Prof. Mark Tunick tunick@fau.edu Prof. Daniel White dwhite@fau.edu

Readings: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (2nd ed., Hackett, 0872204642), Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (2nd ed., Hackett, 087220166X), Charles Dickens's Hard Times (Norton Critical Edition, 3rd, 0393975606), Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Dover Value Edition, 048642703X) all are available for purchase at the bookstore. Other readings are available online. Some are files available at the Blackboard (BB) course site. In some cases to access online material if you are off-campus you need to create a proxy--your login is your 14-digit student ID, and the password is 'fau'. You are responsible for ALL assigned readings. Note that in some cases we might, with due notice, ask students to be accountable for some of the recommended reading, depending on how class discussions proceed.

Requirements: DRAFT: SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Grading will be based on three short papers of 4-5 pages each (20% each=60%),  a series of unannounced and/or announced in-class essays (20%), and a group research project/presentation (20%). Unexcused absences will result in a  grade reduction for the course; in class writings can't be made up without a valid excused absence. Be sure to bring to each class the reading for that day's class and take notes on the readings. Students agree to adhere to the honor code, the text of which is at http://www.fau.edu/divdept/honcol/academics_honor_code.htm. Class meets TR 4-5:20 pm in SR 275.

Contacting the Instructors:
Prof. Mark Tunick: phone: 799-8670; email: tunick@fau.edu; Prof. Dan White: phone: 799-8651; email: dwhite@fau.edu

1/12. Introduction.
    Reading: Bowen McCoy, Parable of the Sadhu, Harvard Business Review, May-June 1997, available online--go to Harvard Business Review; the article is available from multiple sources.
For those interested: Applied Ethics Resources on the web

1/14. Citizen Kane (Meet in AD 119--Auditorium, film begins promptly at 4pm)

1/19, 1/21. Ethical frameworks I: Aristotle and the life worth living.
    Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: Book 1: chapters 1-5, 7-10; Book 2: 1-2, 4, 6, 9; Book 3: 1-2, 5, 10-11; Book 4: 8; Book 6: 3-8, 12-13; Book 8: 1-4, 8 (paragraph 3 only); Book 9: 5-6, 10-12; Book 10: 6-9

For those interested: Aristotle, Politics, Book 1: 1-9, 13; Book 2: 1-5, 7-8; Book 3: 1, 4-13, 18; Book 4: 1-2, 4, 11; Book 5: 1-4, 8-9, 11; Book 6: 2-4; Book 7: 1-4, 8-9, 13-14, 16--available via Perseus collection (as is a version of Aristotle's Ethics); Internet resources on Aristotle's Ethics.
Films on the life worth living: Kurosawa's Ikiru, Fellini's La Dolce Vita, La Strada; Capra's You Can't Take it With You; Lost in Translation; Woman in the Dunes.

1/26. Ethical frameworks II: Kant
Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals

1/28. Kant (continued)
Kant, 'On a supposed right to lie' (included in Grounding)
Paper one due.

2/2. Ethical frameworks III: Utilitarianism
Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation: chapters 1-2, 4-5, 10 (Pars. 10-11, 16-22, 29, 33-35), 11 (BB).

Recommended: Bentham, Pannomial Fragments, chapter 4 (BB).
For those interested: The complete Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation is available online.

2/4. Utilitarianism (continued)
John Harris, 'The Survival Lottery', Philosophy 50:81-7 (1975)(BB)

2/9. Ethical frameworks IV: Contractarianism
John Rawls, Theory of Justice: pp. 3-7, 10-24, 52-55, 59-68, 103, 106-23, 285-90, 374-80, 386-91, 441-9 (BB). The book is also on reserve at the Library Circulation Desk.

For those interested: Kant, 'What is Enlightenment?' available online

II. Applications (1)

2/11. Animal rights
Peter Singer, 'All Animals are Equal', online; Carl Cohen, ‘The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research' (BB)

For those interested: Martha Nussbaum, "Animal Rights: The Need for a Theoretical Basis" (book review), 114 Harvard Law Review 1506 (2001), online

2/16. Animal Rights
Rdg: Colin McGinn, 'Animal Rights'(BB); Michael Pollan, "An Animal's Place," The New York Times Magazine, November 10, 2002, online

2/18. Is Wal-Mart Good for America
Film: The High Cost of Low Price
Rdg: Jay Nordlinger, "The New Colossus," National Review April 19, 2004; and John Cavanaugh and Sara Anderson, “Ten Reasons Why the Wal-Mart Pundits are Wrong",” The Nation (29 September 2006)
Recommended: Frontline: Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

2/23. In Defense of Capitalism
Rdg: Ludwig von Mises, "Liberty and Property," online; W.W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), Chapter 2, "The Five Stages of Growth--A Summary," pp. 4-16

Recommended: Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776), 1:1, 1:2, 4:2 (available online); Andrew Carnegie, Wealth (1889), North American Review 391: 653-64 (June 1889), available online;

2/25. Marxian critique of capitalism
Rdg:Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto, parts 1 and 2; "Estranged Labor" from Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
Film: Harlan County, U.S.A. (Criterion)--screening to be scheduled.

3/2. Weber's take on capitalism
Rdg: Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, chapters I-III, V (pp. 35-92, 155-83)

Recommended: Monzer Kahf, "Methodology of Islamic Economics," online; Timur Kuran, "Behavioral Norms in the Islamic Doctrine of Economics," Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 4:353-79 (1983)(BB); E. F. Schumacher, "Buddhist Economics" (online)
For those interested: "Putting Buddhism to Work" (available onlin); "Islamic Economics: The Emergence of a New Paradigm” John R. Presley and John G. Sessions The Economic Journal, Vol. 104, No. 424 (May, 1994), pp. 584-596; Spencer, "Man versus the State"; Adorno, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, available online; a contemporary perspective on Social Darwinism; Herbert Spencer, "Progress, its Law and Cause" (1857), available online
Paper 2 due.

3/4. The capitalist and ethics
Mother Jones' story on the Ford Pinto case: "Pinto Madness," available online; Milton Friedman, "The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits"(BB)

3/9, 3/11 NO CLASS: SPRING BREAK

3/16, 3/18. Capitalism and the moral life
Rdg: Charles Dickens, Hard Times
Recommended Film: Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (1941), dvd on reserve in the library

Recommended reading: The following essays in the Norton Critical Edition of Hard Times: Essays on Industrialism, pp. 291-312; Essays on Education, pp. 331-36; Essays on Utilitarianism and the Science of Political Economy, pp. 337-51; and Nussbaum, "Literary Imagination in Public Life," pp. 429-39.
For those interested: Melville, Bartleby; Films:  American Madness (1932), Hud (1963), Grand Hotel (1932), The Last Laugh (1922), Lost Horizon (1937), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), Meet John Doe (1941), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), On the Waterfront (1954), Matewan (1987).

IV. Applications (2)

3/23. Designer Babies and the Ethics of Cloning
Rdg: "Designer Babies: Choosing our children's genes," www.thelancet.com vol.372:1294 (Oct. 11, 2008); Martin Johnson, "A moral case study for discussion: designer babies and tissue typing," Reproductive BioMedicine online 9(4):372 (July 29, 2004); Mary Warnock, "What is Natural? And Should we Care?" Philosophy 78(306):445-59 (Oct. 2003).
For those interested: John Robertson, "Procreative Liberty in the Era of Genomics," American Journal of Law and Medicine 29:439-87(2003).

3/25. Promising (1)
Rdg: William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, bk. 3, ch. 3, available online; Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, Book III, part II, section 5: 'Of the obligation of promises', online ; Korn and Korn, 'Where People Don't Promise', Ethics 93:445-50 (1983), available online at jstor

3/30. Promising (2)
Rdg: Thomas Scanlon, 'Promises and Practices', Philosophy and Public Affairs 19:199-226 (Summer 1990), available online at jstor

4/1. The Ethics of Reality TV: the case of "To Catch a Predator" and entrapment
Episodes of To Catch a Predator
Rdg:Conradt v. NBC Universal; Grigoriadis, "The New American Witch Hunt," Rolling Stone 1032:64-71 (August 9, 2007); and tba

4/6. The obligation to tell the truth (1): Journalistic Ethics and the use of deception
Rdg: Food Lion v. ABC; and tba

4/8.  The obligation to tell the truth (2)
Plaintiff's brief, footnote 3, from Laidlaw v. Organ, 2 Wheat (15 U.S.) 178 (1817)(BB); Albert Carr, Is Business Bluffing Ethical? (BB); Thomas Carson, "Second Thoughts about Bluffing" (BB)
Recommended: Kant, "On the Old Saw: That May be Right in Theory But it Won't Work in Practice" (BB): see especially Part 1: pp. 41-43, 51 ("Now I come to...)-56; Part 2; and Part 3.

4/13. Truth vs other values
Rdg: J.S. Mill, On Liberty ch. 2; Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 US 524 (1989).

4/15. Obligations to strangers and the ethics of international affairs
Rdg: Nussbaum, "Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid: Cicero's Problematic Legacy," Journal of Political Philosophy 8(2):176-206 (2000) (BB)
Recommended: Frontline: Sick around the world
For those interested: Walzer, "Humanitarian Intervention" (BB); Kenneth Roth, "The War in Iraq: Justified as Humanitarian Intervention?", online; Frontline: Obama's War

4/20. Ethics in a multicultural world
Rdg: Camus, "The Guest"; Margaret Talbot, “Baghdad on the Plains,” New Republic (August 11, 1997)

4/22, 4/27 . Group presentations
Paper 3 due.