Philosophy 1: Introduction to Philosophy, Spring Quarter 2008

Philosophy 1: Introduction to Philosophy
(Officially: The Nature of Philosophy)

Spring Quarter 2008. UCSD.
Time: MW 5:00-6:20pm
Room: York 4080A
Instructor: Rick Grush (rick@mind.ucsd.edu -- http://mind.ucsd.edu)
Office Hours: Th 3-5, Muir Coffee Shop
Office Phone: 822-4440 (note that email is a much more reliable way to contact me)

[ Schedule ]
[ Short Description ]
[ Grades ]
[ Exam Statistics ]
[ Score Sheets ]
[ Email list ]
[ ]

Readings
Readings area available as password-protected pdf files here:
Readings for first third of course on Philosophy of Religion download here (424k).
Readings for second third of course on Biomedical Ethics download here (1.2MB).
Readings for final third of course on personal identity download here (1.2MB).

Schedule:

Session 01 (03.31.08): Introduction to course, proofs for existence of God, and the argument from Design.

Readings
Aquinas: 'Five Ways' from Summa Theologica
Paley: Natural Theology: Chapters 1 and 2

Session 02 (04.02.08): Argument from Design (Continued)

Quiz #1 (on all readings listed under Sessions 01 and 02)
Readings
Paley: Natural Theology: Chapters 1 and 2 (continued)
Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Parts 1-8

Session 03 (04.07.08): Argument from Design (Continued)

Readings
Swinburne: The Argument from Design
Aquinas: 'Five Ways' from Summa Theologica

Session 04 (04.09.08): Cosmological Argument

Readings
Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Part IX
Taylor: The cosmological argument: a defense.
Edwards: A critique of the cosmological argument.

Session 05 (04.14.08): Cosmological Argument (continued)

Quiz #2 (on all readings listed under Sessions 05)
Readings:
Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Part IX
Taylor: The cosmological argument: a defense.
Edwards: A critique of the cosmological argument.

Session 06 (04.16.08): The Problem of Evil

Readings:
Anselm: Proslogion (with reply from Guanilo)
Plantinga: The Ontological Argument

Session 07 (04.21.08): The Problem of Evil

Quiz #3 (on all readings listed under Sessions 06 and 07)
Readings:
Swinburne: The problem of evil.
Phillips: The problem of evil: A critique of Swinburne

Session 08 (04.23.08): Midterm One --

Examples of high-scoring essays:

Session 09 (04.28.08):

Readings:
Grush: Introduction to some basic ethical orientations
Tobriner (majority opinion). Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California
Clark (dissenting). Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California

Session 10 (04.30.08):

Quiz #4 (on all readings listed under Session 09-10) --
Readings:
Moss and Siegler: Should alcoholics compete equally for liver transplantation?
Cohen and Benjamin: Alcoholics and liver transplantation

Session 11 (05.05.08):

Readings:
The Nurmeberg Code
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
London: Children and minimal risk research: The Kennedy-Krieger lead paint study

Session 12 (05.07.08):

Quiz #5 (on all readings listed under Session 11-13) --
Readings:
Andersen: Genetics and human maleability.
Glover: Questions abut some uses of genetic engineering.

Session 13 (05.12.08):

Readings:
Rachels:Active and passive euthanasia
Beachamp: Reply to Rachels

Session 14 (05.14.08):

Midterm Two

Session 15 (05.19.08):

Readings:
Descartes, Rene, Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditations 1 and 2
Locke, John, Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Book II, Chapter 17

Session 16 (05.21.08):

Quiz #6 (on all readings listed under Session 15-16) --
Readings:
Sperry, 'Hemisphere disconnection and unity in conscious awareness'
Dennett, Daniel, 'The self as a center of narrative gravity'

Session 17 (05.28.08):

Quiz #7 (on all readings listed under Session 17-18) --
Readings:
Williams, Bernard, 'The self and the future'

Session 18 (06.02.08):

Readings:

Parfit, Derek, 'Personal Identity'

Session 19 (06.04.08):

Midterm Three

Short Description:

Content.

This course will introduce students to some of the central methods and concerns of philosophy through three topics, each of which will occupy us for about a third of the quarter. First, we will look at a central topic of philosophy of religion: attempted proofs for (and against) the existence of God. Next, we will look at topics in biomedical ethics, such as genetic engineering, euthanasia, and health care-related resources. The final third will be concerned with personal identity -- that is, what exactly is it that makes you you. Each of these will be discussed in a bit more detail below.

The existence of God. Though they are no longer at the center of philosophical concerns, attempted proofs for the existence of God have been discussed by philosophers a least since Anselm (1033-1109), and through the 18th Century. And even now they remain a topic of interest, though only by a small minority of professional philosophers. We will look at three 'proofs' for God's existence, and one 'proof' against. The cosmological argument attempts to establish that there must be some being which caused the physical universe to exist, this being itself being an uncaused cause. The teleological argument or argument from design argues that order in the universe can only be explained on the assumption of an intelligent designer. And the ontological argument attempts to prove that a supremely perfect being must exist, since the assumption that such a being does not exists leads to a contradiction. We will examine each of these arguments in some detail.

Topics in Biomedical Ethics. Biomedical ethics is a broad field concerned with ethical issues raised by health care and medical science. Of the many dozens of topics, we will explore only two. First, the issue of genetic engineering. Proponents see the technology as a promising way to prevent many maladies and enhance human characteristics, while opponents fear that it could widen social inequalities, create different 'classes' of people, and perhaps open the door for horrific abuses or accidents. The second topic will concern the distribution of medical resources. On one side, many have argued that tying health-care resources to financial concerns is unacceptably unfair, resulting in situations where, for instance, poor regions of the world simply cannot afford certain kinds of medications. On the other hand, the development of new treatments and drugs is a very expensive and risky business that would certainly no longer be persued by many groups if they could not make money or at least finance their own research. [I may substitute euthanasia for resource allocation.]

Personal Identity. It is not uncommon for people to feel as though they are not the same person they were in their childhood, or that someone is 'not herself' when under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or even a neurological disorder. Such loose metaphors aside, it is often important to answer questions such as 'Are A and B the same person?', and this is what personal identity is about. In legal contexts it may be important to know if a will made out by someone in 1990 should be superceded by the wishes of a patient in a hospital bed who is suffering from severe dementia -- is that the same person, who has authority to change the will, or is this a different person in some legally significant sense? Science fiction presents us with many cases, some of which my one day be science fact, where personal identity is an issue. Do the transporters on Star Trek move a person from one location to another, or do they destroy a person at the first location and create a duplicate, (with the same memories, of course) at the new location? Would it be possible to become immortal by having the synapses in your brain replaced by (or moved to) silicon relays in an undying machine, or would this simply result in your death and the creation of a new being that was under the delusion that it had once been implemented in a biological brain?

Structure.

There are two lectures per week. Grades will be based on two in-class midterm exams and one final exam, and intermittent multiple-choice quizzes on the readings.

Text and other materials.

All readings for this course will be available from this website for free. There will be a password-accessed section of this site that will have all readings when the class begins.

Grades:

Grades will be based on a number of factors:

1. Quizzes. There will be 10 in-class quizzes worth 10 points each, for a total of 100 points. For each student, their two lowest quiz scores will be replaced by their two highest quiz scores. This effectively means that you can miss or bomb up to two quizzes without penalty, so long as you do well on the others. This mechanism is also intended to cover quizzes that are missed for unforseen circumstances, such as illness or traffic jams. So don't just tank on the first two quizzes thinking that they won't matter, because if you get called to jury duty or something in week 9 and miss a third quiz, there will be no means of making up that third quiz.

2. There will be three exams, each of which will have a multiple choice section worth 30 points, and two essay questions worth 35 points each, for a total of 100 points per exam.

Thus the total points possible for the course will be 400.

Exam Statistics:

TBA

Score Sheets

The scores will be posted here. Scores are listed by a coded version of your student ID number in order to protect privacy, as per University regulations. In order to determine what your coded ID number is, do the following. Take your student ID number. This will be something like a letter followed by 8 digits, like "A01234567". Remove the letter and the first digit, and you're left with a string of 7 digits, like "1234567". Take the first four digits, and treat this as a 4 digit number (something between 0000 and 9999); and take the last four digits and treat this like another 4-digit number. In the example above, they would be "1234" and "4567". Add these two numbers together, for example: 1234 + 4567 = 5801. If the number you get is 5 digits, remove the first digit to make it 4 digits long; if it is 4, then keep it at 4 digits. This is your coded ID number. To see another example: If your student ID is "A05367921", you drop the first letter and number: "5367921"; then take the first 4 digits: "5367"; and the last 4 digits "7921"; add them together: 5367+7921=13288. If the result is 5 digits, remove the first digit: "3288". If you cannot find your row on the score sheet, email me with your name, section, and ID number, AND WHAT YOU DETERMINED YOUR CODED ID NUMBER IS.

Final score sheets including letter grades

There is a Google group for this class, and it is a course requirement that you either subscribe to the list and set your membership to receive email announcements, or that you regularly, at least once or twice a week, check the page online to read the announcements. You can get to the announcement page here:

http://groups.google.com/group/ucsd-phil1-spring-08

I recommend that you click on that link now, and sign up for the group. Don't worry, only I can post, so you won't be getting a lot of spam. If you have any trouble, click HERE for a step-by-step walkthrough of how to sign up.

If for whatever reason you don't wish to sign up, that is OK. You can still visit the page to read any announcements without signing up. But the announcements won't be emailed to you, you will have to remember to visit the page often to read the announcements. Remember, you are responsible for any information or announcements posted to this group.

When the quarter is over, and it is clear that no more announcements will be needed (like where to pick up finals, or whatever), I will delete this group. So if you are subscribed, there wil be no need to unsubscribe.

How to do well in this course:

1. Be sure to read the assigned material before class. This will help to ensure that our class time is quality time, and not wasted with me and some of the students reiterating the material to those who haven't read it. Reading the material before class will also help you get some points on the quizzes, and that is a good thing.

2. Use the study questions to help you focus on the important topics in the readings, and also to help you determine if there is some topic you don't understand. Try to get to the point where you would feel comfortable answering all the study questions before class meets. But if there are a few that you are still finding difficult, don't panic.

3. Bring specific questions with you to lecture. Even if there are aspects of the readings or study questions you didn't fully grasp, the fact that you tried should help you to narrow down what it is that you don't get.

4. See me in office hours, or email me, if there are still questions you are unclear about. That's what office hours are for. Don't be shy.

5. After class, re-read the material for the session, paying special attention to the questions that you had before. Hopefully the material will make much more sense to you now.

6. Manage your time well. Many students are lazy, and wait until a few days before exams to start studying. That is bad time management. The same number of hours devoted to the material BEFORE lectures can lead to a much more efficient use of your time, better understanding, and higher grades.