Description
This course is designed to explore the fundamental factors involved in moral decision-making and the discovery of ethical principles, in order to achieve a critical and reasoned understanding of the meaning and basis of morality. The course will include a rigorous examination of ethical theory, and a study of the derivation of moral principles and values and their application in ethical decision- making. Throughout the course, we will seek not so much to form judgments about specific moral issues, but to improve our thinking about the considerations that may count as reasons for and against particular moral judgments. The required texts for this course are Russ Shafer-Landau’s The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2012; ISBN: 978-0-19-977352-7) and Russ Shafer-Landau’s The Fundamentals of Ethics, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2012; ISBN: 978-0-19-977355-8).