Department of Humanities 201011

H01. PHILOSOPHY COURSENOTES

Mr Greg Artus E-mail: g.artus@imperial.ac.uk Philosophy is the search for answers to fundamental questions, such as: what is knowledge? Who am I? Can there be a just society? Does God exist? This course will examine the answers given to these and similar questions by people like Aristotle, Descartes, Hume and Kant. Course aims To introduce the students to basic philosophical terminology; To introduce the students to some of the basic philosophical notions and debates; To acquaint the students with forms of non-scientific argumentation; To prompt the students to relate classic philosophical problems to contemporary issues; To develop essential transferable skills, to include written and oral communication skills, experience in the synthesis and analysis of a range of information sources, and teamworking, which make students who have taken this course attractive to prospective employers.

Course objectives Philosophy is a very important part of various cultural traditions. You will learn about both prominent figures from the past and some of the most influential contemporary thinkers. This will help you better understand past societies and the world we currently live in. You will be able to read a complex philosophical text; to write a good philosophical essay; and to acknowledge the work of philosophers by citing existing work clearly, accurately, and appropriately. Studying philosophy is not a matter of learning the right answers to some questions. The emphasis is on the process of questioning itself. You will learn to challenge, criticise and evaluate arguments; to formulate arguments clearly; to choose and judge between competing arguments; to understand that different people in different times and places think and feel differently.

Course structure There will be 20 lectures (10 in the Autumn and 10 in the Spring terms), and tutorials every other week. Tutorials are an essential part of the course. Attendance at tutorials is monitored. If you fail to attend regularly your assessment will be jeopardised. Essays and assessment Students will submit two coursework essays and sit a written examination. The first essay is worth The second essay is worth The exam is worth 30% of the final grade 40% of the final grade 30% of the final grade

Essays should be typescript, printed on one side of the paper, font 12, 1.5 line spacing, and no longer than 2000 words. Essay submission dates All assignments must be handed in at Humanities reception (Sherfield Building level 3) The first essay must be handed in by 14.00 on Thursday 13 January 2011 The second essay must be handed in by 14.00 on Thursday 5 May 2011 The two-hour written examination will be on Friday 25 March 2011, 12.0014.00 (location to be announced) Essays will not be accepted without a Humanities Department cover sheet (included in the Humanities Student Handbook or available from the Humanities website). This provides evidence that you have handed in your essay on time and includes a declaration that it is your own work. Extensions Students needing to request an extension for reasons of illness or a serious personal problem (no other reason is valid) need to arrange this through the Humanities administration office. A Coursework Extension Request Form is appended to the Humanities Student Handbook or available for download from the Humanities website. Complete and sign the form and return it to Christian Jacobi, Humanities Administrator, or by e-mail to humanities@imperial.ac.uk, along with any supporting documentation such as a medical certificate. The Humanities Department administration will, if necessary, liaise with your home department to ascertain the seriousness of the circumstances. Apart from in very exceptional circumstances, the maximum extension period will be two weeks. Students submitting late assignments without arranging an extension in advance will be subject to a mark penalty of 5% per day, including weekends. Reading Blackburn, S. (1999) Think, Oxford, Oxford University Press (henceforth referred to as THINK) Blackburn, S. (2001) Being Good, Oxford, Oxford University Press (henceforth referred to as BEING GOOD) Bowie, G.L., Michaels, M.W. and Solomon, R.C. (1992) Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy, Forth Worth, Harcourt Brace (henceforth referred to as BOWIE) Perry, J. and Bratman, M. (eds) (1993) Introduction to Philosophy. Classical and Contemporary Readings, New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press (3rd edn, 1999) (henceforth referred to as PERRY) Trigg, R. (2001) Philosophy Matters, Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishers Trigg, R. (2004) Morality Matters, Malden MA and Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Useful reference tools are: Blackburn, S. (ed.) (1994) The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press Craig, E. (ed.) (1997) The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, London/New York, Routledge

Hospers, J. (1997) An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, London, Routledge (henceforth referred to as HOSPERS) The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, at http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy at http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/ Danto, A.C. 1997 Connections to the World (The Basic Concepts of Philosophy) New York, Harper Collins (Henceforth referred to as DANTO)

Schedule 20102011
AUTUMN TERM (starting 8th October): Epistemology and metaphysics 8.10.10 1. Introduction. What is philosophy? This first lecture will attempt to address the nature of philosophy and ask what makes a question a philosophical one. Derived from the Greek roots Philo (lover of) and sophia (wisdom), philosopher simply means lover of wisdom, but over the last two millennia philosophy has developed as a distinct discipline that concerns itself with a distinct set of issues, questions and problems. But what makes these issues philosophical ones, and what, if anything, separates philosophy from other disciplines such as the natural sciences or the Arts? We will look at a number of possible answers to this question that have been suggested by the great philosophers. Then we will look at an overview of how the course will proceed and the specific philosophical questions it will explore. 15.10.10 2. PLATO, DESCARTES AND RATIONALISM The foundations of epistemology: Knowledge or scepticism? This lecture will first look briefly at the ideas of the Greek philosopher Plato, as laid out in The Republic and his other works. Plato had a deep distrust of our ability to understand the world via our perceptual access to it and suggested that to know the essence or timeless truth about the world we must explore it with our intellect rather than our easily fooled and untrustworthy senses. This idea, that we can only grasp the truth through our reason, is a position known as Rationalism. Platos pupil, Aristotle, rejected much of Platos work, developing his own approach to knowledge, and these two thinkers dominated most of western thought for nearly two thousand years. However, during the 17th century the birth of, and advances by, modern science led philosophers to challenge the accepted doctrines and to try to develop a metaphysics that could underpin the findings of the new experimental method. With this in mind, Rene Descartes wrote his Meditations on First Philosophy, where he introduced his method of doubt and launched what has become known as the modern era of philosophy. It is this work that will occupy us for most of the early lectures. Tutorial 1 Read: Ren Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy 1 and 2, available in: BOWIE chapter 6 PERRY part III.A http://philos.wright.edu/DesCartes/MedE.html http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/d/descarte.htm (If you wish to buy a copy of the Meditations, get the Cottingham Translation (1997): John Cottingham (ed.), New York, Cambridge University Press) Useful supplementary texts: THINK ch1 Cottingham, J. Descartes, chs 1&2 Kenny, A. Descartes Cottingham, J Cambridge Companion to Descartes Scruton, R. A short History of Modern Philosophy See also the entries on Descartes in the various encyclopedias (both on-line and in the library) for some introductory background Cottingham, J. 1988 The Rationalists OUP Oxford DANTO, Section 1&2 (pp3-13)

22.10.10 3. ESCAPING THE COGITO: Proving Gods existence In lecture 2 we saw Descartes method cast doubt upon everything we previously thought we knew. He has reduced his knowledge to the simple truth that he - or to be more precise, just his mind - exists. All else is doubtful. However, the purpose of his meditations was to find a secure foundation for science, so now he must find a way to use this basic truth about his own existence to not only prove the existence of the external world, but also to lay out a method by which science might gain trustworthy access to that world and thus learn the truth about it. With this in mind he first sets about proving the existence of God using only the contents of his own mind. Once he has proved Gods existence, then, as we shall see, much else follows from this about science and our perceptual access to the outside world, so these two proofs are crucial to Descartes project. The question is, of course, whether his proofs of God work. With this in mind this lecture will look in detail at his proofs to see how they work and how they are related to his overall project and to the possibility of true knowledge. 29.10.10 4. RATIONALISM AND EMPIRICISM As we have seen, the picture of knowledge that Descartes develops is a Rationalist one that has many affinities with Platos Rationalism. In response to Descartes, however, certain other philosophers could not accept many of the assumptions and ramifications of Rationalism and rejected some of its central claims. Chief among the ideas that they couldnt accept was the notion that in order to understand the world we must be born with an innate knowledge of the world. This a priori knowledge, as it is called, is central to rationalism, but thinkers such as Locke, Berkeley and Hume rejected such innate knowledge and developed various theories that all argued that everything we know we must have learnt through direct perceptual experience of the world. All such theories are known as Empiricist theories, which is why the three mentioned above are known collectively as The British Empiricists. In this lecture we will look at Empiricism and ask whether it is a coherent and workable alternative to Rationalism. Tutorial 2 Read: on Descartes Rene Descartes, Meditations 3 & 5 Available at: http://philos.wright.edu/DesCartes/MedE.html http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/d/descarte.htm Useful supplementary texts: The four texts listed for the previous lecture all have excellent chapters on both his proofs of Gods existence, especially Cottinghams discussion in his Descartes. Cottingham is particularly good at showing how Descartes might defend himself against the classic objections that have been put up against his two proofs. Hospers, J An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, ch 7 (in library) has a good general discussion about proofs of gods existence (Descartes and others) AND Meditations, Objections and Replies Cottingham J, Descartes Useful supplementary texts: Kenny, A. Descartes And Hospers as for previous lecture Read: on Locke, Berkeley and Empiricism

Locke, J. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Section 1, chapter 2 is where Locke gives his arguments against Descartes notion of innate ideas, and his account of how ideas are derived entirely from experience. He also touches on the issue of general terms/ universals, which we first encountered when looking at Plato.) Berkeley, G. The Principles of Human Knowledge (introduction) available at http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/berkeley.html Hospers, J Intro to Philosophical analysis: pp. 80-86 On Berkeley and Idealism ch 2 On Knowledge 5.11.10 5. HUME AND THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION Perhaps the most consistent and hence the most radical of the Empiricists was the Scottish philosopher, David Hume. He took Empiricist thinking to its logical conclusion and in doing so showed that it is not as straightforward as it at first seems. Principally he argued that if Empiricism is true, then science can never know the truth about anything with any certainty and the scientific method can only provide us with provisional or contingent accounts, never final truths. This argument is known as the Problem of Induction and is one of the great controversies of modern philosophy and science. The lecture will lay out Humes arguments against Induction and explore whether his claims hold up. We will also look briefly at how modern philosophy sees the problem. 12.11.10 6. EXPERIENCE, TIME AND KANTS COPERNICAN REVOLUTION Humes insights were famously ignored by his contemporaries, all except for Immanuel Kant, who immediately saw the importance of what Hume was saying and set about trying to save science and knowledge from Humean sceptcism. In his masterpiece The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant turns traditional philosophy on its head and formulates a view that still dominates much modern thinking. In brief, he claims that neither the Rationalist nor the Empiricists were totally correct, but neither were they both totally wrong. The truth, for Kant, lay somewhere between the two, as we shall see. In order to arrive at these claims Kant has to develop a whole new way of doing philosophy and a whole new type of philosophical argument, the Transcendental Deduction. The lecture will look at this new method and will show how Kant used it to redraw the map of philosophy and knowledge and to lay down a metaphysical viewpoint that many of you still probably find perfectly natural and obvious.

Tutorial 3 On Hume Hume, D. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, sections I-IV Useful supplementary texts: Bennett, J. Locke, Berkeley & Hume; Central Themes pp. 122-125 On the problem of induction Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, available in: BOWIE chapter 3 (excerpts) http://cla.calpoly.edu/~fotoole/321.1/popper.html several copies in the library (read pp.33-9) On Kant Read: Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason introduction. Available in library and at: http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr Useful supplementary texts: Scruton, R. Kant 6

Scruton, R. A Short History of Philosophy chs 4&5 Guyer (Ed) The Cambridge Companion to Kant Hospers Intro to philosophical Analysis, ch 2 on knowledge. Plus, chs 3 & 4 might well be helpful THINK ch. 7 (There has been an almost endless amount of material written about Kant and this argument, so use the above sources as staring points to guide you through the copious literature that exists on the topic) 19.11.10 7. WHAT IS THE SELF? (1) Dualism, monism and the mind/body problem Moving away slightly from purely epistemological issues of truth and knowledge, we will now begin to explore some of the implications of the new metaphysical views that have grown out of the post 17th century revolutions in philosophy. One of the key issues that Descartes focuses upon is the nature of the human being and the relation between our thinking self (mind) and our physically embodied self (body). As we shall see, Rationalism along the lines of Descartes encourages us to see mind and body as at least in principle separate entities (a position known as Dualism), while Empiricism encourages us to think of mind as something that is a function of our bodies (a position known as Monism). However, each of these positions has its own problems and inconsistencies, and Kantianism can be used to support either position. So, although modern debates are no longer couched in the terminology of Rationalism and Empiricism, these problems still remain unresolved and there is a huge literature on the questions surrounding what has become known as the Mind/Body Problem. The question of what a mind is and what a body is, and whether they are separate and how the two interact is still one of the biggest problems in philosophy. As we shall see, many modern scientific, psychological and sociological issues depend upon finding some sort of resolution to this problem, so it is important we know the structure of the arguments involved and what possible positions are available to us. 26.11.10 8. WHAT IS THE SELF? (2) The problem of other minds, and conscious computers As we have seen the mind/body problem is more than a merely academic question, and much hangs on what solution we come up with. In this lecture we will focus on just two of these related issues, both of which revolve around the question what is consciousness? The problem of other minds asks the question of how it is that we can be sure that other human beings are conscious at all and are not simply what has become known in the trade as zombies (i.e. beings that look and act as I do, but which are dead inside and are not conscious). This question leads us naturally onto the debate about the possibility of artificial intelligence. The AI project is the attempt to build a machine that is conscious, but obviously we cannot do this unless we have some idea about what consciousness is. The lecture will look at some of the key arguments in the AI debate. Tutorial 4 IMPORTANT: THE FIRST PART OF THIS TUTORIAL WILL BE USED TO DISCUSS ESSAY TECHNIQUE AND TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE UPCOMING ESSAY ASSIGNMENT. DO NOT MISS IT! On Mind and Body Hospers, J. Introduction to Philosophical analysis chapter 6 is a good introduction to the issues around mind and body and is a good starting point. Useful supplementary texts: THINK, ch. 2

Kim, J. The Philosophy of Mind. This is slightly more advanced and will give a more detailed treatment of a variety of relevant issues. For good discussion of Descartes dualism see Cottingham as usual. Ryle, G. The concept of Mind is where he outlines his attack of the idea of mind. On Artifical Intelligence Read: Searle, J. The Chinese Room (there is a copy of this on WebCT/Blackboard along with several links to sites containing articles that sites discuss his views. Useful supplementary texts: Rene Descartes, Meditation 6 Available in library and at http://philos.wright.edu/DesCartes/MedE.html http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/d/descarte.htm Hospers, Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, ch. 6 Malcolm. N, Thinking Brutes (see Blackboard) Kim, J The Philosophy of Mind Malcolm, N (1972), Problems of mind, London, Allen & Unwin Lafollette (Ed) The Blackwell companion to Mind Philosophers Magazine (various articles) issue 28, 4th quarter 2004 (These will be posted on WebCT/Blackboard. 3.12.10 9. CHALLENGES TO THE TRADITION (1) Wittgenstein and Private Language Up to this point we have explored traditional philosophy and the problems it has dealt with. In the 20th century, however, two (quite controversial) philosophers in particular have challenged the assumptions upon which that tradition is founded, and in doing so they have given us good grounds to think that many of the questions that philosophy has grappled with are the product of a misguided metaphysics that stem ultimately from some basic mistakes made by Plato and Aristotle right at the beginning of western thought. The first of these is Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgensteins work is complex and has implications for many philosophical issues, so we obviously cannot look at his work in great detail, but in this lecture we focus on how his work has impacted particularly upon questions about consciousness and the human subject/self. More specifically, we will look at what has become known as the private language argument. In short, this argument suggests that as an isolated being it would be impossible for one to formulate a workable language, and this is because there would be no way to know whether one was using that language correctly or not; we would only have our memory to rely on and so whatever I remembered a concept as meaning, then that is what it means, so I could never know whether I am using it differently to how I have used it before. This implies that we couldnt form complex concepts with which to think about the world, because such complex concepts could never become fixed and would always be fluctuating in their meaning. Consequently it seems that language is a communal, social, collective creation, with all of us correcting each other in such a way as to keep concepts stable. The question that then arises is what is the relation between consciousness and language? Can a creature that has no language be conscious? If not, then this suggests that as isolated beings we could not be conscious, and this, as we shall see, has huge implications across a broad range of philosophical issues. In the lecture, however, we shall focus on its implications for the problem of other minds and the AI debate.

10.12.10 10. CHALLENGES TO THE TRADITION (2) Heidegger and Being-in-the-world The second of our radical challenges comes from the German Philosopher Martin Heidegger. In his masterpiece Being and Time, Heidegger challenges the Cartesian assumption that our primary mode of engagement with the world is through rationalisation and that we first engage with the world as collection of objects derived from sensory perception. Heidegger argues persuasively that our first engagement with the world is with it as what he calls equipment. By this he means that we first use the world, as physical beings operating in a physical world, and that this embodied engagement with the world is a type of understanding that is pre-linguistic. For Heidegger, our linguistic, rational understanding of the world is a secondary step that grows out of our embodied understanding. Heideggers work, like Wittgensteins, is extremely difficult and complex, but if he is right, then many implications follow. Most particularly it implies that the categories of mind and body may well be mistaken and that the human being is a much more holistic entity. If this is so, then it has massive implications for the self and its relation to others, as well as for the AI debate, since it suggests that consciousness is the consequence of embodied activity in the world. This in turn challenges the AI assumption that we can build a conscious machine merely by mimicking our mental programme, in that it suggests that reason, thought, rationality (call it what you will) is as much about action as it is about thought. Indeed, the Heidegger scholar Hubert Dreyfus has written extensively about this subject. In the lecture we will try to gain an overview of Heideggers work and how it challenges the Cartesian tradition and will then try to draw out some of the implications that may follow in regard to the topics we have explored during the course. Tutorial 5 On Wittgenstein Wittgenstein, L. (1953), Philosophical Investigations), G.E.M. Anscombe and R. Rhees (eds.), G.E.M. Anscombe (trans.), Oxford: Blackwell. (243275) (Versions of the text also available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2916793/LudwigWittgenstein-Philosophical-Investigations or at: http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JoPYriJM1cwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA20&dq=%22 Wittgenstein%22+%22Philosophical+investigations:+the+German+text,+with+a+...%22+&ots =5uCKQYycb3&sig=KcbgNNz3Hgi-ByJ728cdUHh0zXw#v=onepage&q=&f=false (NB the texts always include both the original German that Wittgenstein wrote in, plus the English translation.) Mcginn, M. (1997), Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations, London, Routledge (this is an excellent commentary on the text. See ch4 specifically on the private language argument) Glendinning, S. (1998), On Being With Others; Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Derrida. London, Routledge (this book is specifically about the problem of other minds) Pears, D. (1971) Wittgenstein (past Masters), Glasgow, Fontana. On Heidegger Heidegger, M, (1995), Being & Time, (MacQuarrie & Robinson, trans) Oxford, Blackwell, Division 1, ch2 Useful supplementary reading: Mulhall, S. Heideggers Being and Time. Introduction and chapters 1&2 Steiner, G Heidegger (Past Masters series) Guignon, C. (ed) Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Taylor, C. Lichtung and Liebensform; parallels in Wittgenstein and Heidegger in Philosophical Arguments (Available on WebCT/Blackboard) Dreyfus on Heidegger (you tube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaGk6S1qhz0 Dreyfus on AI and Heidegger: http://cid.nada.kth.se/en/HeideggerianAI.pdf 9

SPRING TERM 2011 (starting 14 January): Ethics 14.1.11 11. FREE-WILL AND DETERMINISM: Are we in control at all? Following on from last term we will begin the second term with a problem that straddles the divide between moral philosophy and Epistemology, the question of free-will. This is a different question to the political issue of how much freedom we ought to allow each other in the social world. It deals instead with the much deeper metaphysical issue of whether we are free to choose our own actions at all or whether all our actions are determined for us by powers outside our control, such as God or physical causation. This question is crucial to ethics in that moral blame or praise presupposes that the person one is blaming or praising actually had the choice to do other than they did. If they had no choice then it isnt clear that we can either blame or praise them in any coherent way. Hence with the development of deterministic theories in science there is always the threat that we could discover that everything we do is simply the consequence of causal chains over which we have no control. IF this is the case then it seems that we are not free and morality is just a delusion because it assumes we are in control when we are not. The lecture will explore the various claims that have been made regarding this issue. 21.1.11 12. EXISTENTIALISM AND THE ANGUISH OF FREEDOM The French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre developed a distorted version of Heideggers ideas in his book Being and Nothingness. In this work he argues that it is determinism that is the illusion and that actually we are totally free to live as we choose. Even the prisoner in her cell has the choice as to whether she gives in or fights back, and in this sense Sartre is saying that there is always choice, no matter how constrained we appear to be. For him, the reason we came up with theories such as determinism is simply because the thought that we are totally free is actually quite a scary one that causes us to feel angst or anxiety, so we developed a whole metaphysics that saved us from this horror by reassuring us that life is not our fault. This, for Sartre is no more than an act of what he calls Bad Faith. We are just hiding from the awful truth of our own freedom. Sartres work is a radical and powerful challenge to our comfortable view of ourselves and forces us to face some very difficult issues. The question, of course, is is he right? Tutorial 6 Read: Hospers, J. Introduction to Philosophical Analysis Ch 5 Supplementary reading: (as background read THINK ch. 3) Solomon, 1997 Introducing Philosophy, ch8 Harcourt Brace, Florida Westphal, J 1998 Philosophical Propositions ch9 Routledge, NY AND Read: Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (excerpts in Freedom and responsibility in BOWIE ch18) Or alternatively, Sartres Existentialism is a Humanism. Available in library and at: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm Jones, W.T 1975 History of Western Philosophy; The twentieth Century to Wittgenstein and Sartre, ch10, Harcourt Brace, Florida

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28.1.11 13. HUMAN NATURE (I): Are we naturally bad? Leaving behind for the moment specific debates about free-will, we will now look at theories of human nature. These are obviously related to issues of free-will in that to say that we have a nature is to suggest that we are not free in certain regards. But the question of whether we have a nature or not is a discipline all in itself, with many theories being put forward. Theories of human nature were out of fashion for a hundred years or so, but have recently resurfaced with a vengeance in the light of modern evolution theory and genetic research. Whether we have a nature or not is obviously a question that will continue to be debated, but most theories that do claim we have a nature can be grouped under two VERY broad headings; those that suggest we are naturally good (ie social, collective, compassionate etc) and those that claim we are not naturally good but are actually rather selfish creatures who have to learn to curb our natural selfishness in order for society to be possible. In this lecture we will look at two very different philosophers, one from the western tradition (Thomas Hobbes ) and one from the Chinese Confusian tradition (Hsun Tsu or Xunsi), both of whom argue that we are naturally selfish. We will try to understand what they could mean by such a claim and what its implications might be for morality and society. 4.2.11 14. HUMAN NATURE (II): Are we naturally good? To balance the debate we will now look at two more philosophers who argue the opposite case that our sociability and care for others is natural to us. Both Mencius, from the Confucian tradition and Jean Jacque Rousseau, from the western tradition challenged the idea that we are naturally bad. The lecture will look at their arguments and compare them with the views of Hobbes and Xunsi, and will ask what hangs on the answer to this debate. We will also look at how modern advances in evolution theory have altered this debate. Tutorial 7 Read: Hsun Tsu (Xunsi), Human nature is bad available at: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/hsu AND Hobbes, Leviathan. Ch13,14,15 Rousseau, A. Discourse on the origins of inequality Part 1 Useful supplementary texts: BEING GOOD part II, 15 & II, 15-2 11.2.11 15. VIRTUE ETHICS AND TELEOLOGY: Is it people or their actions that are good? This section of the course will move on to look at some of the major meta-ethical theories. Meta-ethics is the area of philosophy that tries to understand what we are talking about when we say that something or someone is either morally good or morally bad; it basically asks What is morality? Over the millennia there have been many suggestions, but we will look at just four of the most prominent and important theories so that we can get a feel for what is at issue in such debates. This lecture will look at Virtue Ethics, which has its roots in the ideas of Aristotle, but which has seen something of a resurgence in the last 50 years. The basic idea is that it is not actions that are good but people; being good is not a case of doing certain things but of being a certain sort of person and having a certain sort of character, ie a virtuous one.

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18.2.11 16. CONSEQUENCES AND UTILITY This theory focuses on actions rather than character and suggests that an action is good if it leads to good (i.e. desirable) consequences. The question, of course, is what do we mean by desirable here? What sort of consequences make one act good and another bad? The major consequentialist theory is Utilitarianism, which argues that an action is good if it is useful (has utility), to society at large, and is often summarised as saying that an action is good if it produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number. At first glance this appears a reasonable proposition, but, like all theories it has its problems. The lecture will look at the work of two of the most famous and most coherent Utilitarians, David Hume and John Stuart Mill. Tutorial 8 NB. THE FIRST PART OF THIS TUTORIAL WILL BE DEVOTED TO LOOKING ONCE AGAIN AT ESSAY TECHNIQUE, BUT WILL ALSO LOOK AT EXAM AND REVISION TECHNIQUES AND STRATEGIES IN RELATION TO ESSAY BASED PHILOSOPHY EXAMINATIONS. Read: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1 available in: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html Useful supplementary texts: Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, various articles. (copies in the library) Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory (2000) Blackwell, Massachusetts. Ch7 MacIntyre, A. 1989, After Virtue Duckworth (particularly the first 3 chapters) AND John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, chapters 14, available in: BOWIE chapter 15 PERRY part V.A http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm

25.2.11 17. KANT AND THE ETHICS OF DUTY Kant rejected the idea that the consequences of an action determine whether it is good or bad. For him embracing consequentialism means that getting what you want is the same as being good, which he felt was clearly not what morality is about. Often one is called upon to go against what is good for oneself in order to do the right thing e.g. I might want your laptop and might therefore want to steal it, and it may indeed make me and others happy to do so, but I resist my urge to satisfy my desires. This resistance to ones desires is, for Kant, the mark of a moral action, so he sets about trying to build a moral theory that captures this basic point. The theory he comes up with is known as a Deontological theory of ethics and, not surprisingly for Kant, he grounds our moral sense not in our desires and emotions, but in our reason. For him, it is our ability to be rational that allows us also to be moral. The lecture will look in detail at his theory and ask just how workable such an approach is. 4.3.11 18. NIETZSCHES PERSPECTIVISM: Morality as historical construct Finally we will look at the bad boy of western philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche. Writing at the end of the 19th century, Nietzsche put forward the radical proposal that the Judeo-Christian morality of western societies was merely the product of power relations between different groups in society. Most particularly he suggests that the Christian morality of meekness, humility and resistance to ones natural urges was the invention of the weak. Those who were 12

physically weak and humble could not dominate the strong by force and so were forced to overcome those more powerful than themselves by inventing a moral code that made all the attributes of the weak into virtue. That way they could revel in their weakness as if they had chosen it themselves for moral reasons. Also, if they could convince the strong that this moral code was in fact the essence of morality and came from some divine otherworldly source, then the strong would hate themselves for being strong and rich and powerful and full of boldness and life, because these attributes would be seen as sins under the new morality. Thus the weak would appear virtuous and the powerful would appear sinful and this would give the weak power over the strong because they could claim morality was on their side. This invention of what Nietzsche calls the slave morality occurred during the time of the Greeks and the Old Testament, and was then spread around the world with the growth of Christianity. But, he argues, it is just one form of morality, it is not the morality. Hence Nietzsche puts a good case for the old idea that the moral code one has depends entirely upon the perspective from which one is looking and that morality is, therefore relative to ones cultural and historical background. It is here that he has had a massive impact on the modern world. However, relativism, despite being so popular in the modern mind, is a highly controversial theory and it isnt clear just how coherently a case can be made for it. The lecture will look at how Nietzsche builds his case. More importantly, we will ask what alternative morality Nietzsche suggests we adopt. Tutorial 9 Read: Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, ch.1&2 Available in: BOWIE ch15 PERRY part V.B http://www.swan.ac.uk/poli/texts/kant/kantcon.htm Useful supplementary texts: Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory Ch9,10 & 12 AND Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morality First Essay Good and Evil Available in Library and at http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogy1.htm Magnus, B & Higgins, K (eds) 1996, Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, chs 1 & 6 CUP, NY Clarke, M. 1994, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, ch5, CUP, NY 13.3.11 19. MORAL RELATIVISM: At what point does tolerance become quietism? In this penultimate lecture we will look at modern notions of moral relativism. Having seen some of their roots in the work of Nietzsche, we will ask what the implications of relativism are and whether it is actually a rejection of morality altogether. Further, we will ask what assumptions it rest on by trying to see it in relation to other issues we have discussed throughout both terms of this course. The danger is that many people who believe in relativism will also, when pushed, subscribe to moral subjectivism, which is the idea that I have my morality and you have yours and that there is nothing for us to argue about. The lecture will ask whether relativism must always reduce to subjectivism and whether relativism itself is in fact a coherent moral theory. 18.3.11 20. Summary of the course Past experience has taught me that this final lecture will take two hours. My aim will be to cover the entire course from start to finish so that we can see the overall trends and themes 13

that have developed during the two terms, and to see how the different issues we have explored in ethics and epistemology relate to each other. Previously I have tried to fit this into 1 hour, but have found that it is impossible. So if you wish to hear the entire summary I suggest that you find a way to attend for two hours on this particular week. Alternatively you might ask a friend to record the lecture. Tutorial 10 Read: Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory ch2 (Available on WebCT/Blackboard) BEING GOOD pt1 s3 (pp1929) 25.3.11 Final Examination 12.0014.00 5.05.11 Second coursework essay to be handed in at Humanities reception (by 2 pm)

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Essay topics
Please choose one of these topics on which to write a 2000 word essay: First essay 1. Why does Descartes believe that Knowledge requires a foundation, and to what extent do you agree with him? Do you think that he succeeds in finding one? Why does Descartes need to prove the existence of God in Meditations 3 & 5? How successful are his attempts? Compare and contrast the views of Locke and Descartes regarding the existence of innate ideas? Who do you think gets the better of the argument? Why does Hume believe that all scientific knowledge is contingent? What implications does his claim have for the practicing scientist today? Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind (Kant, I, Critique of Pure Reason, A51). Discuss? How would Ryle respond to the charge that his claim that the mind/body problem is the result of a category mistake commits him to Behaviourism? The following 3 propositions form an inconsistent triad The mental and the physical are distinct The mental is causally efficacious Physics is causally closed Which one of the three propositions do you feel must be rejected and why do you believe this? Is the Turing Test an adequate test for consciousness? Explain Heideggers distinction between the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand. How does this distinction cast doubt on traditional Cartesian approaches to knowledge? What is Wittgensteins Private Language Argument and what are its implications for EITHER the Artificial Intelligence debate, OR conceptions of the self?

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Topics for the second essay will be announced in the Spring term
Information on essay writing, and particularly on referencing and plagiarism is contained within the Humanities Student Handbook. If you do not have a copy, you can download the document from the internet: www.imperial.ac.uk/humanities. Below are some guidelines specific to writing philosophical essays. There is further advice on essay and exam technique on the WebCT/Blackboard site for this course. Organising your writing When writing a philosophical essay, the main aim is to think for yourself, to present rational arguments for and against a position, and to express your views as clearly and simply as possible. When you make use of the material in a book, always ask yourself what exactly

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does it say, do you agree or disagree with it, and what reasons can you give for agreement or disagreement. Even if you adopt the views of the writer whose text you are reading, put those views in your own words, not his or hers. Be warned against anachronism remember that each philosopher writes at a certain time and in a certain geographical, social, political and economical context. Try to understand and engage philosophers on their own terms before you decide what you think about their views. Your personal response to a philosophical question may take place at a deep emotional level. An academic essay requires direct experience of this sort to be mediated through an intellectual structure so that it can be communicated to other people. Write your essay as though for publication, thinking of myself and the external examiner as editors. You may find it helpful to 'aim' your writing at a fellow student who has the same background in the field as you have but who does not have detailed knowledge of the subject you are discussing. Reading and note-taking It is wise to choose an essay subject and get into a library as soon as you can not only because the process of reflection is important in essay writing, but also because you may have to reserve books. Many of the books you need will be available on the Imperial College campus, in the Main College Library and the Haldane Library and STS section within it. Imperial College also has access to the Senate House library. Also, do not neglect public libraries. Having identified some book that interests you (browsing is useful for this), you may wish to read it at least twice: once rapidly to get the sense and the 'feel-of-the-thing', making brief notes of pages which you think contain particularly important material, and a second time to make detailed notes. You will find note-taking easier if you know what you are looking for: that is why it is wise to select a topic and write a preliminary outline as soon as you can. Giving references Because your essays are prepared work (coursework), they will be judged by the highest standards of academic presentation. It is therefore essential that you observe the relevant conventions. Every time you copy, quote, paraphrase or use information from another source, you should cite the source in the text and in a reference list at the end of your essay. If you draw material from a primary source by way of a secondary source, you must refer to both sources like this: Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I.2, quoted in Blackburn, A. (2000) Think, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p.153. Referring to a primary source as if you had read it directly when you have not amounts to plagiarism. Be extra careful with Internet sources unlike paper publications, they do not normally undergo a careful process of peer evaluation and assessment and there is an amazing lot of (to use a euphemism) rubbish on the net which calls itself philosophy resources. A useful site to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff is www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/philosophy. On Blackboard you will also find numerous links to useful web sites. If you quote from an Internet source, you must give the full reference of your Internet source and the source that the Internet writer has used and the date of consultation, since web sources are time-sensitive. For further guidance on how to reference and on writing in your own words, please consult the Humanities Student Handbook, available on the Humanities website at: www.imperial.ac.uk/humanities.

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