Metaphysics for Ethics

http://www.princeton.edu/~adame/teaching/PHIM4E_F2006

First year graduate seminar, Fall 2007. Open only to first-year philosophy graduate students. Participants will be expected to make two presentations during the semester.

Adam Elga (follow link for contact information, office hour). Class meeting time: Mondays 10:30am-12:30pm. Location: 119 1879 Hall

Seminar description: It's a familiar pattern: the difference between X and not-X matters a great deal to us. But when some metaphysical analysis reveals what the difference between X and not-X really comes to, it no longer seems worth caring about. That's a way in which metaphysics can inform ethics. We will explore several instances of this pattern, and also alleged influence in the other direction: cases in which a metaphysical analysis is rejected because of its implausible ethical consequences. Topics include:

• the metaphysics of time, and what attitudes towards time (future and past pains and pleasures, one's own future or past desires) are rational;
• personal identity, and whether sameness of person can reasonably guide one's desires and expectations;
• framework relativism about ontology;
• the making/allowing distinction, and whether it matters morally.

Readings: To access the readings (all available electronically, as linked below), you will need a userid (the userid is "guest") and a password (announced in class). If you would like to preview the readings, please email adame@princeton.edu.

Note: In many cases, only a subsection of the linked reading is required. In those cases, the required page range is listed to the right of the reading.

Desires and time

Mon Sep 17

Can desires be irrational? Is bias in one's own favor rationally required?

Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Chapter 6: The best objection to the self-interest theory Sections 45-46.

Mon Sep 24

Is it reasonable to prefer that bad experiences be in one's past?

Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Chapter 8: Different attitudes to time Sections 62-65. (Vanessa)

Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Chapter 8: Different attitudes to time Sections 66-70. (Richard)

Mon Oct 01

Does time pass?

Williams, Donald. The myth of passage (Josh)

Markosian, Ned. How fast does time pass? (Josh)

Mon Oct 08

Can de-tensers make sense of the desire that painful events be over and done with?

Prior. Thank goodness that's over Middle paragraph on p. 84.

Mellor, D. H. 'Thank goodness that's over' (Helen)

Lewis, David. Attitudes de dicto and de se. Sections III, IV, and the last 3 paragraphs of section IX.

Personal identity

Mon Oct 15

Physical and psychological criteria for personal identity: brain/body transplant cases and teletransportation cases.

Williams, Bernard. The self and the future (Helen)

Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Chapter 10: What we believe ourselves to be (Vanessa)

Mon Oct 22

Radical consequences of a time-neutral perspective, including the consequence that one should not fear death.

Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Chapter 11: How we are not what we believe

Velleman, David. "So It Goes": Parfit finally meets the Buddha -- on Tralfamadore! (Andrew)

Optional background: van Inwagen, Peter. Four-dimensional objects

Mon Nov 05

Duplication and fission cases, and what to say about them.

Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Chapter 12: Why our identity is not what matters, sections 87-89. (Richard)

Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Chapter 12: Why our identity is not what matters, sections 90-94. (Andrew)

Mon Nov 12

The overlap proposal.

Lewis, David. Survival and identity (Helen)

Parfit, Derek. Lewis, Perry, and what matters

Johnston, Mark. Fission and the facts. Read section 5.

Mon Nov 19

How should you divide your expectations when you expect to divide?

Lewis, David. How many lives has Schrodinger's cat? (Josh)

Mon Nov 26

Metaphysics as choice-making rather than fact-finding.

Carnap, Rudolph. Empiricism, semantics, ontology (Andrew)

Sider, Theodore. Criteria of personal identity and the limits of conceptual analysis, sections 1-7. (Richard)

Burgess, John. Mathematics and bleak house, sections 6-7.

Morality and making vs. allowing

Mon Dec 03

What is the difference between making something happen and merely allowing it to happen? Does that difference matter morally?

Bennett, Jonathan. Morality and Consequences. Lecture I.

Bennett, Jonathan. Morality and Consequences. Lecture II.

Mon Dec 10

McGrath, Sarah. Causation and the making/allowing distinction. (Vanessa)

Boorse, Christopher, and Roy Sorensen. Ducking harm

Optional background readings

Sider, T. Four-dimensionalism. Chapter 5

Johnston, Mark. Relativism and the self

Johnston, Mark. Human Beings

Bennett, Jonathan. The Act Itself. Chapter 4: Making/allowing

Bennett, Jonathan. The Act Itself. Chapter 5: Moral significance

Bennett, Jonathan. The Act Itself. Chapter 6: Positive/negative