GISDepartment of Global and Interdisciplinary Studies

Philosophy of the Person

Hedonism is the view that people should strive to live the most pleasurable lives possible. Some philosophers worry that this view renders humans in an undignified light and fails to capture what is most important about being a person. They instead claim that self-perfection should be the ultimate aim of human beings. This debate has wide-ranging effects on topics such as moral epistemology, moral psychology, moral theory, the nature of virtue, duty, and the good life. This course explores this debate in depth, focusing on Henry Sidgwick’s and T.H. Green’s ethical works.

This course has four primary learning goals. First, students will learn about various and diverging ethical views. Second, students will improve critical thinking skills when engaging with abstract reasoning, especially in the context of philosophical debate. Third, students will improve their reading skills when confronting nuanced and challenging text. Finally, students will improve their writing skills to communicate complex ideas clearly and confidently.

Will be able to gain “DP 1”, “DP 2”, “DP 3”, and “DP 4”.

英語 / English

Each meeting will include an interactive lecture with slides and an active learning period. The lectures will occupy roughly one hour of each meeting. Students will then write a short in-class reflective writing exercise. Lastly, students will participate in a class discussion or debate. The instructor will assess students primarily on their final paper. Students will produce a paper proposal before writing a paper draft. After the proposal has been approved, students will write a draft of their paper. Students will then exchange papers with each other, and they will write a peer-reviewed report of another student’s paper. Students should consider this report when revising their final drafts. In addition to the final paper, students will produce a short report explaining how they integrated changes from their peer-reviewed report into their final paper draft. The instructor will provide written feedback on the final paper.

あり / Yes

なし / No

授業形態/methods of teaching：対面/face to face

※各回の授業形態は予定です。教員の指示に従ってください。

1[オンライン/online]：Introduction

Historical context and introducing the main themes of the course

2[対面/face to face]：Moral Epistemology 1

Henry Sidgwick, the Methods of Ethics (ME), Preface & excerpts from Book I

3[対面/face to face]：Moral Epistemology 2

T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics (PE), Introduction and excerpts from Book I

4[対面/face to face]：Moral Psychology 1

Green, PE, excerpts from Book II

5[対面/face to face]：Moral Psychology 2

Sidgwick, ME, excerpts from Book I & Appendix

6[対面/face to face]：Pleasure 1

Sidgwick, ME, excerpts from Books I-III

7[対面/face to face]：Pleasure 2

Green, PE, excerpts from Books III & IV

8[対面/face to face]：Virtue 1

Green, PE, excerpts from Book III

9[対面/face to face]：Virtue 2

Sidgwick, ME, excerpts from Book III

10[対面/face to face]：Duty 1

Sidgwick, ME, excerpts from Books I & III

11[対面/face to face]：Duty 2

Green, PE, excerpts from Book IV

12[対面/face to face]：Utilitarianism 1

Green, PE, excerpts from Book IV

13[対面/face to face]：Utilitarianism 2

Sidgwick, ME, excerpts from Books I-III

14[対面/face to face]：Utilitarianism 3

Sidgwick, ME, excerpts from Book IV

Students should complete weekly readings before coming to class. Students should also review their own notes and course slides after every class. Preparatory study time for this class is 3-4 hours, and review time for this class is 2 hours.

There are no required textbooks for this course. All readings will be provided by the instructor either in print or online.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a great resource for delving further into any topics discussed in class: https://plato.stanford.edu

The philosopher Jim Pryor has created helpful guides for writing and reading philosophy papers. Writing: http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/writing.html Reading: http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/reading.html

The instructor will provide students with readings for the course. However, the course will focus almost exclusively on two texts. Students may prefer to have hard copies of these texts:

Sidgwick, Henry. (1981). The Methods of Ethics, 7th edition. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Green, T.H. (2003). Prolegomena to Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Participation 15%
Paper proposal 10%
Peer-review report 10%
Peer-review report response 10%
Final paper 55%

Not applicable

Please bring a computer for in-class surveys.

None