Philosophy 2601 CRN 2581

Philosophy 2601 CRN 25815 M/W 6pm-7.15pm G129

Instructor: Dr. Todd Janke

Office: A&S 105D

Phone:678.466.4718

Email: toddjanke@clayton.edu

class listserv: phil2601-01spring08@lists.clayton.edu

Course Overview: The primary objectives of this course are to acquaint students with classic works and important thinkers in the history of ethics, to foster individual appropriation of ethical insights and reasonings, and to provide students with philosophical foundations for approaching contemporary ethical issues.

Success in this course will require a considerable commitment of your time and energy. You will be doing a lot of reading and writing and rereading. You will also need to take notes on the readings to help you prepare for the exams, a midterm and a final. The papers that you will write and the papers of other students that you will read and comment on will provide immersion in the material that will aid understanding and contribute to success on the tests. Make sure your journal papers are of the required length, demonstrate thoughtful effort, and are submitted in a timely fashion. Also, make sure that you engage in comment-and-response dialogue over the various paper submissions.

Required Text: Morality and the Good Life: An Introduction to Ethics through Classical Sources, 4th ed. , Robert Solomon and Jennifer Greene

Course Requirements

Electronic Discussion Forum Journal :You will be writing a 1 1/2—2 page paper on each of the assigned readings. These journal entries must be posted (emailed to the class listserv) PRIOR TO the class meeting at which they will be discussed. You must keep a hard copy of all your submissions and organize them for collection and review on two occasions, on the day of the first exam and on the day of the final exam. Add a cover page containing a table of contents and a paragraph assessing the overall quality of your journal/discussion list contribution, giving primary consideration to such factors as number of postings, timeliness of postings, length of papers, quality of the writings themselves, and the extent to which you read and commented on other students’ submissions. Assign a rating to your assessment, based on a ten-point scale. Do not put the journal in a binder of any sort; just staple the pages together.

You will also need to bring your individual papers to class meetings, as you will be called on to make brief presentations of your analyses to the class. In addition to submitting papers, you are expected to read papers submitted by your classmates. You may demonstrate that you are doing so by email response to the list.

Your paper may be either (1) a response to one of the study questions at the end of the relevant reading in the textbook or (2) a development of an explicitly formulated thesis of your own. In either case, you must stay focused on the question you choose or pose and take care not to ramble over multiple issues or topics. Most importantly, the paper must be directed at the primary reading and not at the editor’s commentary or discussion. Finally; whatever you say must be in your own words. As you engage what are challenging and difficult readings, keep in mind that Understanding is the objective and that your writings are important efforts toward that end. For the Contemporary Issue assignments, write on one of the essays and not on the introductory or background material.

Paper Formatting and Submitting: Type your paper in Word, in 12-point font, with one-inch margins all around and normal double-spacing throughout. Use the first line or two to identify yourself, the author’s name, and whether the paper is type (1) Question Response or (2) Open Response. For example: Janke/Plato/QR. In writing your paper, do not beat around the bush with introductory material. Immediately and concisely state the issue or question you are addressing and go directly to your analysis. Copy and paste the Word document into an email addressed to the class listserv, making sure to put the identifying information in the subject box of the email. For a variety of reasons, this copy and paste procedure is superior to others, so please follow it. Do not send your paper as an email attachment!

40% Electronic Discussion Forum Journal (15% First Exam collection / 25% Final exam collection)

20% First Examination:

20% Second Examination:

Final Examination: TBA

ITP Choice Policy (Each CSU student is required to have ready access throughout the semester to a notebook computer that meets faculty-approved hardware and software requirements for the student's academic program. See http://itpchoice.clayton.edu for full details of this policy.)