PHIL 726

Ethics 1


Please note: this is archived course information from 2015 for PHIL 726.

Description

Over the past 20 years, a number of theorists have developed an account of value rooted in fitting-attitudes. It is built around thoughts like the following: Joy is a fitting response to good news, whereas sadness is a fitting response to bad news. Something would be wrong if you responded to good news with sadness or bad news with joy. Similarly, shame is a fitting response to personal failure and pride to personal excellence. Fear fits danger and amusement fits the funny. According to these theorists, our judgments about what to do and what to feel are justified by fitting attitudes like these.

Fitting attitude accounts have a number of attractive features. However, they also have certain difficulties that must be surmounted if the theory is to square with some widely shared values. The aim of this course will be to explore both the strengths and the potential weaknesses of fitting attitude accounts. One of the potential weaknesses we shall explore is posed by its handling of contexts in which one person has wronged another. The fitting response to wrongdoing, many have suggested, is anger or resentment. And yet we admire a number of people whose response to wrongdoing is not one of resentment, but rather one of forgiveness. Is there sufficient room within a fitting-attitude account for forgiveness? Or do cases like these recommend revising or rejecting fitting-attitude accounts?

Availability 2015

Semester 2

Lecturer(s)

Lecturer(s) Dr Glen Pettigrove

Reading/Texts

Margaret Holmgren, Forgiveness and Retribution: Responding to Wrongdoing (Cambridge 2012)

Recommended Reading

Geoffrey Murphy and Jean Hampton, Forgiveness and Mercy (Cambridge 1988)

Elizabeth Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics (Harvard 1993)

Assessment


Points

PHIL 726: 15 points

Prerequisites


Restrictions