Contact Information:

My office is 1024 Oldfather Hall and the office phone number there is 472-4387. My office hours this semester are from 3:30-4:30 p.m. on Monday and 5:30-6:30 pm on Wednesday. If you cannot make it to these hours, then we can arrange another time to meet. My email is: ea55720@navix.net

Required Text:

The text we will be using for the course is Daniel Bonevac's Today's Moral Issues: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives (3rd Edition).

Course Objectives:

The objectives of this course are: (1) to raise the student's understanding of the complex nature of certain contemporary moral issues, (2) to provide the student with a historical background for many of these moral issues, (3) to enable students to communicate in an intelligent manner on these issues, (4) to increase the student's adeptness in critiquing an ethical position, and (5) to have students refine their own positions with regard to these moral issues.

Academic Honesty:

All work submitted for this class is expected to be your own original work. Any idea that is not your own must be documented (i.e. the source must be cited). Any cheating or plagiarizing will result in an F for the semester.

Paper Requirement:

In order to pass this class you will need to write a satisfactory (passing) ethics paper of about 4-6 pages in length. You may write your paper on any moral issue that interests you. However, if the topic that you would like to write on is not listed on the course schedule, see me before you start writing your paper in earnest. I will collect a first version of this paper on Wednesday March 28th and will return it to you the following week with constructive feedback. The final version of your paper is due on the beginning of class April 18th.

Grading Policy:

Work submitted late (including quizzes and exams) will be graded more severely than work submitted on time. Grades for this class will be calculated as follows:

Exam #1 - 20%
Quizzes - 30%
Paper - 20%
Final Exam - 30%

97-100 A+
90- A
87- B+
80- B
77- C+
70- C
67- D+
60- D
Below 60 - F

Jan 10th: Syllabus & Introduction to Applied Philosophy of Morality.

Some Theoretical Underpinnings

Jan 17th: John Stuart Mill & Utilitarianism (read pp. 15-19, 50-8, 159-61, & 179-81).

Jan 24th: Golden Rule & Kant's Ethics (read pp. 33-42). Quiz #1.

Sexual Behavior

Jan 31st: Bertrand Russell's "Our Sexual Ethics" & Thomas Mappes' "Sexual Morality and the Concept of Using Another Person" (read pp. 135-147).

Feb 7th: Sidney Callahan's "Abortion and the Sexual Agenda" & Roger Scruton from Sexual Desire (read pp. 148-58).

World Hunger

Feb 14th: Garrett Hardin's "The Case Against Helping the Poor" and Johnson, Holmes, & Kirkpatrick's "Freedom's Steady March" (read pp. 674-81 & 692-4).

Feb 21st: Peter Singer from Practical Ethics (read pp. 682-91). Exam #1.

More Theory

Feb 28th: Jean-Jacques Rousseau & Social Contract Theory (read pp. 339-40, 355-61, & 538-49).

March 7th: John Rawl's Theory of Justice (read pp. 519-20, 59-65, & 565-6). Quiz #2.

Economic Justice

March 21st: Libertarianism vs. Egalitarianism: John Hosper's "What Libertarianism Is" & Kai Nielsen's "Egalitarian Justice: Equality as a Goal and Equality as a Right" (read pp. 575-86).

March 28th: Marvin Olasky from The Tragedy of American Compassion and also Michael Tanner & Stephen Moore's "Why Welfare Pays" (read pp. 605-16). First Version of Paper Due.

April 4th: Capitalism, Marx, & Economic Justice (read pp. 550-64). Quiz #3.

The Ethical Treatment of Animals

April 11th: Peter Singer from Animal Liberation & Tom Regan from The Case for Animal Rights (read pp. 98-117).

Environmental Ethics

April 18th: Paul & Anne Erlich's "Risks, Costs, and Benefits" and William Baxter from People or Penguins (read pp. 75-85 & 91-7). Final Version of Paper Due.

April 25th: Deep Ecology & Ecofeminism (read pp. 86-90).

Final Exam

May 2nd: 8:15 p.m.