Course Description

The central topics of the course are the generally recognized “right to life” and the corresponding prohibition against killing. We will address a number of issues in our attempt to understand these topics. Why is life valued so highly? (Is death really a “harm?”) What is the scope of life that comes within the right-to-life principle? (All life? Human life? Innocent life?) To whom does the right belong; on whose behalf is it protected? (The individual? The state? God?) When may the right be legitimately compromised or overridden? Does (or should) the prohibition against the taking of life distinguish between affirmatively “killing” and passively “letting die?”

We will examine a number of policy areas where one or more of the above questions are implicated: self-defense; abortion; suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia; capital punishment; famine relief; animal rights; and “just war.” We will consider these issues from a variety of disciplinary perspectives: legal, political, religious, philosophical, psychological and anthropological.

Throughout the course, we will try to determine the extent to which principles used to justify life or death in one situation can or should be extrapolated to apply to other situations. Each student will be encouraged to carefully consider her/his positions on the entire spectrum of policy choices examined. Experience suggests that, at some point, most participants will find themselves confronted with apparent inconsistencies in their personal moral systems. It is at this juncture that some of the best – and most challenging – learning can be expected to occur.

Course Requirements

The formula for the course grade will be calculated on the basis of four elements: weekly quizzes (25%); midterm exam (25%); final exam (25%); and term paper (25%).

Quizzes will be administered on Blackboard and will be due by 9:45 P.M. on Friday of the week for which they are assigned.

A Term paper of 8-10 pp will be completed on a topic of each student’s choice.

Course Texts:

Tom Regan (ed.), Matters of Life and Death (McGraw-Hill: 1993).

John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Death (Stanford University Press: 1993).

Peter Singer, Writings on an Ethical Life (Harper Collins: 2000).

Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (Basic Books: 2006).

Roderick Nash, The Rights of Nature (Wisconsin University Press: 1989)

Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum, Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions (Oxford Univ. Press: 2004).

Other required course readings will be made available in electronic format on Blackboard. A variety of optional readings will be made available through Blackboard or as course reserves at Knight Library. (The term paper is expected to reflect research into at least three of these optional readings or equivalent outside research.)

The Instructor

Professor Davidson received his Juris Doctorate in 1992. He has clerked for the Oregon Court of Appeals and worked as a public interest attorney for six years before returning to academia. His studies are concentrated in the areas of constitutional law, intergenerational justice, environmental ethics, and the philosophy of property.

Syllabus

DATE

TOPIC

Assignments

Week One

Introduction, metaphysics and psychology of death.

Epicurus letter to Menoeceus (Blackboard)

Rosenbaum’s “Defense of Epicurus” (in Fischer’s Metaphysics . . .)

Feinberg’s “Harm to Others” (in Fischer’s Metaphysics . . .)

Blackboard Quiz 1 due Friday

Week Two

Early Life issues: abortion, infanticide.

Matters of Life and Death – chap 6

Singer – “Taking Life: The Embryo and the

Fetus”; “Justifying Infanticide”

Foote – “The Problem of Abortion”

(Blackboard)

Lakoff – “Moral Categories in Politics” and

“Abortion” (Blackboard)

No Blackboard Quiz due this week

Week Three

Capital punishment.

Bedau -- “Capital Punishment”(from

Matters of Life and Death)

Lakoff – “Crime and the Death Penalty”

Interpress – “States Widen Scope . . .”

LII – Kennedy v. Louisiana background

Blackboard Quizzes 2 and 3 due Friday

Week Four

Suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.

George Lakoff talk 7 P.M. Friday April 25, 150 Columbia.

Beauchamp – “Suicide” (from Matters of

Life and Death)

“In the Matter of Karen Quinlan” (BB)

Rachels – “Euthanasia” (from Matters of

Life and Death)

Blackboard Quiz 4 due Friday

Week Five

Killing and Letting Die;

The Duty to Render Aid;

Famine Relief

Harris – “The Survival Lottery” (BB)

Moscow News Weekly – “Global Food

Crisis Raises Hunger Fears” (BB)

Time – “How to End the Global Food

Shortage (BB)

O’Neill – “Ending World Hunger” (from

Matters of Life and Death)

Singer – “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”

and “The Singer Solution to World

Poverty”

Blackboard Quiz 5 due Friday

Week Six

Midterm Tuesday May 6

Movie, catch up, or other anomalous activity on Thursday

No Quiz this week!

Week Seven

Pacifism

Military Conscription

Just War

Exodus and Matthew (excerpts) (BB)

Lackey – “Pacifism” (BB)

Webster – “On Conscription” (BB)

Collins – “Just War” (BB)

O’Brien – “Just and Limited War” (BB)

Walzer – chap 5 (Anticipations)

Walzer – chap 10 (Sieges and Blockades)

Week Eight

Just War (continued):

Guerilla War

Terrorism

Calhoun – “Terrorists’ Tacit Message” (BB)

Richardson – “What Is Terrorism” (BB)

Card – “War on Terrorism” (BB)

Walzer – chap 11 (Guerilla War)

Walzer – chap 12 (Terrorism)

Quiz 6 and term paper due Friday

Week Nine

Animal Rights

From Singer’s Writings on an Ethical Life:

Preface of Animal Liberation, p. 21

“All Animals Are Equal,” p. 28

“Tools for Research,” p. 47

“Down on the Factory Farm,” p. 57

“Bridging the Gap,” p. 73

From Sunstein / Nussbaum’s Animal Rights:

Diamond – “Eating Meat and Eating

People”

Rachels – “Drawing Lines”

Epstein – “Animals as Objects”

MacKinnon – “A Feminist

Fragment”

The Evolution of Natural Rights

Seeking a Consistent Ethic

Nash – The Rights of Nature:

Prologue (ethical extension)

Chapter 1 (natural rights . . .)

Chapter 3 (ecology widens circle)

Singer – “In Place of the Old Ethic” (from

Writings on an Ethical Life)

Nash – Epilogue (limits of liberalism)

Octavia Butler – “T’Gatoi” (BB)

Blackboard Quiz 7 due Friday

Final Exam

Thursday, June 12, 8 A.M.