Annie Corbitt

The course is an historically structured survey of ethical theory. The aim of the course is to familiarize students with the major ethical theories developed over the history of philosophy and to apply these theories to contemporary social and political problems, such as the authority of government, the significance of consent and democratic rule, charity, friendship, war, and the distribution of wealth. Class time is focused heavily on discussion of the intuitions brought to bear to defend and explain these theories, such as our own impressions of when and why someone is morally responsible for what they do. Major texts include Plato?s Gorgias and Crito, Aristotle?s Nicomachean Ethics, Augustine?s On the Free Choice of the Will, Kant?s Groundwork, Nietzsche?s Genealogy of Morals, Mill?s Utilitarianism, Nozick?s Anarchy State and Utopia, and Rawls? Theory of Justice. Assignments vary, but they might include some or many of the following: weekly reading responses, quizzes, papers, and exams.

What is religion? What is the philosophy of religion? This course introduces students to major questions, concepts, arguments, and problems in the philosophy of religion. We ponder a variety of definitions and descriptions of religion, and inquire philosophically into a wide range of religious claims. We consider various philosophical issues including the cases for and against theism; atheism; faith, belief, and doubt; the problem of evil; religious experience as a basis for knowledge; religious pluralism; feminist concerns; religion and race; and the place of ethics in contemporary philosophy of religion. Students read major ancient and medieval figures including Plato, Aquinas, and Teresa of Avila; modern critics such as Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Simone Weil; feminist philosophers including de Beauvoir, Irigaray, Carmen MacKendrick, and Amy Hollywood; and thinkers in black theology such as Cornell West and Jay Kameron Carter. Assignments vary, but they might include some or many of the following: weekly reading responses, quizzes, papers, and exams.

Most of the course is divided into a part on Plato (incl. Euthyphro, Meno and Phaedo) followed by a part on Aristotle (incl. Physics, De Anima, and Nicomachean Ethics). In addition, I integrate some pre-Socratic cosmology into the part of the course on Aristotle, and we spend one to two classes on Hellenistic Stoicism at the end. We cover topics in ancient Greek physics, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Our aim is both to get a synoptic understanding of these philosophers? views on these issues and to understand how their views developed through engagement with their predecessors. Class time will be focused evenly on the discussion of the texts and of the philosophical questions raised in them, such as: What counts as an explanation of something? What makes something one, as opposed to a heap? What is a good life? Assignments vary, but they might include some or many of the following: weekly reading responses, quizzes, papers, and exams.