Philosophy 101, Introduction to Philosophy: Freedom, Mind, Morality, and Mortality (HU)

LEC 402 MW 12:00 – 12:50 LUB S151
LEC 403 MW 2:00 – 2:50 EMS E180
Instructor: Luca Ferrero, ferrero@uwm.edu
Enrollment in one of the large lectures (402 or 403) requires enrollment in a discussion section

A distinctive feature of human existence is our capacity to raise basic questions about the nature of our existence and our place in the universe. In this course we will examine several such questions: Is our Will Free or are all of our Actions Determined? Do we have a Soul? How is the Mind related to the Body? Could a Computer really Think and have Consciousness? Is the World just a Dream? Does God Exist? If God is Good, why is there so much Evil? What does Morality require of us? What is Justice? Can we make sense of Immortality? Should we fear Death? What is the Meaning of Life?

Philosophy 101, Introduction to Philosophy: Selected Topics & Issues (HU)

LEC 001 T 5:00 — 7:40 CRT 109
Instructor: William Albuquerque, albuque3@uwm.edu

We will look at a representative selection of topics from the history of philosophy and current philosophical debates: ethics, social and political philosophy, the scope and nature of our knowledge of the world, the nature of the self and mind.

Philosophy 111, Informal Logic – Critical Reasoning (HU)

LEC 001 MW 11:00 – 12:15 LUB N130
LEC 002 MW 2:00—3:15 LUB S233
LEC 203 ONLINE WEB
Instructor: Matthew Knachel, knachel@uwm.edu

There’s an ancient view, still widely held, that what makes human beings special—what distinguishes us from the “beasts of the field”—is that we are rational. What does rationality consist in? That’s a vexed question, but one possible response goes roughly like this: we manifest our rationality by engaging in certain activities, chief among them the activity of making claims and backing them up with reasons—that is, constructing arguments.
This reasoning activity can be done well and it can be done badly—it can be done correctly or incorrectly. Logic is the discipline that aims to distinguish good reasoning from bad.

Since reasoning is central to all fields of study—indeed, since it’s arguably central to being human—the tools developed in logic are universally applicable. Anyone can benefit from studying logic by becoming a more self-aware, skillful reasoner.
It is possible to approach the study of logic more or less formally. A more formal approach abstracts from natural language and develops sophisticated artificial symbol-languages within which it’s possible precisely to identify the logically relevant features of arguments. This approach has many virtues, but it is only one among many, and it focuses on only one kind of argument (deductive). In this class, we explore a diverse collection of methods and principles for evaluating many different kinds of arguments. We take a very brief look at the formal techniques mentioned above, but spend most of our time studying arguments presented in natural language, as they occur in everyday reasoning.

Philosophy 204, Introduction to Asian Religions (HU)

LEC 401 MW 9:00-9:50 BOL B56
Instructor: TBA
Enrollment in the large lecture (401) also requires enrollment in a discussion section.

Have you ever wondered how people from another part of the world respond to the most basic questions of human life? What is the nature of reality? Are all things interconnected? What is the nature of the human “self”? Does anything transcend the material world? What does it mean to be “enlightened”? What is the purpose of meditation? Join us to explore the religious and philosophical traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism as they are expressed in both South Asia and China!

This is an introductory course and no previous experience in philosophy is required.

Global Studies 201, Introduction to Global Studies II: Economics and the Environment (SS)

LEC 001 MW 12:30-1:45 BOL B60
Instructor: Stan Husi, husi@uwm.edu

This course aims at an ethical assessment of the global human situation that is philosophically as well as empirically informed. The chief focus will be on global distributions of wealth and poverty, or welfare, as affected by current economical dynamics and by climate change. What explains these distributions, and what are the criteria for their assessment? What are the implications for our individual as well as collective moral responsibilities? What policy choices are advisable as we tread forward into a somewhat precarious future? To tackle these questions, we must attain an understanding of the main controversies and arguments in ethical theory and public policy, ranging from disagreements about principle, about the proper level of enthusiasm about market-based or government-based approaches, to the nuts and bolts of policy-making in a political system such as ours. To foster the intended lively debate, we will be reading contemporary statements of clashing ethical and economic assessments of the global human situation.

Philosophy 211, Elementary Logic (HU, QLB)

LEC 001 T 5:00—7:40 CRT 209
Instructor: Aaron Arinder, aarinder@uwm.edu
LEC 202 ONLINE WEB
Instructor: Matthew Knachel, knachel@uwm.edu
LEC 403 MW 10:00 – 10:50 CRT 175
LEC 404 MW 12:00 – 12:50 CRT 175
Instructor: Michael Liston, mnliston@uwm.edu
Enrollment in one of the large lectures (403 or 404) requires enrollment in a discussion section.

Humans are reasoning animals, and logic is the study of the rules and principles of correct reasoning, the science of what follows from what. Logic know-how is a skill, one of the most important skills you will ever develop, both for your college and later career and for your everyday life. It teaches you how to analyze concepts, ideas, arguments, and break them down into their simplest components. You are then in a position to recognize the relationships between those components, to see how they are connected together (or not), and thereby to understand how and why one thing follows from another. At the same time, it teaches you how to construct ‘paths of reasoning’, how to get from one idea to another, how, for example, to determine what is the best course of action in a particular situation.

Apart from its application in virtually every field of study, the study of logic will help you develop your analytical and quantitative skills, your writing skills, your communication skills, and your day to day reasoning. You’ll become a better thinker and a better reasoner. You may not be aware that you are doing so, but you’re using logic now, and you’ll use it every day, for the rest of your life.

This is an introductory course in formal (symbolic) logic intended for students who have had no previous work in logic. There will be 3 exams and weekly homework assignments. The course satisfies General Education Humanities and QLB requirements. The course also satisfies the L&S Formal Reasoning Requirement for the B.A. degree.

Philosophy 212, Modern Deductive Logic (HU)

LEC 001 TR 2:00 – 3:15 LUB S231
Instructor: Stephen Leeds, sleeds@uwm.edu
Prereq: grade C or better in philos 211 (P)
Taught with Philos 712-001

Formal logic, at the level taught in this class, is a central tool in present day philosophy. This is in part because writing out arguments in symbolic logic notation helps to make them clearer; even more, however, it is because the language of symbolic logic is both simple enough that we understand how it works, and complex enough to shed light on the symbolic systems that really interest us – particularly, English, and the language of mathematics. The goal of the class is to bring you up to the point where, given a valid argument (one where the conclusion follows from the premisses), you will be able to translate the argument into logic, and show that it is valid. You will also be learning a few deep theorems about logic, first proved about 80 years ago: that if an argument is valid, we can use logic to show it is, and that there is no general method by which we can pick out the valid from the invalid arguments. (You will also be learning why, despite first appearances, these two theorems don’t contradict one another).

Philosophy 232, Topics in Philosophy: Happiness (HU)

LEC 201 ONLINE
Instructor: Miren Boehm, boehmm@uwm.edu
Retakable w/chg in topic to 6 cr max.

We study this fascinating issue primarily from the point of view of western philosophy and psychology. But we will also explore the question from the perspective of eastern philosophy, literature, and film. What is happiness and why is it so difficult to attain? Is happiness just a feeling? Does meditation promote happiness? What, if anything, is the role of religion in achieving happiness? Is there an essential relation between happiness and morality? Can bad guys be happy? What is the relation between happiness and meaning? Can someone enjoy a meaningful life without begin happy? Is happiness the highest good?

Philosophy 237, Technology, Values, & Society (HU)

LEC 201 ONLINE
Instructor: Elizabeth Silverstein, silvers2@uwm.edu

Technology has an impact on nearly every aspect of our lives. We live with laptops, cell phones, and tablets that connect us instantly and constantly to people all around the world and to masses of information. At the same time this unprecedented access to people and information can alienate us from our immediate surroundings as we walk through the world with our eyes and fingers glued to our favorite devices. In this course we will start by thinking about how technology changes the way we experience our world. We will focus on the ways technology enhances the human experience, in what ways it alienates us from our selves and our environment, and how it is changing what it means to be a person. The ethical implications of our evolving dependence on technology will be debated and discussed. We will then look at specific moral problems related to technology and its impact on our lives including its effects on privacy and human freedom, the environment, and human health including the potential impact of genetic enhancement and cloning.

Philosophy 241, Introductory Ethics (HU)

LEC 401 MW 11:00 – 11:50 CRT 175
Instructor: Nataliya Palatnik, palatnik@uwm.edu
Enrollment in the large lecture (401) also requires enrollment in a discussion section.

Most people agree that morality involves standards that should be taken seriously in guiding conduct and assessing our claims against others. Yet various moral philosophers have offered very different accounts of what morality is and why we should care about it. We will study four basic philosophical approaches to morality and consider how they have shaped the history of ethical thought as well as their influence on moral philosophy today. We will first consider ethical rationalism, which takes moral principles to describe an independent order of values fixed in the nature of things, and the ideal-spectator approach, which takes morally wrong actions to be those an impartial sympathetic observer would disapprove of. We will then turn to Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy, which grounds morality in rational principles which all reasonable agents possess in common in virtue of their status as rational beings, and contractualism, according to which the correct moral principles are those which would be agreed to by all reasonable beings as a basis for their community. We shall see how these basic approaches get reflected in theories of social and economic justice.

Philosophy 243, Moral Problems (HU)

LEC 201: Abortion ONLINE (01/25—02/27/16)
LEC 202: Euthanasia ONLINE (02/29—04/09/16)
LEC 203: Global Poverty ONLINE (04/11—05/10/16)
Instructor: Miren Boehm, boehmm@uwm.edu
Note: LEC 201, 202, & 203 are worth one credit each. You do not have to enroll for all three sections.
Retakable w/chg in topic to 6 cr max.

243-201 Abortion: What would it mean for abortion to be morally wrong? What is the moral status of the fetus? Does it have a right to life? What is the concept of a person? What does it mean to have a right to one’s body? What does feminist theory say about abortion? What does religion have to say about the ethics of abortion? In this course we will address these and other difficult philosophical questions.

243-202 Euthanasia: Why would there by anything morally wrong with assisting someone in ending her life when she is suffering and wants to end her life? What is death? What is a person? What is personal dignity? What is ordinary as opposed to extraordinary medical treatment? What is the moral difference between killing and letting die? In this course we will address these and other difficult philosophical problems.

243-203 Global Poverty: This course raises some fundamental questions regarding the nature of our relation to the less fortunate and to the victims of discrimination. It raises questions about our individual obligations to others and our collective obligations to others. We shall examine and question our conceptual, moral schemas, starting with our distinction between obligation and charity. We discuss the topics of the distribution of responsibilities in a world swamped in suffering, the population problem, the problem of gender inequalities across the world, and the rights of individuals in the global community.

Philosophy 244, Ethical Issues in Health Care: Contemporary Problems (HU)

LEC 001 R 6:00-8:40 EMS E159
LEC 202 ONLINE
Instructor: Kristin Tym, tymk@uwm.edu
Retakable w/chg in topic to 6 cr max.

This course will provide a general overview of many of the challenging ethical issues faced in health care delivery today. We will begin the course with an introduction to ethical theories and other approaches to moral decision-making. These theories and approaches will then be applied to ethical problems currently confronting health care providers, patients and their families, and society at large. Issues we will consider include informed consent and confidentiality, futility and withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, euthanasia and assisted suicide, assisted reproduction, genetics, allocation of scarce resources and research ethics.

Philosophy 244, Ethical Issues in Health Care: Bioethics (HU)

LEC 003 TR 9:30—10:45 LUB S233
Instructor: Benjamin Serber, bserber@uwm.edu
Retakable w/chg in topic to 6 cr max.

This course will provide a general overview of many of the challenging ethical issues faced in health care delivery today. We will begin the course with an introduction to ethical theories and other approaches to moral decision-making. These theories and approaches will then be applied to ethical problems that have confronted health care providers, patients and their families, and society at large. Issues we will consider include the definability of life, informed consent and confidentiality, futility and withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, euthanasia and assisted suicide, assisted reproduction, genetic testing, allocation of scarce resources, and research ethics.

Philosophy 303, Theory of Knowledge

LEC 001 TR 2:00—3:15 CRT 109
Instructor: Edward Hinchman, hinchman@uwm.edu
Prereq: jr st; Philos 101(P), 201(P), or 215(P).

This course will focus on belief, judgment, and truth, as well as knowledge. It will address issues that fall into three groups: (a) What are the natures of believing and judging as psychological acts or states? (b) What norms govern believing and judging, and how do they work? Can you, or a ‘part’ of you, believe merely at will? If not, why not? If so, how does motivated believing work? (c) What, more generally, are the natures of these norms? How do epistemic norms differ from practical norms? Do believing and judging aim at knowledge or at truth? How is that like and unlike aiming at autonomy or the good? What, anyway, are knowledge and truth?

Philosophy 317, Metaphysics

LEC 001 MW 2:00—3:15 EMS E208
Instructor: Joshua Spencer, spence48@uwm.edu
Prereq: jr st. & 3 cr in philos.

Metaphysics is the study of the fundamental nature of reality (or something like that). In this class, I propose that we learn what metaphysics is by doing metaphysics. We’ll seek answers to some of the following question: What is it for something to exist? What is space? What is time? What is possibility? And what are they all like? What is causation and what are laws of nature? How, exactly, do we fit into the world? Are we just another body governed by the laws of nature and if so do we ever act freely? We’ll explore answers to these questions by reading and discussing recent work in metaphysics.

Philosophy 355, Political Philosophy

LEC 001 TR 12:30 – 1:45 LUB S231
Instructor: Blain Neufeld, neufeld@uwm.edu
Prereq: jr st, Philos 242(P) or a course in ethics.

This course will look at the great Enlightenment social contract theories that helped to shape the rise of liberal democratic ideals and institutions in the West (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant), and some of the most significant criticisms of those theories from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Hume, Marx). We also will consider the main alternative approach to liberal political thinking in the West during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, namely, utilitarianism, and in particular the views of J.S. Mill. The course will conclude by considering the recent revival of the social contract approach in political philosophy over the past few decades in the work of John Rawls, as well as some important criticisms of Rawls’s views from libertarian, socialist, and feminist perspectives.

Philosophy 384, The Philosophy of Law

LEC 001 TR 11:00 – 12:15 LUB S233
Instructor: Nataliya Palatnik, palatnik@uwm.edu
Prereq: jr st; 3 cr philos or previous course in political theory or law studies recom.
Philos 384 & Pol Sci 384 are jointly offered.

In this course we will examine fundamental issues in the philosophy of law, including, among other things, the nature and content of law, the relationship between law and morality, the obligation to obey the law, and the justification of punishment. Readings will be drawn from both historical and contemporary sources.

Philosophy 432, History of Modern Philosophy

LEC 001 MW 11:00 – 12:15 LUB N126
Instructor: Miren Boehm, boehmm@uwm.edu
Prereq: jr st & 3cr in philos

What is knowledge? What is the nature of reality? What am I? What is the mind? What is the relation between the mind and the body? These are some of the most fundamental questions in philosophy. The way in which philosophers today understand these questions and the way in which they attempt to address them are very much influenced by the developments that took place in Western philosophy during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The purpose of this course is to provide the student with an understanding of this historical background. At the core of this background is the scientific revolution which brought about not just a radical change in the methods for gathering and organizing knowledge about the world, but also a fundamental shift in the way we understood ourselves and our place in the universe. In order to understand these revolutions we will examine in detail some of the works of the central philosophical figures of this period: Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant.

Philosophy 532, Philosophical Problems: Unity and Ordinary Objects

LEC 001 M 5:00 – 7:40 CRT 607
Instructor: Joshua Spencer, spence48@uwm.edu
Retakable w/chg in topic to 9 cr max. Prereq: jr st & 3 cr in philos

For any objects, under what conditions are those objects united into a single complex whole? For any objects over several times, under what conditions are those objects united into a single persisting whole? And for any objects in any possibilities, under what conditions are those objects united into a single possible whole? These kinds of questions have motivated many metaphysicians to adopt rather radical views. Some philosophers think that any objects form a complex whole, any objects over any times form a single persisting whole, and any objects in any possibilities form a single possible whole. Others take the opposite view that there are no complex wholes in space, time, or in the realm of possibility. In this class, we will explore the various radical responses to these questions and investigate the prospects for a more moderate response; a response on which there are mostly just ordinary objects and few (if any) extraordinary objects.

Philosophy 554, Special Topics in the History of Modern Philosophy: Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy

LEC 001 TR 3:30 – 4:45 CRT 607
Instructor: William Bristow, bristow@uwm.edu
Retakable w/chg in topic to 9 cr max. Prereq: jr st; 3 cr in philos; Philos 432(R); or cons instr.

“The Critique of Pure Reason” by Immanuel Kant is certainly one of the most important works in the area of epistemology and metaphysics in the history of Western Philosophy. In this course we study the work carefully. Some of the main questions that are addressed in the work are: How is rational (or a priori) knowledge possible? How is empirical knowledge possible? What is the nature of space and of time? How do we know (if we do) that the natural world is causally ordered? If nature is causally ordered, how is human freedom possible? — We will read the Critique itself, of course, but also selections from secondary works.

Philosophy 562, Special Topics in Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy: Contemporary Theories of Political Justification

LEC 001 T 5:00 – 7:40 CRT 607
Instructor: Blain Neufeld, neufeld@uwm.edu
Prereq: jr st, 3 cr in philos. Retakable w/chg in topic to 9 cr max.

Many philosophers from Plato onwards have formulated ‘political utopias,’ that is, accounts of ‘fully just’ societies. Such political utopias have been advanced as ‘models’ or ‘exemplars’ of political justice. The role of such models typically is twofold: (1) they are meant to help us evaluate critically our own societies, specifically, to help us identify the ways in which our existing political institutions and practices are unjust; and (2) to provide us with a ‘target’ or ‘end state’ for our political reforms or revolutionary efforts. In this course we will look at three contemporary exercises in utopian theorizing: (a) G.A. Cohen’s account of a fully just socialist society (as outlined in his book Why Not Socialism?); (b) John Rawls’s account of the ‘realist utopia’ of a liberal egalitarian ‘well-ordered society’; and (c) the recent defense of utopian theorizing advanced by David Estlund. We will consider criticisms of all of these views, including criticisms from consequentialist, ‘realist,’ feminist, critical race, and libertarian theorists. We also will consider the viability of approaches to normative political philosophy that attempt to eschew any role for utopian or ideal theorizing (e.g., the ‘comparativist’ approach advanced by the economist Amartya Sen).

Philosophy 681, Seminar in Advanced Topics: Moral Psychology of the Emotions

SEM 001 MW 2:00—3:15 CRT 607
Instructor: Andrea Westlund, westlund@uwm.edu
Prereq: sr st & 12 cr in philos at 300-level or above; or grad st. Retakable w/chg in topic to 9 cr max. Consent required to audit.

Negative emotions such as anger, guilt, shame, and sadness are typically experienced as unpleasant – sometimes excruciatingly so. What is the point of having them? Do they have any redeeming value, or would be better off overcoming or extirpating them whenever we can? In this course we will explore the nature, causes, consequences, and value (or disvalue) of the four emotions mentioned above – anger, guilt, shame, and sadness – with an emphasis on the role they play in moral judgement and appraisal, responsiveness to moral criticism, and social practices of blame and forgiveness. We will occasionally lighten things up by considering positive counterparts of the negative emotions, such as gratitude, righteousness, pride, and joy. We will also consider how our emotions may be influenced by our other mental states, our environments, our cultures, and other factors. Our readings will be mostly philosophical but also to some degree interdisciplinary, since emotions have been studied by psychologists, social psychologists, neuroscientists, psychoanalysts, and feminist theorists, among others.

Philosophy 712, Fundamentals of Formal Logic

LEC 001 TR 2:00 – 3:15 LUB S231
Instructor: Stephen Leeds, sleeds@uwm.edu
Prereq: grad st.
Taught with Philos 212-001.

Formal logic, at the level taught in this class, is a central tool in present day philosophy. This is in part because writing out arguments in symbolic logic notation helps to make them clearer; even more, however, it is because the language of symbolic logic is both simple enough that we understand how it works, and complex enough to shed light on the symbolic systems that really interest us – particularly, English, and the language of mathematics. The goal of the class is to bring you up to the point where, given a valid argument (one where the conclusion follows from the premisses), you will be able to translate the argument into logic, and show that it is valid. You will also be learning a few deep theorems about logic, first proved about 80 years ago: that if an argument is valid, we can use logic to show it is, and that there is no general method by which we can pick out the valid from the invalid arguments. (You will also be learning why, despite first appearances, these two theorems don’t contradict one another).

Philosophy 903, Seminar in Epistemology: What is Epistemic Agency?

SEM 001 T 11:00 – 1:40 CRT 607
Instructor: Edward Hinchman, hinchman@uwm.edu
Prereq: grad st & cons instr. Retakable w/chg in topic to 9 cr max.

We aim to believe on the basis of epistemic reasons, just as we aim to act on the basis of practical reasons. What could be wrong with claiming that these aims suffice for epistemic and practical agency? Here are two objections: superficially, practical agency appears to involve more than mere responsiveness to reasons; more deeply, neither epistemic nor practical reasons-responsiveness by itself satisfies some widely-shared intuitions about agential self-governance. This course will gain structure and momentum by my attempts to counter these objections. We’ll begin by countering a popular version of the superficial objection that blocks what I’ll argue is a better approach to the deeper objection. We’ll then pursue that better approach as far as I can, considering multiple objections to it.

On the version of the superficial objection that we’ll consider, there is no epistemic analogue of your discretion in acting for one set of practical reasons instead of another set that you nonetheless believe you possess: anything that you regard as counting as evidence for p must figure in the basis of your belief that p. I’ll concede the point but argue that such discretion is not a necessary feature of agency. On the one hand, it does not help explain practical self-governance. On the other hand, we can explain this difference between the epistemic and the practical without undermining the idea of epistemic agency. The issues raised by my argument will lead us to consider the natures of epistemic and practical self-governance at length.

How to explain agential self-governance in general? My approach emphasizes not your ‘downstream’-looking self-governance as you believe or act for reasons but the possibility of ‘upstream’-looking mistrust of the self that would thus govern you. This explains self-governance in terms of a trust dynamic: your doxastic or practical judgment aims to influence you by inviting your (self-)trust, but it is up to you whether to grant that trust. I’ll argue that this trust dynamic renders properly agential what would otherwise be a mere disposition to respond to reasons. The key to understanding agency thus lies in grasping how it is possible to mistrust your judging self without thereby abandoning the judgment. Since it is easier to explain this in the doxastic case than in the practical, epistemic self-governance turns out to be more straightforwardly agential than practical self-governance.

Along the way we’ll read works by (among others) David Christensen, Pascal Engel, Pamela Hieronymi, Hilary Kornblith, Christine Korsgaard, Sherrilyn Roush, Kieran Setiya, Nishi Shah, Ernest Sosa, and Linda Zagzebski.

Philosophy 941, Seminar in Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy: Moral Relativism

SEM 001 MW 3:30 – 4:45 CRT 607
Instructor: Stan Husi, husi@uwm.edu
Prereq: grad st & cons instr. Retakable w/chg in topic to 9 cr max.

Consider the question: “Is the sentence structure Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) grammatical?” The question is puzzling. Something is clearly missing. What language are we talking about? The answer would be yes in Latin, but no in English. Grammaticality is relative. There is no such thing as grammatical, period or simpliciter, but only relative to a language. Moral relativism is the analogous claim about morals. It asserts there is no such thing as Right and Wrong, period or simpliciter, but only Right and Wrong relative to some standard, convention, code, tradition, perspective, or cultural outlook. The question whether morality is relative is hotly contested. The discovery of relativity in morality would be as surprising as Einstein’s discovery that mass and duration are relative to frames of reference. Moral relativism is squeezed in between moral realists who believe in non-relative moral facts and moral nihilists who deny moral facts altogether. In the words of Jamie Dreier, “Relativism can … be seen as a tactical retreat made by common sense in the face of the nihilist threat. Persuaded that absolute morality is a pipe dream, a relativist suggests that we might still salvage much of moral practice, moral thought, and moral talk by relativizing. Relative morality may be less than common sense could hope for, but it is better than nihilism’s nothing.” In the seminar, we will assess the prospects of moral relativism to sustain this intermediate position. The debate on moral relativism has recently been revitalized, and we will have a look at the most up-to-date literature on the subject.