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Course Syllabus

PHIL103: Moral and Political Philosophy

Course Introduction

Course Syllabus

Unit 1: Murder, Morality, and the Value of Human Life

1.1: Metaethics, Normative Ethics, and Applied Ethics

1.2: Investigating Our Moral Intuitions

1.3: From Moral Intuitions to Moral Principles and Back Again

1.4: Consequentialist Ethics and Bentham's Utilitarianism

1.5: Pitfalls of Consequentialist Ethics and Mill's Utilitarianism

1.6: Alternatives to Consequentialist Ethics

Unit 1 Assessment

Unit 2: Rights, the State, and the Free Market

2.1: Individual and the State: Plato's Crito

2.2: Libertarianism as an Alternative Approach to the Question of Rights

2.3: John Locke and Fundamental Individual Rights

Unit 2 Discussion

Unit 2 Assessment

Unit 3: Morality, Markets, and Immanuel Kant

3.1: The Morality of the Market

3.2: The Morality of Surrogate Motherhood: The Case of Baby M

3.3: Humans Organs as Commodities

3.4: Grounding Moral Action in Rational Principles: Immanuel Kant

3.5: Kant's Metaphysics of Morals

Unit 3 Discussion

Unit 3 Discussion

Unit 3 Assessment

Unit 4: John Rawls' Theory of Justice

4.1: Social Contract Theory in Historical Focus: Thomas Hobbes

4.2: Social Contract Theory without the Contract: John Rawls

4.3: The Question of Distributive Justice

Unit 4 Discussion

Unit 4 Discussion

Unit 4 Assessment

Unit 5: Ethics and Politics of Virtue

5.1: Aristotle as a Champion of Merit-Based Justice

5.2: Justice Is Respect for Virtue

5.3: Virtue vs. Disability: The Case of Casey Martin

5.4: Constrained Freedom: Justice within the Bounds of a Community

5.5: Justice, the Good, and the Problem of Agreement

5.6: Cultural Relativism

5.7: Existentialist Ethics

5.8: The Relation between Morality and the Law

Unit 5 Discussion

Unit 5 Assessment

Study Guide

Course Feedback Survey

Certificate Final Exam

Saylor Direct Credit

Archived Materials