Introduction to Philosophy

Fall 2011

Professor Nico Silins

Lecture Time: MW 10:10-11:00 (+sections)

Lecture Location: G76 Goldwin Smith Hall

Email: ns338@cornell.edu

Office: 219 Goldwin Smith Hall

Office Hours: Monday 2-3

I’m also easily available by appointment. And please feel welcome to drop by my office during the day, I should usually be around.

Course Description

An introduction to philosophy, focusing on classic questions about the possibility of free will, the extent of moral duty, the existence of God, and the nature of the self. Please see the schedule below for a detailed outline.

Required Texts

The required texts are available at the Cornell Bookstore. They are

Free Will: A Contemporary Introduction, by Robert Kane

A Dialogue of Good, Evil, and the Existence of God, by John Perry

Other readings will be available online through the Blackboard site for the course. Please be sure to register for Blackboard at <www.blackboard.cornell.edu>. To enroll for the site:

Go to http://blackboard.cornell.edu and log in. (Or, if you do not yet have a Blackboard account, click “New User: Get an Account”.)

Click “All Blackboard Sites” tab near the upper left

Search for Introduction to Philosophy

Click button marked “Enroll” (on the Fall 2011 course)

Evaluation

Three short papers: 55%

Each paper will be three to five pages long. The first will determine 15% of your final grade, each of the second two will determine 20% of your grade.

Participation: 20%

The participation grade is based on your overall engagement with the course, including attendance, classroom discussion, and individual meetings.

A key component will be a weekly email to the leader of your section. This email should respond to the readings of the week, in roughly 150 to 200 words.

Final exam: 25%

Policies

Please let me know if you need accommodations due to a disability or a

conflict with a religious observance date.

You must read the assigned material before class. The reading assignments will often be short but will always require close attention. I strongly recommend reading each assignment twice.

Attendance is required. It is also crucial to doing well in the course. The lectures will introduce material not covered in the readings. And having a reasoned discussion of philosophy in section is one of the best ways to learn how to do philosophy.

Late papers and assignments will be marked down by 1/3 of a letter grade for each day the paper is late (e.g., from A- to B+, from B+ to B, and so on). Extensions can be arranged on a case-by-case basis.

You are encouraged to discuss the assignment and paper topics with each other, but in your papers you should be sure to acknowledge your sources.

Please be familiar with the Cornell policy on academic integrity at

<http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html>.

Further Resources

It’s important to be on top of the technical terms occasionally used in our readings. You should feel absolutely comfortable asking for clarification in class.

For further information online, see

“Philosophical Terms and Methods”, by James Pryor at New York University

http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/vocab/glossary.html

or the further resources listed at

http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/phil.html

Note: you must cite these resources if you use them for papers.

Schedule

8/24: Overview

1. The Problem of Evil

Many believe in a God that is all-knowing, all-powerful, and supremely good. The argument from evil tries to show that such a God does not exist, given all the bad things that have been done and that have happened in this world. We’ll think about how to assess this argument.

8/29, 8/31: The Problem of Evil

Perry, A Dialogue of Good, Evil, and the Existence of God

2. Freedom

We will evaluate answers to the following questions:

• What does it take to have free will? • Do we have free will?

• How much does it matter, if at all, if we don’t have free will?

9/7: Overview

Kane, Free Will: A Contemporary Introduction, chapter 1

9/12: Compatibilism

Kane, chapters 2 and 9

Determinism is the view that the distant past has fixed or determined what we will do. What if determinism is true? Compatibilism is a view about what it would take to have free will. The compatibilist says we can have free will even if determinism is true. Is it too easy to have free will on this view?

9/14: Incompatibilism

Kane, chapter 3

According to the incompatibilist, we can’t have free will if determinism is true. Why not?

9/19: Incompatibilism, continued

Kane, chapter 8

9/21: Libertarianism

Kane, chapters 4 and 5

“Libertarianism” (in the relevant sense) is a view both about what it would take to have free will and about whether we have free will. The libertarian says

* we do have free will

* if we have free will, determinism doesn’t hold

* (so) determinism doesn’t hold.

Does this view make sense? Can it be reconciled with science?

9/26: Is free will an illusion?

Libet, “Do We Have Free Will?”

Nahmias, “When Consciousness Matters”

9/28: What if we don’t have free will?

Kane, chapter 7

3. Good and Evil

Here we will look closely at answers to the following sorts of questions:

• What makes an action right or wrong? • What sorts of obligations do we have?

10/3: Responsibility and Ignorance

Ginet, “The Epistemic Conditions of Moral Responsibility”

Rosen, “Ignorance and Culpability”

10/5: Moral Luck

Nagel, “Moral Luck”

Consider a driver who killed someone when the driver was texting while driving. Consider an equally inattentive texting driver who didn’t kill anyone, simply because no one was around to hit. Is there a moral difference between them?

******10/7: First paper due at 5pm******

10/10: Fall Break, no class

10/12: Utilitarianism

Mill, Utilitarianism, selection

Do the consequences of an act determine whether or not it is wrong?

10/17, 10/19: Our Obligations to Others

Monday: Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”

Wednesday: Wolf, “Moral Saints”

10/24, 10/26: Challenges to Morality

Monday: Egoism---Are we always selfish?

“Egoism”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Wednesday: Relativism---Are there any moral absolutes?

Rachels, “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism”

10/31, 11/2: The Ethics of Belief

Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief”, selection

James, “The Will to Believe”, selection

Pascal, Pensées, selection

Is it ever ok to believe something when you don’t have evidence in favor of what you believe? For example, if someone didn’t have evidence that God exists, could it still be ok for them to believe that God exists, perhaps because it pays off to do so?

******11/10: Second paper due by 5pm******

4. What We Are

How do our minds relate to our bodies? How well do we know our own minds anyways?

Are we essentially our minds, so that a severe enough onset of Alzheimer’s would destroy us even before our body died? Or are we essentially human organisms, so that we continue to exist so long as our body remains alive, regardless of what has happened to our minds?

11/7, 11/9: Consciousness

Monday: Jackson, “Epiphenomenal Qualia”

Wednesday: Schwitzgebel, “The Unreliability of Naïve Introspection”

11/14: Personal Identity, Introduction

Olson, The Human Animal, chapter 1

11/16: Personal Identity, The Psychological View

Olson, The Human Animal, chapter 1

11/21: Personal Identity, The Biological View

Olson, “Was I Ever a Fetus?”

11/23: Thanksgiving Break, no class

11/28: Death

Nagel, “Death”

Suppose that, when we die, we’re truly gone---no pain, no pleasure, nada. Would this mean that death is not a bad thing?

******11/29: Third paper due by 5pm******

11/30: Review Session

******12/7: Final Exam******