PHL 426 The Science of Ethics

PHL
426
W
Hours
3
The Science of Ethics

Usually science and ethics are taken to be about different things: science is concerned with the facts - how things are; ethics is concerned with value - how things should be. But science has increasingly come to study ethics itself: the grounds and foundation of our ethical thinking and practices in evolution, moral psychology, social psychology and human behavioral ecology. While many philosophers think these scientific investigations of human ethics cannot tell us how we should live, what we should do and what is morally good or bad, others think we can use science to inform our ethics, in part by uncovering our biases and correcting our errors in how we think about ethical questions and topics. In this class we will begin with traditional approaches to ethics based on reason, intuition and faith, then turn to challenges to these approaches based on evolutionary thinking, psychology and human ecology. Writing proficiency is required for a passing grade in this course. A student who does not write with the skill normally required of an upper-division student will not earn a passing grade, no matter how well the student performs in other areas of the course.

Writing