Philosophy of Human Action

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The course focuses on how we ought to behave, or how it is rational for us to behave when we are not sure of the consequences of our actions. This is the subject matter of decision theory. The course will also look at what we ought to believe, or what is rational for us to believe, when in some sense we are not certain what to believe. So the course is all about the combination of normativity and uncertainty. This is a huge topic because uncertainty is everywhere. Thus as well as being interesting in its own right, the theories considered in the course have applications in nearly every area of philosophy. We will survey some major applications in ethics, philosophy of social science, and epistemology.