Philosophical (or argumentative) texts must be read in a way that includes frequent stops when you pose to reflect on what you have just read, then writing down (in full paragraphs) what you think you understood.
More than one reading of key passages in a single text will be necessary and thus updates of notes will be written out. These reading notes (along with the material covered in class) will be the only sources for your papers. Your notes will be of two kinds:
(a) Descriptive notes: this where you simply describe in your own words what you think is going on in the text under consideration; these notes, in principle, should be of the sort that could be of use to third parties who never read the articles in question when it come to learning what they are about and their philosophical content.
(b) Normative notes: On occasion as you read along you will be struck a certain way, say a claim will strike you as false or implausible. This is when you must seize the moment and formulate your reasons for this belief. In other words, you will be constructing and evaluating your own arguments.
Readings:Meta-Ethics:
1. JAMES RACHELS, “Subjectivism,” (available for free download here).
2. GEOFFREY SAYRE-McCORD, “Moral Realism,” (available for free download here).
3. BERNARD BAERTSCHI, “The Argument of Ethical Naturalism” (available for free download here).
Normative Ethics:
4. JOHN STUART MILL, “Utilitarianism,” and “On Liberty” available online at: http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm
5. IMMANUEL KANT, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, available online at: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kant/immanuel/k16prm/
6. ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics, read Books I, II, and X, available online at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html).
Applied Ethics:
7. JAMES RACHEL, “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” (available free download here).
8. JUDITH JARVIS THOMPSON, “A Defense of Abortion,” (available free on this site).
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