exploration of basic philosophical issues regarding the concepts “nature,” “wild,” and “wilderness.” The focus is on the relationship between landscapes and conceptualizations of time, self, and community.Staff.



  • PHIL 263 - Kierkegaard


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    What does it mean to exist as an authentic human being? This course explores diverse inquiries into this question by one of the 19th century’s most challenging thinkers. We read from a variety of famous pseudonymous writings (including parts of Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, The Sickness Unto Death), as well as some lesser-known works under his own name (Upbuilding Discourses, Works of Love). In doing so, we not only follow Kierkegaard’s literary and philosophical genius for displaying the intricacies and depths of aesthetic, ethical, and religious ways of living a human life, but we also deepen our own reflections on these matters – and perhaps strengthen our grasp on authentic living as well.Sessions.



  • PHIL 265 - Nietzsche


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An examination of Nietzsche’s central philosophical conceptions-revaluation of values, genealogy of morality, self-overcoming, eternal recurrence-through selected readings from various periods in Nietzsche’s authorship.Staff.



  • PHIL 269 - Contemporary Ethics


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An examination of different metaethical theories, including ethical realism, emotivism, error theory, and constructivism, and different normative ethical theories, including utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, virtue ethics, and the ethics of care, followed by an application of these normative theories to a selection of ethical problems, including famine and world hunger, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, cloning, suicide, and self-defense. Philosophers include G.E. Moore, W.D. Ross, A.J. Ayer, J.L. Mackie, Bernard Williams, Susan Wolf, Peter Singer, Michael Tooley, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and Shelly Kagan.Mahon.



  • PHIL 275 - The Unruly Body: Philosophy, Science, and Culture


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 4
    Planned Offering: Spring

    In this course students study theories of embodiment. Beginning with the history of philosophy, we consider how the body gets to be subordinated to a mind; how it is considered mere matter, a building block that is unpredictable and passionate and needs to be controlled or shaped by the mind or the soul (e.g., Aristotelian biology). Continuing with an examination of how in science the body is depicted, shaped and, at times, reconstructed, the course then moves to social-cultural structures, including bodily containment and construction and, with Foucault, execution of power and punishment. Lastly, we consider how we can rethink, relive, regard, refigure, restore and respect our bodies and the bodies of others in more productive and thought-provoking ways.Verhage.



  • PHIL 276 - Art, Imagination, and Ethics


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 4
    Planned Offering: spring 2011 and alternate years

    This course considers ethical issues pertaining to the creation, consumption, and criticism of artistic works, including the visual arts, literature, and music. Can artistic works be assessed morally, and are such assessments relevant to their aesthetic assessment? Is it possible for a work of art to be deeply immoral and at the same time aesthetically excellent (or vice versa)? Is there a distinctive kind of moral knowledge that can only come about through engagement with works of art? To what extent, if at all, are artists accountable for the messages implicit in their works of art, or for the effects of these works on their audiences? Are there distinctive ethical issues raised by current forms of “popular art,” e.g., video games, rap music, and slasher films?Smith.



  • PHIL 280 - Philosophies of Life


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 4
    Planned Offering: Spring 2012 and alternate years

    Prerequisite: One W&L course in philosophy, one course taught by a W&L philosophy faculty member, or permission of the instructor.This course provides opportunities to explore philosophies of life held by influential philosophers and by ordinary people, focusing on what it means to live a good or worthwhile life. It also gives students a chance to clarify and develop their own vision of what a good life is for them. Projects include conducting interviews with members of the community outside the classroom.Bell.



  • PHIL 295 - Seminar on Philosophical Topics


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall, Winter



    A consideration of selected issues in philosophy. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.

    Topic for Winter 2011:

    PHIL 295: The Self and The Social World (3). This course takes as its starting point the question of the ‘other.’ When being a ‘self’ depends first on being recognized by others, then how do we relate to ‘other selves’ and engage in community with them? The course concentrates on the work of traditional philosophical accounts of selves and others, e.g., Hegel’s dialectic of master and slave, and feminist philosophers, race-theorists, and post-colonialist thinkers who problematize these traditional philosophies and offer alternative ways of speaking about self and other. The worry is that our traditional understanding of ‘otherness’ is not a positive construct that recognizes diversity, but instead a form of violence towards the other person. Among other questions, we explore: how do we perceive, and communicate with others who have different bodies, genders, cultures and histories? How do we see ourselves through the eyes of others? Can we speak for others? And, can we build bridges across differences and forge common ground? (HU) Verhage.

    Topics for Fall 2010:

    PHIL 295A:Seminar: Process Philosophy - Cancelled

    PHIL 295B: Virtue Ethics (3). We examine the recent movement toward virtue-based theories in both normative ethics and metaethics. We read some of the seminal articles that sparked this renewed interest in virtue ethics, and then examine a fully developed neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical account (and some criticisms that have been raised to this account). (HU) Smith.

    PHIL 295C: Seminar: What is Honor? (3). Not open to students who have taken a previous iteration of this course at any level. What is honor? It lies at the heart of Washington and Lee’s values, yet its hold on the wider American society is tenuous, and its meaning is unclear to many, not least to students struggling to comprehend a revered honor system. This course seeks to explore the concept of personal honor in historical, literary, and philosophical texts. We examine some key moments in this concept’s development from ancient Greece to our own times, exploring a variety of philosophical perplexities along the way. We read literary texts such as the Iliad, Gawain and the Green Knight, and To Kill a Mockingbird, some biography (Robert E. Lee) and autobiography (Frederick Douglass), and a philosophical manuscript entitled “Honor for Us”, and view a variety of films (such as The Good Shepherd, Troy, The Last Samurai, Glory)–each of which casts different light on honor. We also explore honor’s reach in our contemporary society, from the military to sports, from politics to religion. At the end of the course, we focus on Washington and Lee’s own honor system, in order to clarify and deepen our own sense of local personal honor. Students participate in seminar discussion on the texts and films and the issues they raise. The course’s central philosophical question is this: how can honor, born and reared in hierarchical, patriarchal, warrior societies, live or even thrive in a more egalitarian and peaceful home, such as Washington and Lee in the 21st century? (HU) Sessions.


    PHIL 295D: Seminar: Jurisprudence (3).
    This seminar examines Natural Law Theory, understood as the theory of law that holds that there is an essential relationship between law and morality, such that moral validity is a condition for legal validity. Both classical and modern formulations of the theory are considered, and both religious and secular versions of the theory. Authors include Sophocles, Cicero, Aquinas, Blackstone, Austin, Fuller, Hart, Dworkin, Finnis, Murphy, and Bix. (HU) Mahon



  • PHIL 296 - Spring-Term Seminar on Philosophical Topics


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 4
    Planned Offering: Spring

    Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor.A consideration of selected issues in philosophy. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.



  • PHIL 301 - Metaphysics


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An examination of central Issues in metaphysics. Topics include existence, the relationship between an object and its properties, time, space, persistence, and cause and effect. Topics may also include the nature of possibility, actuality, and necessary, and discussions about why anything exists at all.Goldberg.



  • PHIL 309 - History of Ethics


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall

    A close examination of the writings of some of the philosophers who have shaped modern ethical thought, including St. Thomas Aquinas, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and John Stuart Mill. Topics include theories of Natural Law; the social contract; the origin and nature of justice; morality and reason; morality and Christianity; and individual autonomy and state paternalism.Mahon.



  • PHIL 311 - Wittgenstein


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Not offered in 2010-2011

    A close study of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Emphasis on the analysis of language, meaning, and states of consciousness.Staff.



  • PHIL 312 - Theory of Knowledge


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An examination of the basic problems in epistemology with an emphasis on contemporary discussions. Topics include skepticism, knowledge, justification (foundationalism, coherentism, reliabilism), relativism, and rationality.Goldberg, Gregory.



  • PHIL 313 - Philosophy of Mind


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall

    A consideration and assessment of dualism and materialism and of various theories of the relation between the mental and the physical, such as the identity theory, functionalism, and supervenience.Gregory.



  • PHIL 314 - Heidegger


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    We use the expression ‘being’ all the time in our everyday language, but do we really understand what Being is? Heidegger argues that the extraordinary question of Being is the most important question of philosophy. This course explores this question through a careful reading of Heidegger’s magnum opus Being and Time and some later essays. In addition to the meaning of Being, we discuss the following themes in Heidegger’s writing: temporality, being-in-the-world, being-towards-death, authenticity, and care.Verhage.



  • PHIL 316 - Kant


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An exploration of the full sweep of Kant’s Critical Philosophy, with special attention to the Critique of Pure Reason.Sessions.



  • PHIL 320 - Distributive Justice


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall 2011 and alternate years

    Prerequisite: Junior standing or permission of the instructor.How should the product of social cooperation be distributed in a just society? Is wealth redistribution through taxes fair? Is it a fair distribution of wealth that a just society depends on, or is distributive justice more complicated than that? Should we have welfare programs, and, if so, what should they be like? Our studies may include John Rawls’ political liberalism, Robert Nozick’s libertarianism, Ronald Dworkin’s equality of resources, Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach, Stuart White’s justice as fair reciprocity, and criticisms of the distributive paradigm.Bell.



  • PHIL 330 - Human Nature and the Human Sciences


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 4
    Planned Offering: Spring 2011 and alternate years

    Prerequisite: One course in philosophy (other than PHIL 106), computer science, neuroscience, or psychology, or permission of instructor. What does it mean to be human? Must we stay that way? We address these questions by looking critically at the technological enhancement of human capabilities. We have the means—prosthetic, pharmaceutical, electronic, informational, and genetic—to alter and enhance our biological endowments. We can increase our lifespan, improve our physical, cognitive, and emotional abilities like never before. What is currently possible? What will be possible in the short, medium, and long term? Could we change ourselves to such an extent that we are no longer human (becoming posthuman or transhuman)? If we can, should we? What are the dangers and moral/ethical considerations, and how are we to adjudicate them? We read authors ranging from essentialist bioconservatives to radical transhumanists. We also consider enhancements as mundane as caffeine and as far out as life extension and extreme body modification.Gregory.



  • PHIL 341 - Medical Ethics


    (INTR 341)FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An examination of the issues arising out of the human impact of modern biomedical research and practice. Specific issues are selected from among the following: abortion, contraception, death and dying, experimentation/research, genetics, in vitro fertilization, mental retardation, public health/community medicine, science/technology, transplantation and patients’ rights.Cooper.



  • PHIL 342 - Legal Ethics


    (INTR 342)FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    An examination of the issues associated with lawyers’ roles in society and their impact upon and obligations to the client, the court, and the legal profession. The course also addresses questions of the role and function of law and the adversary system.Cooper.



  • PHIL 352 - Ethics of Globalization


    BUS 352
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter 2011 and alternate years

    Prerequisite: At least junior standing. This seminar examines a number of ethical issues raised by the phenomenon of globalization. Though globalization is not new, recent business, technological, and policy developments have made the world more integrated and interdependent than ever before. Increasing economic, cultural, and political interconnections have created a host of new questions about how to conceive of the moral rights and responsibilities of individuals, multi-national corporations, nation-states, and global institutions within this new global framework. This course identifies and clarifies some of these questions, and considers how they have been addressed from a variety of different disciplinary perspectives. Questions concerning the ethics of globalization are approached through an analysis of a few specific topics, such as immigration, humanitarian intervention, and global poverty and inequality. Because the issues raised by the phenomenon of globalization cross disciplinary boundaries, readings are drawn from a wide variety of fields, including philosophy, business, economics, political science, and anthropology.Reiter and Smith.



  • PHIL 370 - Roe v. Wade and the Abortion Question


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 4
    Planned Offering: Spring 2012 and alternate years

    Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor.This course considers the question of whether abortion should be legal in a modern state from the perspectives of contemporary moral philosophy and U.S. law.Mahon.



  • PHIL 375 - Philosophy of Time Travel


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 4
    Planned Offering: Spring 2012 and alternate years

    Prerequisite:One course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.This course considers the philosophical possibility of time travel. First we read 20th-century philosophers on time, followed by late 20th- and early 21st-century philosophers on time travel. Lastly, we hear from a physicist on these issues. Concurrently, we watch time-travel movies, some professional, others made by students in class.Goldberg.



  • PHIL 395 - Advanced Seminar


    FDR: HU
    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

    Prerequisites: Six credits in philosophy and permission of the instructor.An intensive and critical study of selected issues or major figures in philosophy. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.Staff.



  • PHIL 401 - Directed Individual Study


    Credits: 1
    Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

    Prerequisite: Permission of the department.May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.Staff.



  • PHIL 402 - Directed Individual Study


    Credits: 2
    Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

    Prerequisite: Permission of the department.May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.Staff.



  • PHIL 403 - Directed Individual Study


    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

    Prerequisite: Permission of the department.May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.Staff.



  • PHIL 473 - Senior Thesis and Seminar


    Credits: 3
    Planned Offering: Winter

    Prerequisites: Senior standing and major in philosophy.Seminar in which each major prepares and presents a senior thesis or prepares a chapter of an honors thesis.Staff.



  • PHIL 493 - Honors Thesis


    Credits: 3-3
    Planned Offering: Fall-Winter

    Prerequisites: Honors candidacy and senior standing.Honors Thesis.





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