BA Syllabus Lecturers: Thomas Pink Email: tom.pink@kcl.ac.uk Lecture Time: Mondays, 4-5pm Lecture Location: STND/ S-1.06 Module description The module will introduce students to the ethical theories of 18 th British Moral Philosophers, focusing on Hume, and will explain their significance for modern ethical theory. The course will relate their thought to continuing debates about moral rationality, moral objectivity, moral virtue and moral obligation. Teaching arrangements one one-hour lecture and one one-hour seminar per week for ten weeks Assessment Summative assessment: two x 2,000 word essays (100%) Formative assessment: two x 1,500-word essays Plagiarism Policy We re against it. What constitutes plagiarism? See here: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/depts/philosophy/current/plagiarism.html Lecture Schedule Lecture 1 The Background to 18 th Century Moral Philosophy Lecture 2 Shaftesbury Lecture 3 Mandeville Lecture 4 Hutcheson Lecture 5 Butler Reading Week Lecture 6 Hume Reason and Passion Lecture 7 Hume Morality and Sentiment I Lecture 8 Hume Morality and Sentiment II Lecture 9 Hume Natural and Artificial Virtue Lecture 10 Hume Merit, Virtue and Talent 1
Primary Reading Students are expected to read all the primary material assigned for each meeting. For Part I, primary readings from ONE of the suggested edited collections is sufficient. Secondary Reading There should be at least one physical copy available of all the books listed below in the Maughan Library or Senate House Library (including those that are also available online). All the other secondary materials listed are articles available online through your KCL username (or Athens) or through Senate House Library E-Collections. It is the student s responsibility to acquire access to Senate House Library in time for the beginning of the course. Readings Part I Primary Texts J. B. Schneewind (ed.) Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant. Cambridge, 2003. OR D. D. Raphael (ed.) British Moralists 1650-1800 (2 volumes). Hackett, 1991. OR L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.)british Moralists [NB References below to readings for Part I are to the Schneewind (2003) collection, but any of the relevant portions of one of the three collections above will suffice] General Reading Stephen Darwall, The British Moralists and the Internal Ought : 1640-1740. Cambridge, 1995. Irwin, The Development of Ethics, Vol. II: From Suarez to Rousseau. Oxford, 2008. J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy. Cambridge, 1998. Primary Texts Reading Part II A Treatise of Human Nature, (ed Selby-Bigge, OUP) esp: Book II Part 3 Of the will and direct passions Book III Of morals An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (ed Selby Bigge, OUP) 2
'Of the standard of taste' and 'Of the original contract' in Essays Moral, Political and Literary (ed E. Miller, Liberty Classics) General Reading Passion and Value in Hume's Treatise, P. Ardal, Edinburgh 1966 A Progress of Sentiments, A. Baier, Harvard 1991 The Cambridge Companion to Hume ed D. Fate Norton, Cambridge - see esp 'Hume, human nature, and the foundations of morality' The Pursuit of Certainty, S. Letwin, Cambridge - chapter on Hume Hume's Moral Theory J.L. Mackie, RKP 1980 Hume, B. Stroud, RKP 1977 Lecture 1 The Background to 18 th Century Moral Philosophy Hobbes Schneewind, 111-135 Locke Schneewind, 183-186 Darwall, Stephen, Norms and Normativity in Haakonssen (ed.), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth Century Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 987-1025. Darwall 1995, Chs. 1, 2, 3 & 6. Irwin 2008, Chs. 34, 35, 36 & 41. Norton, David Fate & Kuehn, Manfred, The Foundations of Morality in Haakonssen (ed.) pp. 939-986. Rawls, John, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Chapter 1. 3
Lecture 2 Shaftesbury Schneewind, pp. 483-501 Darwall 1995, Ch. 7. Gill, Michael B., The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics Cambridge University Press, 2006, Chs. 6, 7, 8 & 9. Gill, Michael B. Ethics and Sentiment: Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in Skorupski (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Ethics, 2010, 111-121. Irwin 2008, Ch. 45. Yaffe, Gideon Earl of Shaftesbury in Nadler (ed.) A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002, pp. 425-436. Lecture 3: Mandeville Schneewind, pp. 388-398. Cook, Harold J. Bernard Mandeville in Nadler (ed.), pp. 469-482. Schneewind, Jerome B., The Invention of Autonomy Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 323-329. Lecture 4: Hutcheson Schneewind, pp. 503-524. Darwall 1995, Ch. 8. Gill, Michael B., The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics Cambridge University Press, 2006, Chs. 10-14. 4
Gill, Michael B. Ethics and Sentiment: Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in Skorupski (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Ethics, 2010, 111-121. Irwin 2008, Chs. 47 & 48. Radcliffe, Elizabeth S., Francis Hutcheson in Nadler (ed.) pp. 456-468. Lecture 5: Butler Schneewind, pp. 525-544 Darwall 1995, Ch. 9. Irwin 2008, Chs. 51-54.. Schneewind, Jerome B., The Invention of Autonomy Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 342-352. Lecture 6: Hume Reason and Passion Treatise Book 2, Part 3, Section 3 pp 413-418 Of the influencing motives of the will, Treatise Book 3, Part 1, Section 1 Moral Distinctions not deriv'd from Reason 'Morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives' P. Foot in Virtues and Vices 'Skepticism about practical reason' C. Korsgaard, Journal of Philosophy 1986 and in Creating the Kingdom of Ends, Cambridge 1996 The Possibility of Altruism, T. Nagel Princeton 1970 'Internal and external reasons' B. Williams in Moral Luck Cambridge 1981 Lectures 7 and 8: Hume Morality and Sentiment 5
Treatise Book 3 Part 1 Of virtue and vice in general Treatise Book 3 Part 3 section 1 Of the origin of the natural virtues and vices Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, section 5 Why utility pleases and appendix 1 Concerning moral sentiment Spreading the Word, S. Blackburn, esp chapters 5 and 6 Oxford 1984 Essays in Quasi-Realism S. Blackburn (EBL) Reason and Morality A. Gewirth, Chicago 1978 'The compleat projectivist' R. Hale, Philosophical Quarterly vol 36 1986 'Dispositional theories of value' M. Johnston, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society suppl. vol. 63 1989 'Kant's analysis of obligation', C. Korsgaard Monist 1989 and in Creating the Kingdom of Ends Cambridge 1996 The Possibility of Altruism, T. Nagel Princeton 1970 'Truth, invention and the meaning of life' and 'A sensible subjectivism' D. Wiggins in Needs, Values, Truth Blackwell 1987 Lecture 9: Hume Natural and Artificial Virtue Treatise Book 3, part 2 Of justice and injustice Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, section 3 Of justice and appendix 3 Some farther considerations with regard to justice Theories of Justice B. Barry, University of California Press, 1989 Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation ed Richmond Campbell and Lanning Sowden, University of British Columbia Press, 1985 'Hume: norms and the obligation to be just' S. Darwall in his The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought' Cambridge 1995 6
'David Hume: contractarian' D. Gauthier, Moral Dealing Cornell Convention, D. Lewis, Blackwell 1969 Utilitarianism, JS Mill Chapter 5 Justice ed A. Ryan, OUP 1993 'Promising and obligation' T Pink in Philosophical Perspectives 2009, edited by John Hawthorne and Jason Turner - download from http://kcl.academia.edu/thomaspink Lecture 10: Hume Merit, Virtue and Talent Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, appendix 4, Of some verbal disputes 'Virtues and vices' P Foot in Virtues and Vices 'Moral luck' T. Nagel in Mortal Questions, Cambridge 1979 Freedom and Moral Sentiment, P. Russell, Oxford 1996 'Moral luck' B. Williams in Moral Luck Shame and Necessity B. Williams California 1993 7