PHIL 240 - Contemporary Ethical Theory

FDR: HU Humanities Distribution
Credits: 3

An in-depth exploration of central questions in contemporary normative ethical theory, including the following: Which features of actions are morally important to determining their rightness (e.g., their motive, their intrinsic nature, their consequences)? What is the relation between moral values and personal values (e.g., those deriving from personal commitments and relationships)? How demanding is morality? How can we evaluate competing theories of normative ethics? Students consider these and related issues by examining contemporary philosophical defenses of consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics, and contractualism.