The information contained on this page is designed to give students a representative example of material covered in the course. Any information related to course assignments, dates, or course materials is illustrative only. For a definitive list of materials, please check the online catalog 3-4 weeks before the course start date.
PHIL 103W: Introduction to Ethics (GH) (3): Ethical theory about virtue, duty, autonomy, and life quality applied to moral problems, including character, violence, oppression, abortion, and suicide. Prerequisite: ENGL 015 or ENGL 030.
Overview
This is the study guide for Philosophy 103W, Introduction to Ethics. I am providing this study guide as a means for you to understand how you can derive the most benefit from taking it. So without further ado, let me explain the course’s goals, the assignments which will serve those goals, my grading policies, and offer a list of online sources that will be helpful for understanding the primary readings of the philosophers we will be studying this semester.
Course Goals
This course has three primary purposes. One is to familiarize you with major western ethical theories and concepts from historical as well as contemporary authors. The primary means of realizing this goal is careful study of the philosophers whose work is the assigned reading for this course, together with explanatory literature from secondary sources. You may either work with the optional texts, or with the online sources indicated at the relevant places in the course materials, for this purpose. Please note that in service of this goal, grading will be based in part on the quality of your understanding of the course concepts as indicated by your writing.
The second major goal of this course is to cultivate your writing skills. Since the argumentative essay is well suited to addressing ethical issues, it is the form of writing on which we will concentrate. Having been designated with a “W” means that this course is one in which writing is not only a means of expressing what you have learned, but is also integrated into the course as a goal in itself. So you will find that the assignments for this course (and my comments on your work) are designed not only to help you show you have learned the course content, but also to tutor you in the construction of compelling argumentative essays. In service of this goal, grading will be based in part on the quality of your papers’ compositional aspects.
The third goal of this course, intimately connected with the other two, is to further develop your own philosophical approach to ethics. This requires reflective and critical engagement with a variety of ethical ideas. While some of the ideas you will read about in the text may already be familiar to you, this will be your first encounter with many others. I encourage you to approach them all with an open mind, to try to understand them as thoroughly as possible, and to evaluate them in as unbiased a fashion as you can.
Sometimes there is great merit in an idea which initially appears to be misguided or repugnant–for sometimes that appearance is more closely related to one’s own prejudice than to the idea itself. Further, even those ideas which we ultimately do not accept still help us to develop our thoughts. They force us to think differently about the justifications of the ideas we choose to support. Of course, some ideas may not provide either of these benefits, and that is not always possible to predict in advance. But I do not believe any ideas of such little use are to be found in our materials. More importantly, the one thing of which we can be absolutely certain is that we can never reap any benefit from an idea if we dismiss it out of hand.
The writing element of this course is especially important for this third goal. For while one may be exposed to an idea through reading or conversation, writing about it forces a kind of engagement which cannot be produced by any other means. In that sense, your papers for this course are not merely the means by which you express your thoughts. It is quite likely that the activity of writing them will be the forge in which your thoughts are formed. The more seriously you take our course goals and requirements, the more likely it is you will find yourself re-forming your way of looking at ethical questions and viewpoints.
I believe this is the greatest value our course can offer you. It will not be reflected in any grade I could assign to your work. Its significance will be in your personal growth. For taking this course material seriously will require dealing with questions about assumptions you have long held–or more accurately, that have long held you. Accepting any idea without criticism or scrutiny means closing our minds to other possibilities, and no jail is more effective than the prison of a closed mind. For the closed mind does not know what freedom is, cannot recognize it, and therefore can never find it.
Required Course Materials
Required materials used for this course are provided on e-reserve through the PSU Library. (Please see Using the Library information below.) Textbooks are not required.
Most World Campus courses require that students purchase materials (e.g., textbooks, specific software, etc.). To learn about how to order materials, please see the Course Materials page. You should check LionPATH approximately 3–4 weeks before the course begins for a list of required materials.
Using the Library
Many of the University Libraries resources can be utilized from a distance. Through the Libraries website, you can
- access magazine, journal, and newspaper articles online using library databases;
- borrow materials and have them delivered to your doorstep—or even your desktop;
- get research help via email, chat, or phone using the Ask a Librarian service; and
- much more.
You must have an active Penn State Access Account to take full advantage of the Libraries' resources and service. The Off-Campus Users page has additional information about these free services.
Technical Requirements
For this course we recommend the minimum World Campus technical requirements listed below:
| Operating System | Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8*; Mac OS X 10.5 or higher *Windows 8 support excludes the tablet only RT version |
|---|---|
| Processor | 2 GHz or higher |
| Memory | 1 GB of RAM |
| Hard Drive Space | 20 GB free disk space |
| Browser | We recommend the latest ANGEL-supported version of Firefox or
Internet Explorer. To determine if your browser fits this criterion,
and for advice on downloading a supported version,
please refer to the following ITS knowledge base article: Supported Browsers and Recommended Computers.
Note: Cookies, Java, and JavaScript must be enabled. Pop-up blockers should be configured to permit new windows from Penn State websites. Due to nonstandard handling of CSS, JavaScript and caching, older versions of Internet Explorer (such as IE 6 or earlier) do not work with our courses. |
| Plug-ins | Adobe Reader [Download from Adobe]
Flash Player (v7.0 or later) [Download from Adobe] |
| Additional Software | Microsoft Office (2007 or later) |
| Internet Connection | Broadband (cable or DSL) connection required |
| Printer | Access to graphics-capable printer |
| DVD-ROM | Required |
| Sound Card, Microphone, and Speakers | Required |
| Monitor | Capable of at least 1024 x 768 resolution |
If you need technical assistance at any point during the course, please contact the Service Desk.
For registration, advising, disability services, help with materials, exams, general problem solving, visit World Campus Student Services!
All assignments are due Sundays by midnight North American eastern time (ET) of the week given in the schedule unless noted.
(Lesson 10 has special due dates for the paper to allow time for fellow students to do the peer reviewing exercise.)
Unit One: Ancient and Medieval Ethics
| Lesson 1 | Plato |
|---|---|
| Activity |
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| Lesson 2 | Aristotle |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 3 | Aquinas |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 4 | Essay #1 |
|---|---|
| Activity |
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Unit Two: Modern/Enlightenment Ethics
| Lesson 5 | Kant |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 6 | Utilitarianism |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 7 | Essay #2 |
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| Activity |
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Unit Three: 20th Century Ethics
| Lesson 8 | Benedict, Sartre |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 9 | Gilligan |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 10 | Essay #3 |
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| Activity |
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Unit Four: Final Paper
| Lesson 11 | Bibliography |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 12 | Final Essay Paper Proposal |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 13 | Final Essay Paper |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 14 | Rewrite Proposal |
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| Activity |
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| Lesson 15 | Rewrite Final Paper |
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| Activity |
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Note: If you are planning to graduate this semester, please communicate your intent to graduate to your instructor. This will alert your instructor to the need to submit your final grade in time to meet the published graduation deadlines. For more information about graduation policies and deadlines, please refer to Graduation at the Chaiken Center for Student Success.
Formal instruction will end on the last day of class. Provided that you have an active Penn State Access Account user ID and password, you will continue to be able to access the course materials for one year, starting from the end date of the academic semester in which the course was offered (with the exception of library reserves and other external resources that may have a shorter archival period). After one year, you might be able to access the course based on the policies of the program or department offering the course material, up to a maximum of three years from the end date of the academic semester in which the course was offered. For more information, please review the University Course Archival Policy.
Course Requirements
The following assignments are included in this course:
- Required: Six discussion forum posts
- Required: Three shorter essays
- Required: Peer review of third essay
- Required: Article submission (from bibliography assignment)
- Required: Proposal for final essay
- Required: One longer essay (plus a proposal for that essay)
- Optional: Rewrite of the longer essay (plus a proposal for that rewrite) *
The relative weight of your assignments in calculating your final average will be as follows:
| Assignment | Weight |
|---|---|
| Shorter essays (3 of them, the third including a peer review exercise): | 15% each (total 45%) |
| Peer Review Exercise on the third essay | 5% |
| Proposal for Final essay (or its rewrite):* | 10% |
| Final essay (or its rewrite):* | 30% |
| Forum Posts and Bibliography assignment:** | 10% |
|
Total
| 100% |
*The grade on the rewritten version of the final paper (as well as the proposal) will replace the grade on the earlier version if this option is taken. Please note that if your final paper scores less than a "B," this assignment is not an option for you, but a requirement.
**These assignments will not be graded. The score for this portion of your overall average will simply be the percentage of assignments completed on time.
Requirement Explanations in Brief
Collectively, these requirements are means of serving the course goals explained above.
The forum posts are partly to provide a spot check on whether students are keeping up with the reading, but they are intended to do so in a way that facilitates communication. They will not be graded based on content, but only scored based on whether they are completed or not.
The shorter essays serve a number of purposes. One is to give you the opportunity to focus (much more explicitly than most people otherwise would) on what meaning an idea we are studying has in the context of your own life. This provides a better “quality control” check on the quality of your understanding of the ideas while at the same time encouraging deeper reflection on the ideas than understanding them as mere abstractions or opinions. Finally, writing these essays will serve as a preparation for the longer essay, which will be a much more substantial portion of the overall grade for the course.
The longer essay, together with its proposal and the rewrite opportunity, are to represent the culmination of what you have learned about ethical theories and essay writing during the course of your work in this class. It will be a somewhat larger version of the shorter essays, requiring that a minimum of two theories of ethics you have studied in this course are applied to an important ethical issue. The proposal which precedes the paper will serve as a check on whether you are pointed in the right direction with your basic project idea, and the rewrite option (together with it’s proposal) will give you a chance to improve your essay based on my comments on the previous version.
Collectively, these requirements are designed to help you have as rewarding an engagement with ethical theories as possible. Read on for more details about the specifics of each assignment, and feel free to email me if you have any questions about any of them.
Final Grade Computation
Penn State's World Campus follows the same grading system as the Penn State resident program. The grades of A, B, C, D, and F indicate the following qualities of academic performance:
A -- (Excellent) Indicates exceptional achievement
B -- (Good) Indicates extensive achievement
C -- (Satisfactory) Indicates acceptable achievement
D -- (Poor) Indicates only minimal achievement
F -- (Failure) Indicates inadequate achievement necessitating a repetition of the course in order to secure credit
I assign point values to letter grades according to the following scale:
|
A
|
95
|
|
A-
|
90
|
|
B+
|
88
|
|
B
|
85
|
|
B-
|
80
|
|
C+
|
78
|
|
C
|
75
|
|
C-
|
70
|
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D+
|
68
|
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D
|
65
|
|
D-
|
60
|
|
F
|
50
|
The quantified aspect of your final grade will be determined according to the relative weights indicated above. The grading scale is as follows:
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92+
|
A
|
|
90+
|
A-
|
|
88+
|
B+
|
|
82+
|
B
|
|
80+
|
B-
|
|
78+
|
C+
|
|
70+
|
C
|
|
60+
|
D
|
|
0
|
F
|
I reserve the right to depart from the mathematical average in determining a final letter grade, based on my judgements regarding intangibles. I may revise grades upwards based on the amount of effort I see dedicated to the paper writing process, commitment to forum discussions, interest in the subject, or other similar factors. Conversely, I may revise downwards based on the lack of such indicators. Also note that for grades of B or above, mathematical average alone will not be sufficient grounds for assigning a letter grade more than one step higher (B to B+, for example) than the score on the longer essay.
Academic Integrity
According to Penn State policy G-9: Academic Integrity (for undergraduate students in undergraduate courses) and policy GCAC-805 Academic Integrity (for graduate students and undergraduate students in graduate courses), an academic integrity violation is “an intentional, unintentional, or attempted violation of course or assessment policies to gain an academic advantage or to advantage or disadvantage another student academically.” Unless your instructor tells you otherwise, you must complete all course work entirely on your own, using only sources that have been permitted by your instructor, and you may not assist other students with papers, quizzes, exams, or other assessments. If your instructor allows you to use ideas, images, or word phrases created by another person (e.g., from Course Hero or Chegg) or by generative technology, such as ChatGPT, you must identify their source. You may not submit false or fabricated information, use the same academic work for credit in multiple courses, or share instructional content. Students with questions about academic integrity should ask their instructor before submitting work.
Students facing allegations of academic misconduct may not drop/withdraw from the affected course unless they are cleared of wrongdoing (see G-9: Academic Integrity or GCAC-805 Academic Integrity as appropriate). Attempted drops will be prevented or reversed, and students will be expected to complete course work and meet course deadlines. Students who are found responsible for academic integrity violations face academic outcomes, which can be severe, and put themselves at jeopardy for other outcomes which may include ineligibility for Dean’s List, pass/fail elections, and grade forgiveness. Students may also face consequences from their home/major program and/or The Schreyer Honors College.
How Academic Integrity Violations Are Handled
World Campus students are expected to act with civility and personal
integrity; respect other students' dignity, rights, and property; and help
create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the
fruits of their own efforts. An environment of academic integrity is
requisite to respect for oneself and others, as well as a civil community.
In cases where academic integrity is questioned, procedures allow a student to accept or contest/appeal the allegation. If a student chooses to contest/appeal the allegation, the case will then be managed by the respective school, college or campus Academic Integrity Committee. Review procedures may vary by college, campus, or school, but all follow the aforementioned policies.
All academic integrity violations are referred to the Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response, which may assign an educational intervention and/or apply a Formal Warning, Conduct Probation, Suspension, or Expulsion.
Information about Penn State's academic integrity policy is included in the information that students receive upon enrolling in a course. To obtain that information in advance of enrolling in a course, please contact us by going to the Contacts & Help page.
University Policies
Penn State welcomes students with disabilities into the University’s educational programs. Every Penn State campus has an office for students with disabilities, including World Campus. The Disabilities and Accommodations section of the Chaiken Center for Student Success website provides World Campus students with information regarding how to request accommodations, documentation guidelines and eligibility, and appeals and complaints. For additional information, please visit the University's Student Disability Resources website.
In order to receive consideration for reasonable accommodations, you must contact the appropriate disability services office at the campus where you are officially enrolled, participate in an intake interview, and provide documentation. If the documentation supports your request for reasonable accommodations, your campus's disability services office will provide you with an accommodation letter. Please share this letter with your instructors and discuss the accommodations with them as early in your courses as possible. You must follow this process for every semester that you request accommodations.
Students with disabilities participating in internship, practicum, student teaching, or other experiential learning opportunities as part of their degree requirements may also be eligible for reasonable accommodations to ensure equal access and opportunity. These accommodations are determined through an interactive process involving the student, their University supervisor, and the site supervisor. Student Disability Resources can assist students with identifying potential barriers, facilitating accommodation requests, and coordinating with University supervisors to promote inclusive learning experiences.
For information about additional policies regarding Penn State Access Accounts; credit by examination; course tuition, fees, and refund schedules; and drops and withdrawals, please see the World Campus Student Center website.
Disclaimer: Please note that the specifics of this Course Syllabus are subject to change, and you will be responsible for abiding by any such changes. Your instructor will notify you of any changes.