PHIL 4010
Weekly assignments:

• The default is to outline the passage I assign.
• If you choose a different passage:
  • make sure it contains an argument.
  • you have to tell me what it is. (I'm not a mind reader.)
  • please make it terse---a paragraph or two, not a chapter, or anything like a chapter. (I have to read the passage side by side with your outline, to check that the latter correctly represents the argument in the former.) My experience is that attempts to outline longer stretches of text don't generally work out well.

1. Aug. 22 (for those of you who have already taken a class from me, who know what these outline assignments -- not the same as microcommentary assignments! -- are supposed to look like, and who want to get an early start): Lenman, p. 360, either from "But this does not help" until the end of the para., or from "If consequentialism is to be a theory..." to the end of the para. (on the following page).
2. Aug. 29: In John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, excerpt from "The Psychological Foundations of Culture," either p. 104, last para. ("This result is logically inevitable..."), or p. 111, top para. ("1. In order to perform tasks successfully...").
3. Sept. 5: Either Anderson, Values in Ethics and Economics, first full para. on p. 39 ("Consider first how expressive theories..."), or Nussbaum, Fragility, first full para. on p. 114 ("How could such an absurd mistake occur?")
4. Sept. 12: Anderson, Values in Ethics and Economics, second full para. on p. 61 ("Consequentialists may dig in their heels...").
5. Sept. 19: Anderson, Values in Ethics and Economics, either the penultimate para. (p. 115, "This line of thought..."), or the final para. ("Second, the skeptical attitude...").
6. Sept. 26: Anderson, either Values in Ethics and Economics, the first full para. on p. 166, starting in the middle of the para. ("But the market can claim..."), or d'Agostino, Incommensurability and Commensuration, para. bridging pp. 14f ("The point, briefly...").
7. Oct. 3: d'Agostino, Incommensurability and Commensuration, p. 33, from "If the unlucky A now finds..." through "...the locus of incommensurability, or (and this one's a little messier than usual: you'll have to pick one 'point', and do more reconstruction on your own) pp. 36-39, from "But this idea is wrong," to "...substantive basis for choice."


After this point, it's two-part weekly assignments, as described on the syllabus.


8. Oct. 10: Extra bonus assignment! D'Agostino, Incommensurability and Commensuration, the boxed passage on p. 89 (you'll need to import claims from earlier in the section), or pp. 89-90, from "And I take it, perhaps...," to the end of the para.
9. Oct. 17: D'Agostino, Incommensurability and Commensuration, p. 131, from "Secondly, we have the fact of change..." through "...theorists of relativism and absolutism direct attention to"; or p. 138, all of the main text (you'll need to draw on points made in the previous few pages).
10. Oct. 24: Adam Morton, Disasters and Dilemmas, sec. 2.2, or sec. 2.4, up through the first full para. on p. 20 ("...recommend the compromise solution). (For both passages, remember that you are after the argument lying beneath the narrative.)
11. Oct. 31: Adam Morton, Disasters and Dilemmas, first para. of 5.6, or p. 79, para. starting "Something is very wrong..." (these passages will take a little more shaping than usual).
12. Nov. 7: Adam Morton, Disasters and Dilemmas, p. 126, from "We all very much want to be treated..." to "One way is by mourning," together with p. 127, from "Withholding life-saving resources..." to "...make sure that he is remembered," or p. 129, from "So there would still be a background..." to the end of the page.
13. Nov. 14: Searle, "Desire, Deliberation, and Action," p. 62, from "The two points, inconsistency..." through "...committed to) those consequences," or Brandom, p. 470, para. starting "One reason to do so..."
14. Nov. 21: Bowman, Are Our Goals Really What We're After?, para. bridging pp. 18-19, or para. bridging pp. 38-39.
15. Nov. 28: Bowman, Are Our Goals Really What We're After?, pp. 61-62, from "If success is not a criterion..." to "...adjudicating their rational or moral value," or pp. 66-68, from "The problem with the CW test is that..." to "...doesn't provide any determinate results".
16. Dec. 5: Andreou, "The Real Puzzle of the Self-Torturer," sec. 3 ("A Complication") or Kant, Groundwork, Ak. 418, from (Ellington trans.) "But, unfortunately, the concept of happiness..." to "Therefore, one cannot act according to determinate principles in order to be happy..."