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Undergraduate Classes

Freshman Seminar (Phil 6F)

            William Lycan

            Jay Rosenberg

Main Problems (Phil 20)

            Ram Neta

Introduction to Symbolic Logic (Phil 21)

            Ted Parent

            Dylan Sabo

Introduction to Ethics (Phil 22 and Phil 22e)

            Geoffrey Sayre-McCord

Great Works (Phil 24)

            Elizabeth Foreman

Making Sense of Ourselves (Phil 26)

            Andrew Johnson

Applied Ethics (Phil 30)

            Douglas MacLean

Philosophy of Religion (Phil 32)

            Warren Nord

Bioethics (Phil 34)

            Leonard Kahn

Language and Communication (Phil 35)

            Dean Pettit

Social Ethics and Political Thought (Phil 37E)

            Ty Raterman

Social Ethics and Political Thought (Phil 37)

            Simon May

Experience and Reality (Phil 38)

            Nicoletta Orlandi

Morality and Business (Phil 39)

            Amy Peikoff      

Morality and Law (Phil 41)

            Amy Peikoff

Peace, War, and Defense (Phil 42/ Pwad 68/ Poli 68)

            Yolanda Wilson

            Simon May

Philosophical Issues in Feminism (Phil 46/ Wmst 46)

            Susan Sreedhar

            Sarah Wright

Ethics in Sports (Phil47)

            Jan Boxill

Afro-American Philosophy -- Honors (Phil 55H)

            Bernard Boxill

Ancient Philosophy (Phil 56)

            David Reeve

Modern Philosophy (Phil 58)

            Paul Russell

Existentialism (Phil 64)

           David Landy

Probability and Induction (Phil 69)

            Marc Lange

Cognitive Science (Phil 77)

            Jesse Prinz

Ethics and Economics (Phil 84)

           Geoffrey Brennan

Life Science Ethics (Phil 120)

            Douglas MacLean

Economics and Philosophy (Phil 130)

            Geoffrey Brennan

British Empiricism (Phil 154)

            Paul Russell

Health Care, Science, and Philosophy (Phil 178)

            Rebecca Walker

 

Minds, Brains, and Consciousness: Freshman Seminar (Phil 6F)

William Lycan

What are minds and how are they related to bodies? Most philosophers and psychologists nowadays reject the idea that minds are nonphysical ghost stuff, and contend that one's mind is entirely constituted by neural activity in one's brain. But that leaves a mystery: the subjective phenomenal qualities or feels of conscious sensory experiences as we know them from the inside, the "what it's like" of having those experiences. This course will explore answers to the question of how a mere lump of matter, however complex, could be conscious of such things as colors and smells and the hurtfulness of pains.

This course meets Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00.

Jay Rosenberg

We will explore both old and new questions regarding death. We will examine the presuppositions and cogency of the classical religious- philosophical conception of death as a separation of the soul from the body, in contrast to more "naturalistic" alternatives. We will ask whether the modern "brain-death" criterion represents a radically new conception of death per se and, if so, whether it is a reasonable one. And we will investigate a number of the most important ethical questions centered on death, including the morality of euthanasia and suicide.

This course meets on Tuesdays at 2:00.

Ram Neta

What is philosophy? What do philosophers do, and how do they do it? This course will attempt to answer these questions. We will begin by reading Leo Tolstoy's story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich". We will try to understand what it is that the main character of that story is missing in his life. Whatever that missing thing is, we will call it "philosophy". But what is it? The rest of the course will be devoted to trying to understand what this thing is that's missing from Ivan Ilyich's life. In order to figure that out, we will read Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and Jean-Jacques Rouseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at 10:00 and requires enrollment in a recitation section.

Ted Parent

Symbolic logic is the study of certain precisely specified formal languages. In this course we will study these languages and their applications. Symbolic logic has proven to be extremely useful in a number of different disciplines. First, they are very helpful in the study of good and valid reasoning. We will use these formal languages to study valid and invalid forms of reasoning, and how to distinguish them. Secondly, symbolic logic is useful in the study of natural languages, and we will see some illustrative examples of this. Finally, symbolic logic is crucial for computer science and foundational issues in mathematics. Although these latter two areas quickly get into more advanced topics we will be able to discuss some highlights of these uses of logic.

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00.

Dylan Sabo

Symbolic logic is the study of certain precisely specified formal languages. In this course we will study these languages and their applications. Symbolic logic has proven to be extremely useful in a number of different disciplines. First, they are very helpful in the study of good and valid reasoning. We will use these formal languages to study valid and invalid forms of reasoning, and how to distinguish them. Secondly, symbolic logic is useful in the study of natural languages, and we will see some illustrative examples of this. Finally, symbolic logic is crucial for computer science and foundational issues in mathematics. Although these latter two areas quickly get into more advanced topics we will be able to discuss some highlights of these uses of logic.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00.

Geoffrey Sayre-McCord

This course is an introduction to moral theory. We will be going straight to the classics -- a few of the best books ever written on moral theory: Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and Mill's Utilitarianism.

We will be concerned primarily with two questions: (1) What really matters? and (2) What is involved in answering (1)? In general, worries about the second question arise from worries about the first; and answers to the second usually commit us to answers to the first. In fact, the questions are really far more entangled than they are distinct. So we won't be taking the questions in order; instead we will jump back and forth between the two. In coming to grips with these two very general questions we will focus on three fundamental, but slightly more specific, questions: (i) What does morality demand? (ii) Under what conditions are we responsible for our success or failure in living up to these demands? and (iii) What connection is there between our being moral and our living a good (satisfying, fulfilling) life? The first calls for a theory of morality, the second requires a theory of moral responsibility, and the third asks for an answer to an age old question: why should I be moral? We will, pretty much, be taking them in reverse order.

Initially, spaces in the course will be held for freshman. After freshman have had a chance to enroll, registration will be open to all.

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at 12:00 and requires enrollment in a recitation section.

Elizabeth Foreman

This course will be an introduction to some of the main problems in philosophy through a close study of four great philosophical works. In this course, we will read and discuss Plato’s Republic, Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Transcendence of the Ego. Through our study of these influential works, we will grapple with four main philosophical topics: ethics (why should we be moral/what is the good life?), epistemology (what do we know and how do we know it?), the philosophy of religion (how/can we prove that God exists?), and the nature of the self (what is the nature of consciousness and the status of the self?). The goals of this course will be to gain an understanding of the problems that have been troubling thinkers for ages, to evaluate some of the solutions that those thinkers have offered, and to learn how one might go about trying to solve those problems oneself in a philosophical way.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 8:00.

Andrew Johnson

In this introductory course, we will explore the attempts made by a series of influential thinkers to understand who we are, what kind of world we live in, and how we should live our lives. As we will see,
these questions are more connected than they might first appear. Authors include: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, St. Matthew, Nietzsche, Freud, and Rand.

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9:00.

Douglas MacLean

The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the nature of ethical reasoning. It addresses questions like the following: Do ethical claims appeal to objective standards, or is any opinion as worthy as any other? What is the meaning of moral concepts like duty, rights, equality, or justice, and how should we apply these concepts in the context of reasoning and talking about moral controversies? We will attempt to answer these questions by examining contemporary moral issues and arguments. Examples of issues we may discuss include: Do we have an obligation to obey the law? Is affirmative action justified? Do animals have rights? Should abortion or physician-assisted suicide be tolerated? Under what conditions is war morally justified? Should the rich be taxed to help the poor?

Our aim in this course is neither to try to answer these questions definitively, nor to ensure that every position on these issues is presented and discussed. We are less concerned with the conclusions of arguments than with the soundness of the reasoning that supports the conclusions. We will be discussing controversial issues, and one goal is to understand why some moral questions are controversial while other questions (e.g., Is it all right to abandon one’s baby if she cries too much? Is it a good thing that people volunteer to help the needy?) are not controversial. In this way we hope to achieve a better understanding of the nature of ethical reasoning, ethical arguments, and the claims that morality makes on us.

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at 12:00 and requires enrollment in a recitation section.

Warren Nord

A philosophical inquiry into the problems of religious experience and belief, as expressed in philosophic, religious, and literary documents from traditional and contemporary sources.

Texts: The Bible; Student Stores Course Pack

Topics to be covered: Nature, Science, and Religion; Religion, History, and Scripture; Religious Experience and Psychology; Pluralism and Postmodernism; Faith and Reason; Suffering, Good and Evil.

This course meets on Tuesday, Thursday, at 12:30.

Leonard Kahn

In this course we will explore ethical questions that arise in the health care professions, concerning patients’ rights to information and to refuse treatment, confidentiality, informed consent, abortion, euthanasia, physician assisted suicide, genetic screening, stem cell research, cloning, and experimentation with human subjects. Major ethical theories will be used as a framework for the discussion. We will read and discuss a variety of points of view on both the ethical and legal issues. Written work will include a midterm, two brief papers, and a final examination.

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11:00.

Dean Pettit

The importance of language is obvious. It is the principal means by which we communicate with other people and our principal source of information about the world beyond our immediate surroundings. Yet only relatively recently has the nature and complexity of human language come to be appreciated. We naturally tend to think of language -- like the automobile or the light bulb -- as a human invention, a conventional system created by us for the purpose of communication. This natural view has been challenged by the linguist Noam Chomsky who has argued that language should instead be thought of -- like vision and hearing -- as a faculty of the human mind, part of the hardware of our brains. Though many of Chomsky's central claims are hotly disputed, the challenge he posed has precipitated a revolution in our thinking about human language.

This course is a philosophical introduction to current thinking about language and the fall out of Chomsky's revolution. We will survey some of the key areas in the study of language -- syntax, semantics, pragmatics, language development, and psycholinguistics -- with an eye to philosophical issues that arise about the nature of language, the science of language, knowledge and meaning. This course will be of particular interest to students in philosophy, linguistics, psychology and cognitive science. However, no previous familiarity with these areas will be presupposed by this course.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 12:30.

Ty Raterman

Should snow-mobiles be permitted in Yellowstone National Park? Should your town allow a new Wal-Mart store to open on the town's outskirts? Should the state fund after-school programs in low income areas? More fundamentally, how do we even go about answering these questions? Some theorists maintain that government properly intervenes in our lives essentially just in instances where markets have failed, and that the intervention should aim to deliver outcomes that the market would have delivered had it been functioning perfectly. Others dissent, saying that the state has an appropriate role well beyond merely remedying inefficient outcomes resulting from market failures, and thus that the state's decisions need not be modeled on the market. So, what is the appropriate justification and model for state intervention?

There are related questions about the relationship between state action and individual preferences. We seem to sometimes have preferences and perform actions that are contrary to our own interests. When our preferences and interests diverge, should the state aim to promote the former, the latter, or something else entirely? We'll work our way through this debate using real-world issues to inform our discussion wherever possible. We'll learn about and assess one powerful and oft-employed public policy tool, namely cost-benefit analysis, since focusing on the moral and political foundations on which it rests will bring many of the aforementioned issues into focus.

Along the way, we'll tackle a number of other fundamental issues in political philosophy. What does it mean to say that the state should be morally and religiously neutral? Is it possible, and if so, is it desirable? Freedom and equality are often touted as two paramount political virtues. But some say that these two values are in tension: that as one increases the other decreases. What is the nature and value of each of these two ideals, and are they in fact in tension? The course will be light on lecturing; students should be prepared to regularly ask questions and share ideas.

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at 6:00.

Simon May

There is widespread disagreement that democracy is the best political system but far less agreement on just why democracy is special. The course looks at different philosophical approaches to democracy, in particular the populist claim that democracy is important because it is a way to determine and express the Will of the People. The first half of the class is a survey of the history of democratic theory, paying close attention to social contract theory, republicanism and utilitarianism. The second half of the class concerns contemporary democratic issues, such as the coherence of different electoral systems, the place of deliberation in the life of a democracy, campaign finance reform and free speech rights, and the tension between constitutionalism and majoritarianism.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00.

Nicoletta Orlandi

Minds are often regarded as being in the business of experiencing reality. The aim of this class is to explore issues concerning the nature of minds, their place in the physical world and the way they experience it. Some of the questions we will be concerned with are: what are minds? How do they represent the world? Is it possible to give a scientific theory of minds and mental phenomena? Does conscious experience present a special kind of problem for such a scientific theory? The goal of the course is to provide a survey of contemporary positions in the philosophy of mind, to discuss the problems that each might present, and to consider prospects for future theories.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 2:00.

Amy Peikoff

In light of the contemporary treatment of Big Business in the media and the culture, one might think a course entitled "Morality and Business" to be a contradiction in terms. What is the moral status of business? Is it a moral activity, to be revered? An immoral activity, to be tolerated as a necessary evil? Or is business as such simply amoral? If business is either immoral or amoral, does this mean that companies have duties to their employees, communities, and the environment? We will begin the course by examining this issue against the backdrop of historical and contemporary ethical theories such as Aristotelianism, Kantianism, Utilitarianism, and Objectivism. We will then proceed to explore specific implications of morality for the conduct of business: Who should run a business, i.e., who should have a "say" in making important policy decisions? Should executives alone make these decisions? Or should the company's employees - or even non-employee members of the community - be allowed to vote? How do moral issues apply to the day-to-day running of a business? Can a scrupulously honest C.E.O. nevertheless turn a huge profit in today's world? How might justice apply to business? Is its practice profitable? Is pragmatism a prerequisite for the successful businessman? Does the virtue of integrity - which requires adherence to moral principles - have any practical value for business? What about pride? Is it a proper business virtue, or simply hype?

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9:00.

Amy Peikoff

Is law based on morality? Are rights moral issues, or merely legal conventions? If law is something dependent of morality, by what standard(s) can one evaluate or interpret it? Do we have an obligation to obey the law? In this course we will begin by examining historical and contemporary answers to these foundational issues. We will then look at a few specific legal issues for which morality seems to have important implications, including liability in tort law and punishment in criminal law.

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11:00.

Yolonda Wilson

This course will be an exploration of classic and contemporary theory. We will examine ancient sources like Plato and Sun-Tzu. Additionally, we will talk about Just War Theory, pacifism, and terrorism. In this course we will make use of contemporary sources, popular media, and film. Some questions we will explore include: whether terrorism is morally justifiable, whether noncombatants are fair targets of military action, and whether pacifism is a reasonable position.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 9:30.

Simon May

We live in a world where human rights have a great deal of ideological currency, yet where the worst forms of human rights violations continue to occur. The course focuses on understanding the role the concept of human rights plays in assessing the morality of different forms of mass violence. We commence with an examination of human rights theory before moving to sections on just war theory, the prevalence of genocide, and judicial responses to mass human rights violations (including international tribunals and truth commissions). Particular questions include the nature and justification of human rights, the value of state sovereignty and the morality of humanitarian military intervention, non-combatant immunity and terrorism, pacifism and the right of rebellion against unjust states, and the tension between retributive and reconciliatory responses to human rights violationss.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 12:30.

Susan Sreedhar

This course is a survey of feminist perspectives on topics such as the meaning of oppression, sexism and racism, sex-roles and stereotypes, ideals of female beauty, women in the workplace, pornography, and rape.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 12:30.

Sarah Wright

This course is a survey of feminist perspectives on issues in philosophy. We will begin by investigating the roots and causes of the feminist movement, and discuss the many possible interpretations of feminism. We will then apply these critical perspectives both to current issues and to topics inside of philosophy including, epistemology, philosophy of sciences, and the general methodology of philosophy.

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00.

Jan Boxill

Sports play a significant role in the lives of millions of people throughout the world, as participants, fans, spectators, and critics. Sport provides a unique model for understanding our own society. We certainly saw this during the Sydney Olympics. Even those who are uninvolved, bored or critical of sports are often affected by them. Because sports are significant forms of social activities, they raise a wide range of issues, some factual, some explanatory. E.g. sociologists may be concerned with whether or not sports affect society; psychologists may be concerned with personality features which contribute to success or failure in sport. In addition to these questions, sports also raise philosophical issues that are conceptual and ethical in nature. Conceptual questions ask how we understand the concepts and ideas that apply to the world of sports. What are sports? What is involved in competition? Ethical questions raise moral concerns many of us have about sports. Is there too much emphasis on winning and competition? Are college sports getting out of hand? Indeed do competitive athletics belong on campus?

This course will examine these and other ethical issues in American sports, including, but not limited to, Title IX, gender equity, racism, sexism, cheating, violence, and drug use. My concern will be to gain an understanding of the moral significance of sport through readings and class discussion. We may not be able to resolve the issues, but we should at least gain a greater understanding of the issues, which should serve as beginnings to resolutions.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00.

Bernard Boxill

This course is designed to give students insight into some of the moral problems of African American slavery and its aftermath. Readings are drawn from classical sources such as Henry Highland Garnet, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Maria Stewart, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Thomas Jefferson; and from contemporary writers like philosophers Howard McGary, Bill E. Lawson, Charles Mills, and Bernard Boxill. Special topics include: slavery and resistance, slavery and self-respect, paternalism and slavery, forgiveness and slavery, and reparations for slavery. Course requirements are: regular attendance in class, participation in class discussions, two short papers and a take-home final.

This course meets on Tuesday at 2:00.

C.D.C. Reeve

The aim of the course is to introduce you to Greek philosophy of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. The focus this semester is on Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, and the different answers they propose to the question of how we should live. While ethics and politics will, therefore, be center stage, metaphysics (What are we?), epistemology (What can we know?), and philosophy of mind (What motivates us?) will also have important roles to play

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday at 1:00 and requires enrollment in a recitation section.

Paul Russell

This course is intended as an introduction to a number of the major themes and figures of 17th and 18th century European philosophy. The primary objective is to provide a general understanding of the central problems of this period and the philosophical principles of its leading thinkers. Although the course will be "survey" some selection will be necessary. The issues covered will include: egoism and human motivation, knowledge and scepticism, mind and matter, substance and essence, the existence of God, personal identity, free will, and miracles. Among the philosophers whose work we will study are: Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant.

This course meets on Tuesday, Thursday at 9:30.

David Landy

We will focus mainly on selections from the work of the two philosophers—-Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre—-at the center of the so-called existentialist movement in philosophy. Most importantly these will include portions from each of their magnum opera — Being and Time and Being and Nothingness, respectively—although readings might also include supplementary material drawn from their other works (Heidegger’s essays, Sartre’s plays), the work of their forbearers (Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche), and contemporaries (Camus, Jaspers). We will cover topics in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and ethics.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00

Probability and Induction (Phil 69)

Marc Lange

Chance (a.k.a. probability) is a mysterious concept that plays a dual role in our lives. A weather forecaster might say "There is a 70% chance of rain tomorrow," but what does she really mean by this? Does she mean that for 70% of the days in a hypothetical, infinitely long sequence of days like today, it rains on the following day? But even a perfectly balanced coin (one having a 50% chance of landing on heads on any given toss) could land on heads on every single one of an infinite number of tosses (though it would be very unlikely to do so)! Does the weather forecaster mean instead that she has a fairly high degree of confidence (namely, 70%) that it will rain tomorrow? If so, what are the rules of reasoning (if any!) that determine how much confidence she is entitled to have in such a prediction? That is to say, what is the logic of inductive reasoning -- what is the right way to judge whether some evidence counts in favor or counts against a given hypothesis, and by how much? All of these are topics that we will investigate carefully. Our investigations will have practical application wherever probability is used, such as in reasoning in law and medicine -- and weather forecasting!

This course meets on Tuesday, Thursday at 11:00.

Jesse Prinz

Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary study of the mind. This course introduces key philosophical questions raised by four of those disciplines, Linguistics, Computer Science, Cognitive Psychology, and Neuroscience. Is language innate? Does language affect thought? Can computers think? Is the human mind a computer? What are artificial neural networks and how do they challenge leading theories of cognition? Do we have free will? What are mental images? Do we perceive as much as we think we do? How is conscious experience related to the brain? In addressing such questions, we will also gain a deeper understanding of how the disciplines comprising cognitive science interact and an appreciation of the pivotal role that philosophy plays in that interaction.

This course meets on Tuesday, Thursday at 12:30.

Geoffrey Brennan

This course will integrate and examine the relationship between philosophical and political theories of the state and economic distribution. The course is designed as the gateway course for the proposed Philosophy, Politics and Econmics program, by introducing students to the subjects and techniques used to analyze problems in the disciplines.

This course falls into two rather distinct parts. The first occupying the period up to Spring break will be concerned with the prisoners’ dilemma (both in its two-person and more socially relevant n-person variants). The second part will be concerned with distributive justice – emphasizing the similarities and differences between the philosophical, economic, and political approaches to this issue.

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at 4:00.

Classes meet at Duke for the first half of the semester and at UNC after spring break.

Douglas MacLean

For good or ill, ethicists and policy makers must weigh people’s lives against each other. We must decide, for example, between allocating resources to a person of normal capacities or one mentally impaired. How do we proceed in this difficult terrain? How much is a life worth? Comparatively speaking, whose lives are more important, the intelligent, the young, the elderly, the unborn? How much weight, if any, should we assign to the lives of future generations? Animals? Ecosystems?

The course will feature guest appearances of five outstanding philosophers whose work we will be studying: Dan Brock (Harvard); Norman Daniels (Harvard); Hilary Bok, (Johns Hopkins); Jeff McMahan (Rutgers); and John Broome (Oxford).

This course meets on Monday at 4:25.

Geoffrey Brennan

The course will consist of two parts. The first will deal with the economist's theory of the state. This will include the standard accounts of "market success" and "market failure" (the theory of public goods, etc.) and some elementary "public choice accounts" of collective decision-making processes. The second part will deal with the normative foundations of this theory, and the "economic approach" to ethics more generally.

This course meets on Tuesday at 12:30.

Paul Russell

The general aim of this course will be to familiarize students with the central doctrines and principles of the great British empiricists: Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. However, in order to give this course some definite shape and focus we will pursue a particular theme of study: the relationship between the development of British empiricism and problems of religion. In this way, we will be especially concerned with the related topics of "God, Scepticism and Knowledge" as they appear in the works of the major British empiricists. Along with the work of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume we will also examine the work of Samuel Clarke, a particularly important and influential Newtonian thinker who represents the (alternative) school of British rationalism. A sub-theme of the course will be to compare and contrast Clarke's rationalist commitments with the views of the British empiricists.

This course meets on Monday at 12:30.

Rebecca Walker

In this course, we will focus on the question of how scarce health care resources ought to be distributed in order to meet the demands of justice. However, in order to address this issue, we will also look briefly at background questions of how resources are currently distributed. Readings will be largely, but not exclusively, philosophical in nature. This seminar is unique in that it is cross-disciplinary- it will include both medical and philosophy students. This should provide an especially stimulating environment for sharing knowledge of and approaches to fundamental value questions about justice.

This course will meet on Tuesdays at 2:30.