|
I. What is moral responsibility and what difference does it
make? |
| For this date |
Reading to do |
Things to do |
Submit deadline |
| Thur. 8/20 |
Machina,
"Moral Responsibility
-- What Is It and Who Cares?" (Click to download the pdf.) |
Explore the course Web site and make
arrangements to get the required text. Print and read the listed material,
and bring your copy to class. Come prepared to discuss and raise questions
or objections. Take the included study questions seriously. Discussion notes
from the class are now found here. |
None |
| Tue. 8/25 |
Machina,
"Morality without Responsibility" |
Print and bring your copy to class, along
with the previous reading, so you have something to refer to. Make written
notes about questions or objections or other remarks about the readings you
have. Submit these at the beginning of class; so make a copy for your own
use. (These should be brief and to the point. No more than a page.) The
discussion notes from the previous class are posted above. Discussion notes
on this reading are posted
here. |
Tue. 8/25 |
| Thur. 8/27 |
Machina,
"'Free Will' as
a Requirement for Being Morally Responsible" |
Print and bring copy to class for reference.
Write very brief answers to the following questions to turn in: 1) How does
libertarianism differ from other views about the sort of control an agent
needs in order to be MR? 2) How do the two libertarian accounts of
free will differ from each other? |
Thur. 8/27 |
| II. Libertarianism:
humans possess moral responsibility because humans have a potent kind of
free will |
| Tue. 9/1 |
Kane, "Libertarianism" in Four Views on
Free Will, Chapter 1. Read at least to page 22. |
You should be able to figure out how Kane's
views fit into the conceptual framework we have been developing. Kane's
ideas represent one of two libertarian positions we will look at. He rejects
the agent cause version of libertarianism. We will look next week at
O'Connor's agent cause version. Here are the
notes from the class. |
None |
| Thur. 9/3 |
Finish the above chapter, if you haven't
already done so. |
Write a paragraph about whether Kane's
description of how libertarian free will works in the case of SFA's
convinces you that the agent is sufficiently in control to be morally
responsible. Or, is the choice in such cases too much a matter of
chance? Here are some notes about the
reading. |
Thur 9/3 |
| Tue. 9/8 |
Machina,
"An Agent-Causal Account of Free Will and Moral Responsibility: Tim
O'Connor". Read at least up to the section that begins the
objections to O'Connor's view. |
There will be a simple quiz on the reading
in class, to get the juices flowing. |
Tue. 9/8 |
| Thur. 9/10 |
Finish Machina on O'Connor's libertarianism,
found above, if you haven't already done so. |
Begin planning for Essay #1 -- avoid getting
stuck producing a one-night wonder. Here are the
instructions for the essay. |
Essay #1, Thur. 9/17 |
| Tue. 9/15 |
Here is a
copy of the Machina summary of three versions of the consequence argument,
briefly discussed on Thursday. |
Class will be about reflecting on
libertarian views and dealing with questions about it. Work on your essay!
Note that there is some new reading for Thursday, so plan ahead.
Here are some discussion notes on
Kane versus O'Connor. |
None |
| III. Some relevant
empirical claims about choice-making, from the field of psychology |
| Thur. 9/17 |
Ross, "Empirical
Constraints on the Problem of Free Will" |
This is the first
time this term that a reading is available through Milner's reserves
system. Access requires signing in when asked. Finally,
here is the
study guide for this reading. Don't blow off the reading simply
because the first essay is due. |
Essay #1, Thur. 9/17 |
| Tue. 9/22 |
Reread the Ross
chapter listed above, along with the commentary listed to the right. |
Here is a lengthy
commentary to use in connection with the reading. At the end, there are
some questions. Write brief answers to each, bring to class in duplicate
so you can hand in one copy while retaining one to use during class. |
Tue.
9/22 |
| IV.
Compatibilism: determinism does not undermine personal responsibility |
| Thur. 9/24 |
Fischer,
"Compatibilism", Chapter 2 in Four Views on Free Will. Sections
1 - 5 |
There will be a
brief quiz on this reading in class. |
Thur.
9/24 |
| Tue. 9/29 |
Fischer,
"Compatibilism", complete the chapter. |
Come prepared to
discuss how Fischer's semi-compatibilism is different from classic
compatibilism, and why Fischer thinks semi-compatibilism is a better
view. Class notes are found
here. |
None |
| Thur. 10/1 |
Machina on
Fischer's theory of MR, from the draft textbook |
This may help with
understanding Fischer's view. Read this in connection with Section 8 of
the textbook chapter by Fischer. Come prepared to discuss the questions
raised in the Machina reading.
IF you have NOT YET scheduled a meeting to discuss your paper grade and
comments, please check your ISU e-mail for instructions.
HERE is a set of questions to answer in prep for the meeting: (WordPerfect
version;
Word
version)
HERE are some notes on
Sec. 6, 7, and 8 from Fischer's chapter. Use these instead of Section 7
in the text. |
None |
| Tue. 10/6 |
Parts of Fischer,
"Responsibility and Manipulation" posted in the Academic Search Premier
database
here. (The link here takes you to the citation page in the database.
To see the article, click on the PDF button on that page.) |
We will focus only
on the following pages from this article: 145 to middle 147, and bottom
of 154 to top 163. Write a brief reaction to the way Fischer's theory
ends up handling the Prof. Plum case, to hand in.
Here is the Midterm
Examination. |
Tue.
10/6 |
| Thur. 10/8 |
Review. |
Work on the
Midterm. Class will be a discussion about compatibilism and the Midterm. |
None |
| Tue. 10/13 |
None |
Complete the
Midterm. Class session content will be determined by what has gone
before.
Because of the pleas from some students, the date for the Midterm is now
10/15 |
Midterm Thur. 10/15 |
| The class schedule for the rest
of the semester will be found on the "Schedule
2nd half" page. |
