This is the homepage for Modern Moral Philosophy (PHI4930), Spring 2008.
This course will examine some views in modern (seventeenth- and eighteenth-century) moral philosophy. Prominent philosophers whose work we'll read and discuss will include Thomas Hobbes, Joseph Butler, David Hume, and Jeremy Bentham. But we'll also look at the work of several of their contemporaries. Among the themes discussed will be the ways in which people responded to Hobbes's apparently sceptical approach to morality, and the early development of utilitarian moral theories.
Readings will be taken from J.B. Schneewind (ed.), Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), ISBN 0521003040. Assessment will be by means of a combination of papers and exams.
(1/3) Some readings for the class will be available on Ares, the library reserve system.
(1/2) The syllabus (pdf) is now available.