This intensive block seminar will build on the last block seminar, “Non-Human Primates and the Evolution of Morality,” which I taught in the Karl Jaspers Haus on November 15-16, 2014. This seminar will include much less primatology and much more philosophy than the November seminar. Ethical naturalism is the doctrine that there are moral properties and facts some of which are natural properties and facts. G. E. Moore’s Principia Ethica (Cambridge, 1903) famously made the modern case against ethical naturalism for the first time. We will begin by discussing chapters I-III of Principia Ethica, which criticize primarily Spencer, Mill and Sidgwick. Non-naturalism after Moore has come in many varieties, which we will then only very briefly mention. Instead, we will next mostly focus on contemporary versions of ethical naturalism and its critics, utilizing chapters from Susana Nuccetelli and Gary Seay (eds.), Ethical Naturalism (Cambridge, 2012). We will also read essays surrounding the controversy between Peter Singer/Katzaryna de Lazari-Radek on the one hand and Sharon Street on the other.

Saturday Session:
Darwinism, Mill, Sidgwick and Moore:
We will begin by reviewing some of the philosophical issues and conclusions from the November seminar, “Non-Human Primates and the Evolution of Morality.” In particular, we will review whether studying the behavior of non-human primates has any relevance whatsoever understanding human morality. We will then discuss in detail Moore’s well-known claim that Spencer, Mill and Sidgwick committed equally egregious versions of the naturalistic fallacy. Will shall examine especially the role that intuitionism plays in Sidgwick’s purported naturalistic ethics. This issue is important because we will return to it when we read Singer’s essay on intuitionism. Singer has been heavily influenced by Sidgwick.

Reading:
Frans de Waal, Primates and Philosophers (Princeton, 2006), selections
J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism [1861] in John Robson (ed.), Collected Works of J. S. Mill Vol. X (Toronto, 1969) or online at http://oll.libertyfund.org/people/21
Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 1907 7th edition (Hackett, 1981), selections
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge, 1903), Chapters I-III


Sunday Session:
Evolutionary Theory and Contemporary Ethical Naturalism:
We will read and discuss in detail some of the latest work defending and criticizing ethical naturalism. Most of our readings will come Nuccetelli and Seay’s collection noted above. But we will also read and discuss essays by Singer and others regarding the question of whether evolutionary theory debunks moral realism.
Reading:
Susana Nuccetelli and Gary Seay (eds.), Ethical Naturalism (Cambridge, 2012), selections
Peter Singer, “Ethics and Intuitions,” Journal of Ethics, 9 (2005)
Sharon Street, “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,” Philosophical Studies
Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer, “The Objectivity of Ethics and the Unity of Practical


Reading for Saturday, July 11:
Frans de Waal, Primates and Philosophers (Princeton, 2006), read Part I (de Waal) and Part II (Wright, Kitcher and Singer)

J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism (1861), read entire essay, which can be found online via the Liberty Fund (http://oll.libertyfund.org/people/21)

Reading for Sunday, July 12:
Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 1907 7th edition, read Preface to 6th edition and Book IV, Chapters I and III

G. E. Moore, Prinicpia Ethica (Cambridge, 1903), Chapters II-III