About the notes
It’s rare to learn things the first time out, therefore, I summarize the main points of each lecture. Repetition can help even the best of us. More selfishly, sometimes I want to pursue a point that I did not have time to discuss in the lectures. That sort of thing will be of interest to students who just can’t get enough. Finally, I have occasionally outlined especially difficult articles and given some references to further reading.
What Does Morality Require?
- Famine and Rescue [Singer, Cohen]
- Singer outline
- Singer’s argument (30 March)
- Singer’s principle (4 April)
- Cohen outline
- What are we responsible for? (6 April)
- Utilitarianism [Bentham, Mill]
- Bentham outline
- Bentham’s utilitarianism (11 April)
- Mill outline
- Mill’s hedonism (13-18 April)
- Utilitarianianism and justice (20 April)
- The right to life [Thomson, Warren]
- Thomson outline
- Thomson on the right to life (25 April)
- Voluntariness and samaritanism (27 April)
- Warren outline
- Warren on persons (2 May)
What Status Do Moral Beliefs Have?
- Harman on science and morality (4 May)
- Why does subjectivism seem threatening? (9 May) [Plato, Shafer-Landau, Williams]
- Moral Relativism
- Moral Relativism (11-18 May) [Anthropologists, double Williams, Waldron]
- Additional reading
- Subjectivism vs. objectivism (23-25 May) [Williams, Shafer-Landau]