PHI 300 - Ethics
Course Outline
Program: | Humanities |
Course Number: | PHI 300 |
Course Title: | Ethics |
Credits: | 3.0 |
Prerequisites: | none |
A. Catalog Description of Course
The course examines rival theories of making ethical choices, clarifies what theories of human nature and self they presuppose and directly tests their workability by requiring students to use them to resolve conflicts of values, personal and interpersonal.
B. Goals
1. Students will know what ethical theories of valuing are, what theories of human nature and self they presuppose and what problems they seek to resolve.
2. Students will know what the different kinds of ethical theories there are: consequentialist, non-consequentialist and inquiry.
3. Students will be able to explain and employ the procedures that consequentialist, non-consequentialist and inquiry theories recommend in dealing with conflicts of values.
4. Students will learn how to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these theories of choosing by employing them through role playing and simulated ethical conflicts to resolve personal and interpersonal conflicts of value requiring group decision making.
5. Students will learn how to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these ethical theories of valuing through analysis employing critical thinking strategies.
C. Objectives
Students will be able to:
1. use role playing and group interactions simulating ethical dilemmas and decision making as a tool of evaluation of theoretical constructs.
2. develop critical thinking skills and use them as tools of analysis and evaluation of theoretical constructs.
3. show what the function of theoretical constructs are and what the relation of such constructs are to practice on both a personal, social and institutional basis.
4. show how to use their own experience and the experience of others as evaluative tools.
5. identify what theory or theories they utilize as their personal mechanism of ethical choosing or valuing.
6. evaluate the strengths or weaknesses of their own mechanism of choice through both group interactions, role playing and the employment of critical thinking strategies.
7. decide, by being able to identify and evaluate their own mechanisms of choice, if these mechanisms need modification, what modifications are necessary and how they might be modified.
D. Outline of Course Content
I. Examination of the nature and function of ethical theories of valuation.
II. Identification and critical analysis of the theories of human nature and self that theories of valuation presuppose.
III. Identification of the kinds of theories of valuation: consequentialist, non-consequentialist and inquiry.
IV. Examination of specific examples of these kinds of theories of valuation: egoism, utilitarianism, intuitionism, Kantian, Dewian.
V. Evaluation and critical analysis of these theories through role playing, simulated ethical conflicts involving group decision making and employment of critical thinking concepts.
E. Suggested Texts
Ethics: Theory and Practice - Jacques P. Thiroux.
Novels such as The Fall - Albert Camus.
F. Suggested Modes, Media, and Techniques of Instruction
Class discussion of text, handouts, assigned novels, and movies, simulation of resolving a moral problem through role playing and various structured group interactions.
G. Instructor References
Acton, M. B. (1960) Kant's Moral Philosophy (London: Macmillan).
Aristotle (1987) Nicomachean Ethics (Buffalo: Prometheus).
Dewey, John (1960) Theory of the Moral Life (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston).
Ibid. (1939) Theory of Valuation Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Frankena, Alfred (1941) Introduction to Logic and to the Methodology of Deductive Sciences (New York: Oxford University Press).
Gouinlock, James (1976) The Moral Writings of John Dewey (New York: Haefner).
Hare, R. M. (1981) Moral Thinking (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Hudson, W. (1970) Ethical Intuitionism (London: Macmillan).
Mill, John Stuart (1987) Utilitarianism (Buffalo: Prometheus).
Rand, Ayn (1964) The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: New American Library).
Smart, J. J. C. and Bernard Williams (1973) Utilitarianism For and Against (New York: Cambridge University Press).
Walker, Ralph C. (1982) Kant (New York: Metheun).
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