DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
Professor Emeritus: James W. Felt, S.J.
Professors: Philip J. Kain, Michael Meyer, William J. Prior, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe (Department Chair)
Associate Professors: Christopher B. Kulp, Scott LaBarge, William A. Parent, Mark A. Ravizza, S.J.
Assistant Professor: Shannon Vallor
Senior Lecturer: Lawrence Nelson
The Department of Philosophy offers a degree program leading to the Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. Philosophy inquires directly into the relation of human beings to the world: what we are, how we know, what values are, how we live. Worth pursuing for its own sake, philosophical inquiry also promotes analytical thinking and precise expression and, thus, is excellent undergraduate preparation for a number of professional careers, such as law, government, writing, social work, and computer programming. To qualify for honors in philosophy, the major ordinarily must have a 3.5 grade point average in philosophy courses and complete PHIL 198 with a grade of A- or better.
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MAJOR
In addition to fulfilling University Core Curriculum and College of Arts and Sciences requirements for the Bachelor of Arts degree, students majoring in philosophy must complete the following departmental requirements:
- PHIL 11, 12, 13, 25 or 27, 50
- Two courses from different historical periods: PHIL 131 (ancient), PHIL 132 (medieval), PHIL 133 (modern), and PHIL 135, 136, 137 (contemporary)
- One course from PHIL 120 - 129
- One course from PHIL 125 or 140 - 149
- Four additional upper-division courses from PHIL 109 - 199
Emphasis in Pre-Law
The pre-law emphasis in philosophy is intended to provide the skills of analytic reasoning and conceptual investigation necessary for law. Philosophical research hones the techniques of careful argumentation and logically disciplined reasoning essential to the legal analysis of cases and statutes. Also, emphasis on ethics courses will help prepare students for the study and analysis of normative issues. The pre-law emphasis may be taken as part of a philosophy major or minor, or the courses may be taken alone.
Requirements for the pre-law emphasis include:
- One course from PHIL 25, 27, 29, or 152
- One course from PHIL 111, 113, or 154
- One course from PHIL 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 109, 110, 112, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 129, 136, or 142
- Two additional courses from those in the three lists above
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MINOR
Students must fulfill the following requirements for a minor in philosophy:
- PHIL 11 and 12; 25 or 27
- Four approved upper-division courses; PHIL 13 may be substituted for one upper-division course
LOWER-DIVISION COURSES: ETHICS
2. Introduction to Ethics
Consideration of the traditional theoretical questions posed in moral philosophy: standards that determine the morality of an action, the motives and consequences of an act, the good life. Authors studied may include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Bentham, Mill, Kant. (4 units)
3. Ethical Issues in Computing
Normative inquiry into the use of computers. Topics may include information privacy, peer-to-peer file sharing, end-user copying, software as intellectual property, hacking, online communities, safety-critical software, verification, and encryption. (4 units)
4A. Ethics and Gender
Formal inquiry into normative ethics. Emphasis on ethical principles and theories, as well as the application of these to issues essentially intertwined with concepts of sex and gender as they apply to both men and women. Special attention to gender theory and feminism. Topics studied may include pornography, sexuality, heterosexual/homosexual marriage and family life, domestic violence and rape, abortion and reproduction, fashion and appearance, gender discrimination, sex-based affirmative action, and sexual harassment. (4 units)
4B. Ethics and Gender in Film
Formal inquiry into normative ethics. Emphasis on ethical principles and theories as they relate to concepts of gender and sex applicable to both males and females. In addition to written texts about ethics and gender, both dramatic and documentary films will be studied to illustrate how gender is both experienced by men and women and portrayed in the lived world. Topics studied may include sexuality and sexual orientation, male and female gender roles, heterosexual/homosexual marriage and family life, sexual violence, transsexuality, abortion and reproduction, and gender discrimination. Films studied may include Southern Comfort, Boys Don’t Cry, daddy and papa, Sliding Doors, The Brandon Teena Story, If These Walls Could Talk, The Laramie Project, and thirteen. (4 units)
5. Ethical Issues in Society
Formal inquiry into normative ethics. Special attention to general ethical principles and to the practical application of these principles to current ethical issues in society. Topics may include the concepts of freedom, obligation, value, rights, justice, virtue, and moral responsibility, as applied to issues like abortion, punishment, economic distribution, racial and sexual discrimination, sexuality, political obligation, nuclear war, and pornography. (4 units)
6. Ethical Issues in Business
Formal inquiry into normative ethics. Special attention to general ethical principles and the application of these principles to current moral issues in business. Topics may include truth in advertising, corporate social responsibility, affirmative action, capitalism, government regulation, quality of work-life, environmental and resource issues, and ethical codes of conduct. (4 units)
7. Ethical Issues in Medicine
Formal inquiry into normative ethics. Special attention to general ethical principles and the application of these principles to current moral issues in medicine and the health sciences. Topics may include the definition of death, informed consent, distribution of health care, euthanasia, genetic manipulation, artificial conception, prolongation of life, and organ transplants. (4 units)
8. Ethical Issues in Politics
Formal inquiry into normative ethics. Emphasis on moral issues in political theory. Possible topics include the concepts of rights, justice, dignity, equality, personhood, desert, retributivism, and utility. Issues discussed may include alienation, individualism, community, discrimination, capital punishment, sexual equality, civil disobedience, revolution, and world hunger. (4 units)
9. Ethical Issues and the Environment
Formal inquiry into normative ethics. Emphasis on moral issues and the environment. Topics include animal rights, anthropocentrism, cost-benefit analysis, human rights, interspecies justice, land (use and value), population control, rights (of future generations and natural objects), values (moral and aesthetic) and preferences, wildlife protection, wilderness. (4 units)
10. Ethical Issues in the Law
Formal inquiry into normative ethics. Emphasis on moral issues and concepts in contemporary legal debates on issues such as hate speech and freedom of speech, the right to die, homosexual parenting, abortion picketing, the exclusionary rule, the insanity defense, and the legalization of drugs. Discussion of moral dilemmas confronting criminal lawyers, including the practice of knowingly allowing false testimony from their clients. (4 units)
LOWER-DIVISION COURSES: HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
11. Western Culture: Philosophy I, Classical and Medieval
Beginnings of Western philosophy. Representative writers of the Greek and medieval traditions, with attention to their historical and literary milieu and their relevance to contemporary thought. (4 units)
12. Western Culture: Philosophy II, Early Modern
Principal fashioners of the modern mind. 17th- and 18th-century philosophers studied in the historical and literary context of their times with attention to their impact on the present. (4 units)
13. Western Culture: Philosophy III, Modern and Contemporary
Introduction to the closer roots of modern thinking, from the critical revolution of Kant to some of the dominant currents of the 20th century. Prerequisite: PHIL 12 strongly recommended. (4 units)
LOWER-DIVISION COURSES: LOGIC AND REASONING
25. Informal Logic
Introduction to the art of logical reasoning. Emphasis on the ability to recognize common fallacies of argumentation. (4 units)
27. Introduction to Formal Logic
Introduction to the study of deductive inference, including traditional and modern techniques. (4 units)
29. Reasoning and Interpretation in Law
Introduction to basic concepts in logic and augmentation as well as to methods of reasoning, argumentation, and interpretation that commonly appear in American Law. Examination of arguments; deduction and induction; varieties of meaning; definitions and their purposes; informal fallacies; categorical syllogisms; ordinary language arguments; enthymemes; analogy in legal and moral reasoning; causality; probability; statistical reasoning; authority; causality; precedent and stare decision; interpretations and reasoning from statutory rules; reasoning from case law; nature and legitimacy of judicial adjudication; methods for analyzing cases; explanatory and justifying reasons; conflict and legal rules. (4 units)
LOWER-DIVISION COURSE: METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
50. Knowledge and Reality
Introduces two central areas of philosophy—epistemology and metaphysics— through the study of several fundamental problems in those areas. Problems that may be studied include the existence of God, the relation between mind and body, freedom of the will, the nature and possibility of knowledge, and the relation between language and reality. Required of all philosophy majors and normally taken during the sophomore year. (4 units)
Note: The normal prerequisite for all philosophy upper-division courses is upper-division standing.
109. Ethics and the Environment
Formal inquiry into normative ethics. Investigation of environmental issues from the point of view of classical ethical perspectives and consideration of how questions about the moral value of the environment provide new challenges to such classical theories. Topics may include animal rights, human rights, the rights of future generations, the rights of nature, anthropocentrism, interspecific justice, land (use and value), wilderness, and values and preferences. (5 units)
110. Ethics in the Health Professions
Formal inquiry into applied ethics. Emphasis on moral issues encountered by members of the health professions. Topics may include the formulation of professional ethical standards and the examination of moral dilemmas in medicine, psychological counseling, and other areas of health care. (5 units)
111. Bioethics and the Law
Bioethics (normative ethics as applied to medicine and the health care professions, the left sciences, and biotechnology) is partially constituted by legal norms and values. Exploration of the evolving relationship between law and bioethics, as well as the substantive law and ethics of selected topics by studying course cases and bioethical texts. Topics studied may include the definition of death, informed consent, the physician-patient relationship, euthanasia /assisted suicide and the law of criminal homicide, advance directives for health care, confidentiality, involuntary civil commitment for mental illness, regulation of research involving human subjects, the use of nonhuman animals in biomedical research, the legal and moral status of prenatal humans, parental control over the medical care of minor children, tort law and medical practice, and state licensure of health care professionals. (5 units)
112. Ethics in Management
Formal inquiry into applied ethics. Emphasis on moral issues encountered by managers. Topics may include the role of ethical principles in business and ethical dilemmas raised by the management and administration of business organizations, such as conflicts of interest, organizational politics, commercial bribery, whistle-blowing, labor-management conflicts, and consumerism. (5 units)
113. Ethics and Constitutional Law
Exploration of how the constitutional rights and interests of individuals and groups of individuals can be understood and justified by moral and social/political philosophy. Particular constitutional subjects to be studied may include 4th Amendment search and seizure, obscenity and pornography, equal protection, gender discrimination, freedom of speech, freedom of association, free exercise of religion, State establishment of religion, discrimination against gays and lesbians, privacy and personal autonomy, privacy and reproductive freedom, and substantive due process. Readings typically consist of Supreme Court cases. Satisfies Ethics requirement for the bachelor’s degree in all undergraduate colleges except the Business School. (5 units)
115. Feminism and Ethics
Exploration of theories of feminism, patriarchy, and gender, and of ethics as applied to the contemporary experience and social situation of women. Topics may include equality, affirmative action, comparable worth, pornography, sexuality, reproductive technologies, maternal-fetal relations, rape and domestic violence, female body image, cosmetic surgery, “alternative” families, militarism, and environmentalism. (5 units)
117. Science, Technology, and Society
Investigation of the religious and ethical significance of the impact of technology on society. (5 units)
118. Ethics and Warfare
Historical and contemporary approaches to the ethical issues that arise in warfare. (5 units)
119. Special Topics in Applied Ethics
Selected philosophical problems in applied ethics studied at an advanced level. (5 units)
UPPER-DIVISION COURSES: ETHICAL THEORY
120. Ethical Theory
Examination of major philosophers or issues in moral and social philosophy. Topics may include dignity, moral rights and obligations, justice, moral relativism, virtue, the good, and happiness. (5 units)
121. Classic Issues in Ethics
Exploration of the fundamental questions of ethics through close study of some of the great works of moral philosophy, such as Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Kant’s Groundwork, and Mill’s Utilitarianism. (5 units)
122. Political Philosophy and Ethics
Moral issues in political philosophy, especially traditional ethical justifications for political authority. Topics may include theories of political authorization and contract theory, rights, liberty, equality, justice, community, revolution, civil disobedience, and others. Specific variations include 122A (Classical and Modern), 122B (Contemporary). (5 units)
123. Marx and Ethics
Examination of Marx’s ethical thought in the context of traditional ethical theory (Aristotle, Kant) and in relationship to his political views and philosophy of history. Topics may include alienation, the human essence, the individual, community, needs, freedom, equality, rights, and justice. (5 units)
124. Virtue Ethics
Exploration of various basic issues in ethics, such as friendship, courage, or compassion, from the point of view of virtues or (moral) character. Close study of classic authors—for example, Aristotle—as well as contemporary writers on virtue ethics. (5 units)
125. Moral Epistemology
An investigation into the foundations of ethics: principally concerned with (1) the nature of ethics, and (2) the nature and possibility of moral knowledge. Issues to be discussed may include cognitivism and noncognitivism in ethics, moral relativism, moral realism, and moral skepticism. Prerequisites: PHIL 50 and one ethics course, or permission of department chair. (5 units)
129. Special Topics in Ethical Theory
Selected philosophical problems in ethical theory studied at an advanced level. (5 units)
131. Ancient Philosophy
Study of one major philosopher or philosophical issue (such as substance, causation, or virtue) from the ancient period. Specific variations include 131A (Socrates), 131B (Plato), 131C (Aristotle), and 131D (Love and Relationship in Classical Antiquity). Prerequisite: PHIL 11 or permission of department chair. (5 units)
132. Medieval Philosophy
Study of one major philosopher or philosophical issue (such as universals, existence and the nature of God, or free will) from the medieval period. Specific variations include 132A (Augustine) and 132B (Aquinas). Prerequisite: PHIL 11 or permission of department chair. (5 units)
133. Modern Philosophy
Study of one major philosopher or issue (such as mind and body, skepticism and knowledge, or causation) from the modern period. Specific variations include 133A (Hume), 133B (Kant), 133C (Hegel), and 133D (Nietzsche). Prerequisite: PHIL 12 for 133A; PHIL 13 for 133B-D or permission of department chair. (5 units)
134. Skepticism
Study of the problem of skepticism from its origin in ancient Greece to the present day. Considers both skeptical positions and views critical of skepticism. Readings may include Sextus Empiricus, Descartes, Hume, and Wittgenstein. Prerequisite: PHIL 11 or 12 or permission of department chair. (5 units)
135. Existentialism
General introduction to existentialism in its analysis of the basic structures of human existence, particularly freedom, and in its major thinkers. Prerequisite: PHIL 12 or permission of department chair. (5 units)
136. Analytic Philosophy
Examination of the major currents in 20th-century Anglo-American philosophy. Philosophers studied may include Frege, Russell, Carnap, Moore, Wittgenstein, and Austin; movements may include logical positivism and ordinary-language philosophy. Prerequisites: PHIL 50, PHIL 27 recommended; or permission of department chair. (5 units)
137. Contemporary European Philosophy
Selected topics from 20th-century European philosophy: movements such as phenomenology and structuralism; philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre. (5 units)
139. Special Topics in the History of Philosophy
Selected philosophical problems in history of philosophy studied at an advanced level. (5 units)
UPPER-DIVISION COURSES: METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
140. Philosophy and Science
Exploration of selected philosophic questions that arise in contemporary science, especially physics. Topics include the nature of scientific knowing, the replacement of theories, paradoxes of relativity and quantum theory, and the sense in which scientific objects are “real.” Prerequisite: PHIL 50 or permission of the department chair. (5 units)
141. Metaphysics
Examination of major issues in metaphysics. Topics may include the nature and possibility of metaphysics, free will and determinism, the mind/body problem, personal identity, and metaphysical issues arising in science. Prerequisites: PHIL 25 or 27 and 50 or permission of department chair. (5 units)
142. Theory of Knowledge
Examination of major issues in the theory of knowledge. Topics may include justification of belief, a priori knowledge, perception, and theories of truth. Prerequisites: PHIL 50, PHIL 27 recommended; or permission of the department chair. (5 units)
143. Analytic Metaphysics
Philosophical investigation of the free-will problem. Discussion of concepts of freedom, fate, causation, and God. Prerequisites: PHIL 50 or permission of department chair. (5 units)
144. Philosophy of Mind
Examination of issues relating to the existence and nature of mind and its relation to body. Prerequisite: PHIL 50 or permission of department chair. (5 units)
145. Wittgenstein
A study of the philosophy of the 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, focusing on his logical theory, metaphysics and epistemology, from his Tractatus Logico-Philosophius to his Philosophical Investigations. Prerequisite: Philosophy 50, or permission of department chair. (5 units)
149. Special Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology
Selected philosophical problems in metaphysics and/or epistemology studied at an advanced level. Prerequisite: PHIL 50 or permission of department chair. (5 units)
UPPER-DIVISION COURSES: OTHER
150. Philosophy of Religion
Philosophical inquiry, based on both classical and contemporary views, as to whether the existence of God can be rationally demonstrated, whether it is compatible with evil, how human beings relate to God, the nature of faith, and the nature of religious language. (5 units)
151. Philosophical Topics in Literature and Film
An investigation of selected films and literary works as sources of insight into a variety of philosophical issues. Topics considered may include the limits of human rationality, absurdity, human suffering, the nature of reality, freedom and determinism, and philosophy of religion. Readings from traditional and contemporary philosophical sources. (5 units)
152. Symbolic Logic
Study of various topics in modern symbolic logic. Prerequisite: PHIL 27 or permission of department chair. (5 units)
154. Philosophy of Law
Proper limits and uses of the criminal law in regulating human behavior. (5 units)
155. Aesthetics
Philosophical examination of the historical development of the concepts of taste and beauty. (5 units)
198. Senior Research Thesis
Creation of a carefully researched and scholarly paper, under the active direction of a selected member of the department’s staff. Of particular value to senior students who intend to pursue graduate studies. Prerequisites: Previous arrangement with instructor and department chair. (5 units)
199. Directed Research
Tutorial work with demanding requirements for advanced students in particular problem areas not otherwise accessible through courses. Prerequisite: Previous arrangement with the instructor and department chair. (5 units)
