Virtue Ethics (Phil 102)
Jennifer Baker

In this course we will read from ancient (Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero, Seneca) and contemporary (Slote, Swanton, Hursthouse, Foot) virtue ethicists in order to strike a contrast. Three aspects of ancient virtue theory are commonly left out of accounts of contemporary virtue theory: the notion of a final end, the structure or psychological status of virtue, and the transformative role of virtue in a life. We will attempt to assess the benefits (and detriments) of including these elements in an account of virtue by, among other things, looking to Lawrence Becker's A New Stoicism as an example of ancient theory made modern. For a copy of the syllabus email: jabaker@email.unc.edu

Political Philosophy (Phil 105)
Gerald Postema

This course is intended as a broad survey of the roots of modern political philosophy. The main figures covered will be Hobbes and Hume. But we will begin with a little work on Grotius who set Natural Law theory, and to an extent the Social Contract tradition, on its modern course. We will then focus a good bit of time on Hobbes, looking at his account of authority of the state, rooted in his account of human nature and rationality. We may also look at key features of his theory of law and his critique of the Common Law theory of his day. We may then take up Locke's critique and revision of Hobbes's contract argument. A key concern will be the role of consent in his theory, and the challenge posed by Hume's devastating critique of consent theories. This will lead to an exploration of Hume's nuanced account of the conventional foundations of property, contract, and the state. If we have time we will look at Rousseau's very different version of the idea of social contract, or at least look at his critique of the Hobbesian and Humean traditions in his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. The course will proceed largely through lecture-discussion. One or two small papers plus a term paper will be required.

Ethical Theory and Anti-Theory (Phil 112)
Rebecca Walker

A good deal of the history of philosophical approaches to ethics is devoted to the development of normative ethical theories and subsequent debates between proponents of these various theories (and subsequent modifications of the theories and so on). Anti-theory in ethics is a relatively new development (at least in its’ current form) critiquing not just some ethical theory or other, but theory as the proper approach to ethics. This course will focus on the ethical theory v. anti-theory debate in meta-ethics. Anti-theorists offer a number of critiques of ethical theories including, to name a few: a failure of theoretical principles to yield concrete conclusions, the gap between theoretical accounts of morality and proper moral education, and the conflicting nature of moral experience. We will spend much of the course addressing these and related issues. Related questions include: what constitutes an ethical theory and what is the relationship between theory in ethics and theory in science (does one teach us something about the other)? One of the core issues that comes out of the theory v. anti-theory debate is whether theories are useful in helping us think through practical moral problems and about how to live our moral lives. Since the anti-theorists tend to argue that they are not, we will also look at methods in bioethics as a case study. A variety of methods in bioethics may be looked at through the lense of the anti-theory v. theory approaches to ethics generally including (as anti-theory) ‘narrative’ and ‘case-based’ approaches, (as a ‘mixed’ approach) principle based views (here it will be useful to ask whether ‘principle-ism’ in bioethics is a theory), and theory-constructing approaches. One of the purposes of the course is to bridge the ‘meta-ethics’/‘applied ethics’ divide by dealing with a debate in meta-ethics that ‘goes all the way down’ to questions about how we ‘use’ (or do not use) ethical theory. The course will assume basic background knowledge of utilitarian and deontological ethical theories (knowledge of virtue theory would be nice, but won’t be assumed). Although this course is numbered for advanced undergraduates as well as graduate students, it will be geared toward graduate student participation and interests.

Wittgenstein (Phil 114)
Heather Gert

Ludwig Wittgenstein is among the most influential philosophers in Western philosophy. His writings have influenced what philosophers have had to say in areas as diverse as epistemology and aesthetics, philosophy of religion and philosophy of mind. This wide influence is in part due to the fact that Wittgenstein directly discusses so many topics of philosophical interest. But at least as important is the fact that many of the issues he raises are relevant to philosophical investigation in general. One of the most well-known of these issues is rule-following. How often do philosophers cite rules as explanations? Wittgenstein makes us question whether such explanations can ever be well-grounded. With his discussions of ostensive definition and language-games Wittgenstein also forces us to consider whether real people could ever come to have the concepts philosophers attribute to them. And, among other things, his discussion of private language reminds us that the very fact that we communicate has a bearing on what we can mean by what we say and think.

The primary text for this course with be Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. We will also be reading related selections from his writings on philosophy of psychology. In addition to the topics mentioned, we will discuss: meaning-as-use, analysis, family resemblances, forms-of-life, understanding, knowing, “the inner” v. “the outer”, sensations, criteria, consciousness, intentional states and their objects, descriptions versus explanations, and seeing-as.

Proto Seminar (Phil 200)
Douglas Long and Ram Neta

This course is an intensive seminar intended for all and only first-year graduate students in philosophy. The aim of the course is to develop skills in philosophical thinking and writing through both oral presentations and written essays. There will be a one-page assignment due each week in class. We will begin each class meeting by asking individual students to explain and comment on the reading for that day. We will devote most of our attention to Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy and Mill’s Utilitarianism.

Recent Work in Ontology (Phil 230)
Thomas Hofweber

Ontology, the philosophical discipline that investigates what there is, has in the last couple of decades had a clear way in which research projects are motivated. This way is commonly associated with Quine, and it is that one in the background motivating many of the ontological projects that are presently pursued, for example about numbers, properties, possible worlds, time, etc. In recent years a number of people have presented criticisms of this way of motivating ontological problems. This course will investigate the way of motivating ontological problems inspired by Quine, and we will discuss a number of alternatives and criticisms. In particular, we will look at several attempts to revive the approach to ontology that Quine's was supposed to be an alternative to and that historically came before Quine: Carnap's position in his essay Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology. A number of contemporary authors, including Putnam, Yablo, Friedman, and others, have attempted to save some ideas that can be found in Carnap's essay, and thereby formulate an opposition to the standard Quinean approach.

The course plan is presently as follows. Suggestions for changes are most welcome, and nothing is set in stone:

1) The starting points: Carnap Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology and Quine On What There Is.

2) Does the Quinean approach give us too much too easily? We will look at so called neo-Freagean approaches to the philosophy of arithmetic, and at properties and propositions as well. We shall read Rosen The Refutation of Nominalism (?) and selections from Stephen Schiffer's forthcoming book The Things We Mean.

3) Quantification and ontological commitment: Quine's approach makes a close connection between quantification and ontological commitment. This has been criticized in a variety of different ways. We will read about substitutional quantification, and selections from Jody Azzouni's forthcoming book Deflating Existential Consequence.

4) Neo-Carnapian approaches to ontology: we will discuss several attempts to save a distinction between internal and external questions about what there is, which originates in Carnap. Some of them will come with a rejection of ontology as a discipline based on a mistake, others won't. We will read papers by Yablo, Putnam, Friedman, and others. I hope to make a proposal as well.

5) Consequences: we will discuss how these debates about ontology affect other philosophical debates.

Epistemology (Phil 235)
Jay Rosenberg

We'll start off with a new book, Epistemic Justification, containing monographs by Laurence Bonjour and Ernest Sosa and comments by each on the monograph of the other. The themes are internalism vs. externalism and foundationalism vs. coherentism. Then we'll work through Timothy Williamson's Knowledge and its Limits. These are the two most significant recent publications in epistemology that I know of (apart from my own book, of course).

History of Moral Philosophy (Phil 260)
Thomas Hill, Jr.

The course focuses on major figures in the modern period: Thomas Hobbes, Joseph Butler, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill. New editions of several classic works with extensive notes and commentary will be used. More time will be devoted to Hume and Kant than to the others. We will trace major themes through the different theories. Topics include: human nature, the roles of reason and sentiment in moral judgments, justice, conscience, benevolence, reasons and motives to be moral, and freedom of the will. Discussion oriented. Short papers, class presentations, and a term paper. No examinations. This course counts towards the value area distribution requirement for MA and Ph.D, and it covers historical material required for the ethics bibliography examination (and also some material for the political philosophy bibliography examination).

Philosophy of Mind (Phil 340)
Jesse Prinz

This seminar will explore recent literature on mental content. Questions may include: What is it for a mental state to represent? Can representation (or intentionality) be explained in naturalistic terms? Is content determined by factors outside the head? Are there kinds of content other than representational content? Is there such a thing as nonconceptual content? Is there such a thing as narrow content? Is there a difference between the content of, say, beliefs and emotions? What is the relationship between contentful thought and language?

Current Research Group Seminar -- Causation (Phil 390a)
Marc Lange

We will read some recent papers on causal relations. We will focus primarily on counterfactual theories of token causation, beginning with classic papers by Lewis. This tradition seems to me to involve the most careful examination to date of the intricacies of token cause and effect. Things will be conducted very informally. I see this course as an excuse to read and to think about a profusion of literature that I would like to read and to think about more than I have done. We may possibly get on to reading papers on related accounts of token causation (e.g., conserved quantity and transference accounts), or even on type causation, depending upon the interests of the participants.

Current Research Group Seminar -- Political Theory (Phil 390b)
Bernard Boxill

IIn this course we will investigate the importance of culture in human nature and human society. To do this we will read two books, Enlightenment Against Empire by Sankar Muthu and The Liberal Archipelago by Chandran Kukathas. In the first book Muthu presents his interpretation of four 18th century philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and Johann Herder. These philosophers were distinguished by their anti-imperialism, in an age of imperialism. Muthu argues that Rousseau was the least successful because of his attempt, especially in the Discourse on Inequality, to present a picture of a “natural” or pre-cultural human being. Despite Rousseau’s intentions this made it easier for Europeans to think of the people they were meeting in America, Africa and the Pacific as inferior. They identified such people as Rousseau’s “natural” men, and since natural men lacked culture they lacked what is most distinctive and important about human beings. Muthu thinks that Diderot, Kant and Herder did much better because they always presented human beings as essentially cultural agents. On his account Kant thought of humanity as cultural agency, and that respect for the humanity in persons included respect for the cultures they created freely and for their freedom to continue creating cultures. He argues that this was why Kant condemned the European practice of seizing the land that nomadic peoples roamed over. This practice was often justified using Locke’s argument that we gain property rights to land by improving it, together with the claim that the nomads had not improved the land in question. According to Muthu Kant’s response was that respect for the humanity in the nomads included respect for the culture they had created. Kukathas’s book is a contemporary discussion of the significance of culture. He accepts Kymlicka’s argument of the importance of culture for autonomy, but works out the way we should deal with cultural diversity somewhat differently. There are extensive analyses of the relevant works of the main discussants of state neutrality and cultural diversity.