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PHIL 181

Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature

Undergraduate · Historical course

Spring 2011

Topics

  • Introduction
  • The Ring of Gyges: Morality and Hypocrisy
  • Parts of the Soul I
  • Parts of the Soul II
  • The Well-Ordered Soul: Happiness and Harmony
  • The Disordered Soul: Thémis and PTSD
  • Flourishing and Attachment
  • Flourishing and Detachment
  • Virtue and Habit I
  • Virtue and Habit II
  • Weakness of the Will and Procrastination
  • Utilitarianism and its Critiques
  • Deontology
  • The Trolley Problem
  • Empirically-informed Responses
  • Philosophical Puzzles
  • Punishment I
  • Punishment II
  • Contract & Commonwealth: Thomas Hobbes
  • The Prisoner's Dilemma
  • Equality
  • Equality II
  • Social Structures
  • Censorship
  • Tying up Loose Ends
  • Concluding Lecture

Readings

  • Required texts
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  • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , translated Terence Irwin. Hackett Publishing, 2000.
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  • Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy , second edition. Oxford University Press, 2008.
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  • Epictetus. The Handbook (The Encheiridion) , translated by Nicholas White. Hackett Publishing, 1983.
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  • Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom . Basic Books, 2006
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  • Plato, Republic , trans. G.M.A. Grube and C.D.C. Reeve. Hackett Publishing, 1992.
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  • Shay, Jonathan . Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character . Simon & Schuster, 1995.
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  • Course Packet/Online
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  • Annas, Julia. “The Phenomenology of Virtue,” Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences 7, 2008.
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  • Ariely, Dan. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. Harper Collins, 2008.
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  • Ariely, Dan and Klaus Wertenbroch. “Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-Control by Precommittment,” Psychological Science Vol. 13:3, 2002.
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  • Batson, Daniel C. “Moral Masquerades Experimental Exploration of the Nature of Moral Motivation,” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 7, 2008, pp. 51-66.
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  • Boethius. The Consolations of Philosophy, Bobbs-Merrill, 1962.
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  • Boorse, Christopher and Roy Sorensen. “Ducking Harm,” The Journal of Philosophy , Vol. 85, No. 3, March, 1988. pp.115-134.
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  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. TED talk “Flow.” http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html (19-minute video)
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  • Darley, John and Thane S. Pittman. “The Psychology of Compensatory and Retributive Justice,” Personality and Social Psychology Review , Vol. 7, No. 4, 2003, pp. 324-336.
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  • Doris, John. “Persons, Situations, and Virtue Ethics.” Noûs 32, 1998.
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  • Evans, Jonathan St. B. T. “ In two minds: dual-process accounts of reasoning.” Trends in Cognitive Science , vol 7, (2003), pp. 454-459
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  • Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id . ed. James Strachey. W. W. Norton & Company; The Standard Edition edition (September 17, 1990)
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  • Gendler, Tamar Szabó. “Alief and Belief,” Journal of Philosophy (2008), pp. 634-663.
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  • Gendler, Tamar, Susanna Siegel and Steven M. Cahn, eds. The Elements of Philosophy: Readings from Past and Present. Oxford University Press, 2008.
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  • Homer, The Iliad. Viking, 1990.
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  • Hume, David. Treatise on Human Nature, eds. David Norton and Mary J. Norton. Oxford University Press, 2000.
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  • Kahneman, Daniel. “A Perspective on Judgment and Choice: Mapping Bounded Rationality.” American Psychologist , 58 (2003), pp. 697-720.
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  • Kahneman, Daniel. Nobel Prize Lecture “Maps of Bounded Rationality.” http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2002/kahneman-lecture.html (38-minute video)
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  • Kant, Immanuel. “The Right to Punish,” an excerpt from The Philosophy of Law (Rechtslehre ). trans. W. Hastie, 1887, pp. 194-198.
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  • Kazdin, Alan. Behavior Modification in Applied Settings. Dorsey Press, 1980.
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  • Kazdin, Alan. Parenting the Defiant Child . Houghton Mifflin, 2008.
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  • LeGuin, Ursula. “The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas: Variations on a Theme by William James” New Directions 3 , 1973.
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  • Lewis, David. “The Punishment that Leaves Something to Chance” Philosophy and Public Affairs Vol. 18, No. 1, Winter, 1989, pp. 53-67.
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  • Milgram, Stanley. “Behavioral study of obedience.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , Vol. 67 (1963), pp. 371-378, reprinted in Elliot Aronson, ed. The Social Animal , pp. 26-40.
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  • Nozick, Robert. “Love’s Bond,” from The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations . Simon & Schuster, 1989.
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  • Plato, Phaedrus , trans. and ed. R. Hackforth. Cambridge University Press, 1972.
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  • Rawls, John. “Two Concepts of Punishment,” an excerpt from “Two Concepts of Rules,” Philosophical Review 64: 1955, pp. 3-13.
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  • Stockdale, James “Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus in the Laboratory.” Speech delivered at King’s College, 15 November 1993.
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  • Sunstein, Cass. “Moral Heuristics,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28, 2005, pp. 531-542.
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  • Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “The Trolley Problem” The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 94, No. 6, May 1985.
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Sources