BPhil Pro-Seminar - Hilary Term 2023.
Time: Fridays, weeks 1-4, and 5-8; 11am-1pm
Location: Wharton Room, All Souls College.
Readings
The topics and papers I have selected for the class are diverse - though they are located in the analytical tradition broadly construed. The first two consider some of the rights we have against, and duties we owe to, one another. The last two address two very different ways of responding to injustice/wrongdoing: punishment, and vandalisation.
Additional resources: the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy and the International Encyclopaedia of Ethics (available online from the Bodleian). However, be careful not to merely rehash the entries. Don’t dispense with reading the primary sources, when you write essays. These resources should be used as a roadmap, not as a substitute for proper philosophical work. For good podcasts, see Philosophy Bites, and Political Philosophy Podcasts, which together have over three hundreds of interviews with philosophers on a huge range of topics. Be aware that audio content is subject to plagiarism rules, so do not cite an interviewee without properly referencing the podcast.
I also include here two very comprehensive reading lists in political theory, both of which cover undergraduate modules but which are useful for graduate work research: Theory of Politics; and Advanced Paper in Theories of Justice.
Weeks 1/5
Chiara Cordelli, "Prospective Duties and the Demands of Beneficence", Ethics 128 (2018): 373-401.
Weeks 2/6
Anna Stilz, "Occupancy Rights and the Wrong of Removal", Philosophy & Public Affairs 41 (2013): 324-356.
Weeks 3/7
Warren Quinn, "The Right to Threaten and the Right to Punish", Philosophy & Public Affairs 14 (1985): 327-373.
Weeks 4/8
C. M. Lim, "Vandalising Tainted Commemorations", Philosophy & Public Affairs 48 (2020): 185-216.
The class.
There will be no presentation. I will spend the first 5mns or so introducing the issues. The class will very much be a discussion, and not a sequence of one-on-one interactions between one of you and me. If and when one of you asks me a question, I will more likely than not ask, first, the rest of you whether they have some thoughts about the question. Roughly half way through, I will summarise where the discussion has got to, or (more likely) I will invite one of you to do this. My classes are very much run along the lines of: ‘It’s not you against me in relation to the philosophical problem. It’s you and me together against the problem.’ (Jane Heal, Cambridge philosopher, in private correspondence. Brilliant scholar of Wittgenstein/philosophy of language.)
In other words: there are no stupid questions; there is no shame in conceding that one was wrong on a particular point, or in admitting that one doesn’t understand a point; and intellectual showing-off is actively discouraged.
Finally: I also discourage the use of laptops or tablets to take notes during my classes, unless of course you have a special reason for using them. (I will neither ask nor check.) The reason is quite simple: from experience, if we have a screen to look at and a keyboard to type on, we are less likely to make eye contact with one another, and less likely to have a lively discussion.
Time: Fridays, weeks 1-4, and 5-8; 11am-1pm
Location: Wharton Room, All Souls College.
Readings
The topics and papers I have selected for the class are diverse - though they are located in the analytical tradition broadly construed. The first two consider some of the rights we have against, and duties we owe to, one another. The last two address two very different ways of responding to injustice/wrongdoing: punishment, and vandalisation.
Additional resources: the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy and the International Encyclopaedia of Ethics (available online from the Bodleian). However, be careful not to merely rehash the entries. Don’t dispense with reading the primary sources, when you write essays. These resources should be used as a roadmap, not as a substitute for proper philosophical work. For good podcasts, see Philosophy Bites, and Political Philosophy Podcasts, which together have over three hundreds of interviews with philosophers on a huge range of topics. Be aware that audio content is subject to plagiarism rules, so do not cite an interviewee without properly referencing the podcast.
I also include here two very comprehensive reading lists in political theory, both of which cover undergraduate modules but which are useful for graduate work research: Theory of Politics; and Advanced Paper in Theories of Justice.
Weeks 1/5
Chiara Cordelli, "Prospective Duties and the Demands of Beneficence", Ethics 128 (2018): 373-401.
Weeks 2/6
Anna Stilz, "Occupancy Rights and the Wrong of Removal", Philosophy & Public Affairs 41 (2013): 324-356.
Weeks 3/7
Warren Quinn, "The Right to Threaten and the Right to Punish", Philosophy & Public Affairs 14 (1985): 327-373.
Weeks 4/8
C. M. Lim, "Vandalising Tainted Commemorations", Philosophy & Public Affairs 48 (2020): 185-216.
The class.
There will be no presentation. I will spend the first 5mns or so introducing the issues. The class will very much be a discussion, and not a sequence of one-on-one interactions between one of you and me. If and when one of you asks me a question, I will more likely than not ask, first, the rest of you whether they have some thoughts about the question. Roughly half way through, I will summarise where the discussion has got to, or (more likely) I will invite one of you to do this. My classes are very much run along the lines of: ‘It’s not you against me in relation to the philosophical problem. It’s you and me together against the problem.’ (Jane Heal, Cambridge philosopher, in private correspondence. Brilliant scholar of Wittgenstein/philosophy of language.)
In other words: there are no stupid questions; there is no shame in conceding that one was wrong on a particular point, or in admitting that one doesn’t understand a point; and intellectual showing-off is actively discouraged.
Finally: I also discourage the use of laptops or tablets to take notes during my classes, unless of course you have a special reason for using them. (I will neither ask nor check.) The reason is quite simple: from experience, if we have a screen to look at and a keyboard to type on, we are less likely to make eye contact with one another, and less likely to have a lively discussion.
