Phil 350: Ethical Theory (Fall 2011)

Paper #1 (on Shafer-Landau)

This paper asks you to select several of the foundational problems discussed in S-L Part III (thus, our focus on Oct. 5) and apply them to two or more theories in S-L Part II.  More specifically, you should identify one or more foundational challenges that you find particularly threatening to morality as such (i.e., relativism, scepticism, nihilism, or some sub-category thereof, such as error theory or expressivism), and explain why you regard (or not) these as (the most) serious challenges to morality as a normative enterprise. Then select one or more normative moral theories from Part II that seem to you to most able to deal with these challenges, and one or more that seem most threatened by them. That is, if relativism is the problem, does consequentialism have the best defense against it, or proceduralism of some sort, or natural law theory? In turn, which theory seems weakest in terms of responding to or neutralizing those particular challenges? The assignment rests on the assumption that metaethical questions about moral foundations are not unrelated to the type of normative theory being examined, and that different normative theories may be more or less capable of responding to particular foundationalist critics. Note that it is not assumed that your paper will come up with a successful ‘save’ of morality. Even though certain moral theories may present a better (or less bad) response -- in the sense of being able to deal with particular criticisms, by making fewer or less arbitrary assumptions to metaethical challenges, for instance -- they may still be lacking (i.e., baseless, unjustified, presumptive, fanciful, wishful thinking, etc.). Of course, that, too, will be a significant result.

It is hoped that at least several of the papers will be good enough (after further revision) to submit as entries to the WKU Student Research Conference in the Spring. Their length will certainly be appropriate for this, and the topics compelling for a general audience.

The papers are also conceived as a prelude to the comparison of liberal internationalism and realism (Rawls and Geuss) later in the semester, which will involve the same sort of intersection between normative and foundational issues. This is not because law is or should be moralistic (i.e., legislate morality) or because it may be deduced from a particular (secular or religious) moral theory, but because it too requires legitimation in the context of some broader approach to value. That is, the same metaethical questions that haunt moral theory also confront law as an intellectual enterprise.  

Accordingly, your papers at the end of the semester will build on these earlier studies. And while I hope to have the latter become the basis of a presentation next spring (which you can add to your CV), the final papers for the course will hopefully become candidates for submission to a student philosophy journal, or an off-campus student philosophy conference. Their topic (international law) is contemporary and important, and you will have done some of the theoretical groundwork on which that legal dispute rests. The two papers are thus part of a larger intellectual project over the course of the semester, and perhaps beyond.

Note, too, that the intervening material (i.e., the interviews with various moral philosophers) will also support your final project. The philosophical diversity of these interviews provide a further opportunity to reflect on the issues encountered in S-L, and addressed in your first paper. If you have read S-L carefully, been physically and mentally present in class, and have allowed yourself to develop a personal interest in the topic, you will find yourself well prepared to follow and assess the various interviewees’ positions, and will see them as a useful opportunities to continue lines of questioning that you have already pursued. Thus, the semester will be a continuous process of inquiry – which is the point of doing all of this in the first place. 

More down to earth … the paper should be 6-8 pages in length (1.5 spacing) and will be due in about two weeks (around Oct. 17. I’m willing to be somewhat flexible in this regard, within reason, in order to assure better quality work on your part.