Fall Quarter

Analysis of moral issues concerning health care. Topics may include: just allocation of scarce medical resources, the doctor/patient relationship, genetic engineering, surrogate motherhood, abortion, euthanasia, or social policy concerning AIDS.

Ontology is the study of what exists, what kinds of things there are in the world, and what is their mode of being. We think of natural processes such as lightning or natural objects such as stones, trees, animal organisms. We also think of mental processes of consciousness, perception, thought, emotion, will, and embodied intentional action. And we also think of social activities, organizations, and institutions such as playing soccer, the University of California, the United States; we think of social norms, from formal laws to implicit cultural rules, and we consider ideas and values that are themselves products of social activity. Social ontology concerns the ontology of these varied kinds of social phenomena, seeking their place in the world.

We shall study social ontology by drawing on two traditions: recent work in analytic philosophy, growing out of philosophy of mind and language; and a century’s work in phenomenology, the study of consciousness, intentionality both individual and collective, intersubjectivity, and the constitution of social phenomena grounded in collective interaction of subjects or agents.

Some people lead lives that are good for them, while other people (and far too many) lead lives that are bad for them or even, at the extreme, not worth living at all. What exactly is it that makes a life good or bad for the person living it? What must she get or do or be in order for her life to go well for her. In short, what is required for a person to have a good life? This is the basic philosophical question about well-being. Philosophers have given very different answers to this question. On one view the good life is simply a life that contains more pleasure than pain. According to the hedonist, the good life is the pleasurable or pleasant life. On another view, having a good life is a matter of getting whatever it is you want (where that may or may not mean that your life contains more pleasure than pain). On this view, well-being is a matter of having your desires satisfied.  A third view has it that the good life is the flourishing life where flourishing is a matter of being a good member of one's kind. On a fourth view, there are things that are good for a person regardless of whether that person desires them or takes pleasure in them. It is the presence of these things in a person's life that makes her life good, and their absence makes her life bad. A description of the good life, on this view, takes the form of a list of those things that are objectively good for a human being. In this course, we'll consider the merits of each of these views of well-being and consider their bearing on important contemporary issues.

Philosophy begins in wonder, and often in puzzles or even paradoxes. This course is an introduction to philosophy and theoretical reasoning through a study of puzzles and paradoxes in the context of the history of philosophy. A puzzle is a phenomenon that seems not to conform to received theories within some domain, while a paradox is an unacceptable conclusion or a contradiction derived from acceptable premises. We’ll consider problems regarding the nature of space-and-time, the infinite, truth (the Liar’s paradox “This claim is false”), mind and brain (Cartesian dualism and beyond?), and more.