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Courses - Fall 2024
PHIL
Philosophy Department Site
Open Seats as of
12/21/2024 at 08:30 AM
PHIL808N
Seminar in the Problems of Philosophy; Naturalism, Nonnaturalism, and Normativity
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, Aud
A traditional and still central topic in metaethics concerns morality's location. Naturalists claim that morality is located where science and experience reveal it to be, namely, right here in the natural world. Nonnaturalists claim that morality cannot be located in the natural world - it's its own separate kind of thing entirely. Henry Sidgwick's The Method of Ethics and G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica set the agenda for the debate at the turn of the 20th century. David Copp's Ethical Naturalism and the Problem of Normativity and John Bengson's, Terence Cuneo's, and Russ Shafer-Landau's The Moral Universe are two forthcoming books that are well placed to have a similar influence in the 21st century. Participants in this seminar will work through these books along with other recent, forthcoming, and draft papers on the topic. A few seminar sessions will also be attended and co-instructed in person by Copp, Bengson, and Cuneo.