Ethics Syll Sp 20 - syllabus PDF

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Ethics 107, O’Brian 112, MWF 11-11.50 Instructor: Maureen Donnelly Office: Park Hall 127 Office Hours: F noon-12.50!!! Email: [email protected] Teaching Assistants: Angela Menditto [email protected]; Finn Wilson [email protected] Course Objectives: Students will 1) learn basic concepts relevant to discussions of ethics; 2) acquire a general understanding of the major theories of ethics; and 3) learn to use ethical theories to evaluate ethical dilemmas. All three course objectives will be assessed on quizzes, exams, in content questions, and in the debates. Texts: Required Text: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer available through Amazon in either paperback or Kindle edition; YOU NEED TO PURCHASE THE FOER BOOK. Readings from Perspectives on Ethics, 2nd Edition, by Judith A. Boss will be posted on the UBLearns Site for our course. YOU DO NOT NEED TO PURCHASE THE BOSS TEXTBOOK. Grading: 3 exams quizzes content questions on readings debate participation Percentage 93-100 90-93 87-90 83-87 80-83 77-80 73-77 70-73 67-70 60-67 below 60

20% each 20% 10% 5% each

Letter Grade A AB+ B BC+ C CD+ D F

Exams: All exams will be given during class. Students with a valid and verifiable excuse for missing an exam must notify me by at least 10am on the day of the exam. Generally, car trouble is not an acceptable excuse for missing an exam. Nor is oversleeping. Make sure you have a backup plan for waking up and getting to class on the day of an exam. !!!

Let me know in advance, either at class or by email, if you intend to meet with me during office hours.

Quizzes: There will be frequent unannounced quizzes based partly on the Critical Reading Questions at the beginning of the Boss readings. All quizzes will be given during the first five minutes of class. If you are not in class to take a quiz you will receive a zero, even if you have a good excuse for your absence or lateness. At the end of the semester, I will drop each student’s 2 lowest quiz scores with the expectation that this will accommodate a normal frequency of absences due to illness or other emergencies. Content Questions on Readings: For each assigned reading, you must submit one question on the content of that reading in the Content Questions on Readings journal on the UBLearns Site (look under “Journals” in “Course Tools”) for our class. To get credit for your question, you must submit it no later than 9am on the day the reading is due and you must clearly label your question by listing the author and title of the reading as your title for the journal entry for that question. Debate: We will have two debates, one on each of our applied ethics issue—Eating Animals and Helping Strangers—in class. To receive any credit for a debate, students must do all three of the following: 1) complete the written assignment developing their own position on the debate and bring it to class on the first day of debate preparation, 2) use their answers on this assignment to develop a joint position with their debate teammates, and 3) participate in the debate with their teammates. Students will receive no credit for a debate if they miss either the debate class or the debate preparation class unless they submit a valid and verifiable emergency excuse for missing one or both of these classes (e.g. an illness or a death in the family). Absences You are expected to attend every class unless you are kept away by illness or some other emergency. If you must miss a class, please get in touch with me or with a reliable classmate to find out what homework is assigned for the next class. Please get notes from a classmate. At the end of the semester, if you have had some valid and documentable reason for missing several classes, please let me know. If appropriate, I may make adjustments in your quiz grade. Classroom etiquette: Electronic devices are NOT permitted in class except for students with a note from the from the Accessibility Office requiring this kind of accommodation. Students who use electronic devices in class or disrupt the class by talking amongst themselves may lose two points from their final grade per incident. I reserve the right to reseat students who are not able to focus on the class discussion. Repeated disruptions may result in dismissal from class. Please see https://catalog.buffalo.edu/policies/obstruction.html for specific university policies on disruptive classroom behavior.

Tentative Schedule: All dates are tentative. Students are expected to attend class regularly to stay up-to-date on schedule changes.

Jan 27 – Feb 7

Introduction; Ethical Subjectivism; Cultural Relativism Readings: Javits and Rosenthal, pp. 42-48 Satris, pp. 49-52 King, pp. 85-89 Mackie, pp. 53-59

Feb 10– Feb 14

Moral Development Readings: Kohlberg, pp. 166-171 Gilligan, pp. 172-179 Held, pp. 180-184

Feb 19

Exam 1

Feb 21 – Feb 26

Ethical Egoism Readings: Plato, The Ring of Gyges story from The Republic Wilson, pp. 217-222 Chapter Applications

Feb 28 – March 9

Utilitarianism Readings: Bentham, pp. 252-257 Mill, pp. 258-26 Williams, pp. 279-283 Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals, pp. 1-115 Chapter Applications

March 13

Exam 2

March 23 – April 1

Deontology Readings:

Kant, pp. 294-304 Ross, pp. 322-327

April 3 -April 8

Applied Ethics: Eating Animals Readings: Singer from Animal Liberation, pp. 272-278 Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals, pp. 116-267 Lori Gruen, The Moral Status of Animals, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/

April 10-April 15

DEBATE--Eating Animals

Singer “Famine, Affluence, Morality" April 17- April 24

Virtue Ethics Readings: Aristotle from The Nicomachean Ethics Noddings, pp. 414-421 Okeowo "Where is the Empathy for Somalia?" Pinsker "How Well-Intentioned White Families can Perpetuate Racism"

April 27

Applied Ethics: Helping Strangers

April 29 - May 4

DEBATE--Helping Strangers

May 8

EXAM 3

UB Portfolio If you are completing this course as part of your UB Curriculum requirements, please select an ‘artifact’ from this course that is representative of your learning and upload it to your UBPortfolio (powered by Digication) account. Templates have been created for this purpose. Artifacts include homework assignments, exams, research papers, projects, lab reports, presentations, and other course materials. Your final UB Curriculum requirement, UBC 399: UB Curriculum Capstone, will require you to submit these ‘artifacts’ as you process and reflect on your achievement and growth through the UB Curriculum. For more information, see the UB Curriculum Capstone website: https://www.buffalo.edu/ubcurriculum/capstone.html. Please know that the UB Curriculum office provides UBPortfolio support to students and instructors during the fall and spring semesters, Monday- Friday in 24H Capen Hall. For hours, visit https://buffalo.digication.com/ub_portfolio/ubportfolio-walk-in-lab-hours...