Required textbooks:
You will have to have paper copies of these books, which
you will need to bring to class.
- Elijah Millgram, Varieties of Practical
Reasoning (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 2001); ISBN 0262632209 (Pbk).
(Royalties from classroom sales will be donated to charity.)
-
Sergio Tenenbaum, Rational Powers in Action
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023); ISBN 0198889569 (Pbk.)
-
G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000);
ISBN 0674003993 (Pbk.; you need the 2nd edition, but both the original Cornell UP
and the Harvard UP reprint are fine)
Optional textbook:
-
Talbot Brewer, The Retrieval of Ethics
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); ISBN 019969222X (Pbk.)
Additional readings will be made available through the
Philosophy Department reserve file (behind the desk in the
reception area of the department office), and online.
Reading Assignments:
- Aug. 20: Introduction.
Optional prereading:
"Practical Reasoning: The Current State of Play" (VPR, ch. 1);
Practical Reasoning and the Structure of Actions,
in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
(Optional reading really is optional. These
are overviews of the subject area, in case you want more of
an idea of what the topic is.)
- Aug. 27: Internalism.
-
Williams, "Internal and External Reasons" (VPR, ch. 1; on
reserve in the Philosophy Department; alternatively, go
to the Marriott catalog, search for Bernard Williams' book
Moral Luck -- there are both paper and electronic
versions -- and you'll be able to download a pdf of ch. 8).
Optional reading: Hooker, "Williams' Argument against External Reasons"
(VPR, ch. 5)
-
Korsgaard,
"Skepticism about Practical Reasons" (VPR, ch. 6). (Also
available in Journal of Philosophy 83(1), 1986:
5-25, at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2026464.
Click through to the article from the Marriott
catalog; you'll be required to log in using your UNID and
campus password.)
Optional reading: Dreier, "Humean Doubts about Categorical
Imperatives" (VPR, ch. 2)
-
Michael Smith, "The Humean Theory of Motivation,"
Mind 96(381), Jan. 1987: 36-61;
you can find this at
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2253760, and via the Marriott
catalog. (I recommend reading sections 3-4 lightly,
secs. 1, 2, and 5 at medium attentiveness, and
secs. 6-7 closely; you can skip sec. 8.)
Optional reading: Christoph Fehige,
"Instrumentalism" (VPR, ch. 3).
Have a great Labor Day -- and for a thrilling read, why not take Bruno Latour,
Aramis, to the beach?
- Sept. 3: Specificationism.
-
Kolnai, "Deliberation Is of Ends" (VPR, ch. 12).
Optional reading: Wiggins, "Deliberation and
Practical Reason"
(VPR, ch. 13).
-
Millgram,
"Specificationism" (from the Marriott catalog, find
Adler J E and Rips L J, eds. Reasoning: Studies of Human
Inference and Its Foundations; this is ch. 35, at pp. 731-747).
Optional reading: Bruno Latour, Aramis
(available from Marriott).
-
Brewer, Retrieval, ch. 1 (on reserve in the
Philosophy Department; electronic version accessible
through the Marriott catalog [but formatting is different
than paper]).
Optional reading: Sarah Buss, "Some Reflections on
the Relationship between Reason and the Will," section on
"The desirability and necessity of passive agency" (from
the Marriott catalog, click through to Ruth Chang and Kurt
Sylvan, eds., Routledge Handbook of Practical
Reason; Buss's paper is ch. 13, and this very short
section is on pp. 207-08).
- Sept. 10: New Kantians.
-
Onora O'Neill, "Consistency in Action" (VPR, ch. 14).
Optional reading: Margaret Bowman, "Can the
Categorical Imperative Test Final Ends?" (mss, on reserve
in the Philosophy Department).
-
Christine Korsgaard,
"Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and
Kant", Journal of Ethics, vol. 3, no. 1,
1999, pp. 1–29. (Available thru the Marriott catalog.)
Optional reading:
Korsgaard, Self-Constitution.
-
Brewer, Retrieval, ch. 2, up to the section
break on p. 56 [i.e., stop at "A Brief History..."];
in ch. 3, para. bridging pp. 95f, starting "For
Kant, the moral quality...".
Optional reading: Tamar Schapiro, "Three Conceptions
of Action in Moral Theory" (= http://www.jstor.org/stable/2671947 ).
- Sept. 17: Intrinsic Specificationism and
Particularism.
-
Brewer, Retrieval, ch. 3 (but skip the section
on pp. 97-103 ["The Misinheritance..."]).
Optional reading: Dancy, "The Role of
Imaginary Cases in Ethics" Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly 66(1-2), Jan./Apr. 1985: 141-153. (On
reserve in the Philosophy Department.)
-
Iris Murdoch, "The Idea of Perfection" (VPR ch. 18).
Optional reading:
Cora Diamond,
"We Are Perpetually Moralists" (on
reserve in the Philosophy Department). Further reading:
the rest of Murdoch, Sovereignty of Good.
-
Avner Baz,
"Motivational
Indeterminacy", European Journal of
Philosophy 25:2 (2016): 336-357 (available thru the
Marriott catalog).
Optional reading: Vitaly Komar and Aleksandr Melamid,
Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid's Scientific
Guide to Art (available from Marriott); Morris Louis: The Complete
Paintings (available in Marriott, but noncirculating).
- Sept. 24: Is Utility Theory Instrumentalism Made
Formal?
-
Nicolas Arkilo, "Reasons for Practically Inviable Actions".
Optional reading:
Bernard Williams, "Deciding to Believe"
(search Marriott for his book, Problems of the
Self; this is ch. 9).
-
"Von Neumann-Morgenstern Utility Theory" (typescript);
Davidson, McKinsey and Suppes, "Outlines of a Formal
Theory of Value, I" (excerpt). (Both on reserve in the
Philosophy Department). Mandler, "A Difficult
Choice in Preference Theory" (VPR ch. 17).
Optional followon reading:
Kahneman, Slovic and Tversky, Judgment under
Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.
-
Optional reading: Cooter and Rappoport, "Were the
Ordinalists Wrong About Welfare Economics?", Journal of
Economic Literature 22, June 1984: 507-530.
- Oct. 1: Planning and Defeasibility.
-
Austin Morris, "In Defense of the Third Dogma of Desire". Michael Bratman, "Taking Plans
Seriously" (VPR, ch. 9).
Optional reading: Bratman, "Planning and the Stability of
Intention" (available in the Philosophy Department).
-
Jason Ripplinger, "Plastic Reasons".
Review Chrisoula Andreou, Choosing Well,
para. bridging pp. 19f (starting "But is there reason to
accept..."); sec. 3.2 ("The Real Puzzle of
the Self-Torturer"); para. bridging pp. 116f (from "Now
focus again on..." to "...they could have opted for").
(Available via the Marriott catalog and on reserve in
the Philosophy Department.)
-
John Searle, "Desire, Deliberation and Action" (thru sec. 4;
available in the Philosophy Department).
Brandom, "Actions, Norms, and
Practical Reasoning" (VPR ch 20).
Optional reading: Remainder of "Desire, Deliberation and Action".
HAVE A GREAT FALL BREAK! Take Rational Powers in Action to the beach.
- Oct. 15: Bounded Rationality: Old School, New Wave.
-
Review John Searle, "Desire, Deliberation and Action" (thru sec. 4;
available in the Philosophy Department).
Brandom, "Actions, Norms, and
Practical Reasoning" (VPR ch 20).
Sanjot Singh, "You Already Know What 'Good" Is!"
Optional reading: John Conlisk, "Why Bounded
Rationality?" (available in the Philosophy Department)
-
Simon, Models of Man,
chs. 14-15 (available in the Philosophy Department); Cliff Landesman, "When to
Terminate a Charitable Trust?" (available in the Philosophy Department)
Optional reading: Slote, "Moderation and Satisficing" (in VPR).
-
Borges et al.,"Can Ignorance Beat the Stock
Market?" (in Gigerenzer et al., Simple Heuristics That
Make Us Smart, available in the Philosophy Department).
Optional reading: Jonathan Bendor, "Herbert
A. Simon: Political Scientist" (available in the Philosophy Department).
- Oct. 22: Instrumentalism Strikes Back! (tentative)
-
Myriam Nielsen, TBA.
-
Martha Nussbaum, "The Protagoras: A Science of
Practical Reasoning" (VPR ch. 8).
Optional reading: Plato, "Protagoras" (tr. Allen,
available shortly); Nussbaum, The Fragility of
Goodness, through Part II; available from Marriott.
-
Tenenbaum, Rational Powers in
Action: in the Preface, pp. vi-vii;
chs. 1-3. (How to proceed? Read ch. 1 lightly -- it's mostly
orientation, where you have to be pretty immersed in the
current literature to know what the point of the gestures
is -- but pay close attention to the
paras. bridging pp. 18f and 22f. Read ch. 2 more closely.)
Optional reading: If you wanted to think further
about the Self-Torturer: Tenenbaum, ch. 4. If you want
to pursue issues in Bratman: Tenenbaum, chs. 5-6. (Both
these directions are good places to look for final paper topics.)