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PHIL 232

Introduction to Ethics

3 credits · Undergraduate

Winter 2026

Topics

  • Metaethics and the meaning of good
  • Fact–value distinction
  • Virtue ethics and natural norms
  • Practical rationality
  • Kantian duty, autonomy and universal law
  • Free will
  • Utilitarianism, harm and justice

Readings

  • Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness. Oxford University Press, 2001.
    Required
  • Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by Mary Gregor, 2nd revised edition. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
    Required
  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference resource).
    Recommended / optional / reference
  • Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference resource).
    Recommended / optional / reference
  • Peter Geach, “Good and Evil,” Analysis 17(2), 1956, pp. 33–42.
    Listed reading
  • A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, Dover, 1952 [1936], excerpt from chapter 6.
    Listed reading
  • Elizabeth Anscombe, “On Brute Facts,” in Ethics, Religion and Politics, Blackwell, 1981 [1958], pp. 22–25.
    Listed reading
  • David Hume, Treatise (selected sections in instructor handout).
    Listed reading
  • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated and edited by Roger Crisp, Cambridge University Press, 2000, book 1.
    Listed reading
  • Warren Quinn, “Putting Rationality in Its Place,” in Morality and Action, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 228–255.
    Listed reading
  • Christine Korsgaard, “Kant’s Formula of Universal Law,” in Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Ethical Theory: An Anthology, 2nd ed., Wiley, 2013, pp. 499–509.
    Listed reading
  • John Harris, “The Survival Lottery,” Philosophy 50(191), 1975, pp. 81–87.
    Listed reading
  • John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, chapters 2 (excerpt) and 5.
    Listed reading
Sources