Final Exam

For the Mt. Laurel class, the final exam will be held at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, December 11th, in our regular classroom.

For the Holy Cross class, the final exam will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, December 12th, in our regular classroom.

Extra Credit

Here is an optional extra credit assignment. It is due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, December 4th for the Mt. Laurel class, and Wednesday, December 5th for the Holy Cross class.

• Which do you think are more important in determining the morality of a particular action: the motives (intentions) that lead to that action, or the consequences (results) of that action? Explain and philosophically defend your stance. Use examples to help highlight the difference between motives and consequences.
  

The assignment is worth the value of a reading response (a possible 50 points).

Links Worthy of a Swine

Here are some links that are loosely related to the stuff on Utilitarianism that we are studying. Most of these deal with psychology. There's a lot of psychological research on happiness popping up lately. The first link is an overview of the psychology of happiness:

Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness

The second is a slightly optimistic take on our ability to change our baseline level of happiness. This is important to know for an ethical theory that values maximizing happiness:

The Hedonic Set Point Can Go Up

The next link deals with a famous moral thought experiment, the trolley problem. This gets brought up a lot when evaluating Utilitarianism:

Psychology of the Trolley Problem

The last link is an advanced overview of consequentialist ethical theories. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory, since it only looks at the consequences of an action to figure out whether an action is morally good or bad:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry: Consequentialism

So what makes you happy? WaWa? Ping pong? Cookies?

Relative to You, But Not to Me

Here are some links on ethical relativism. The first is an interview with a moral psychologist who supports a sophisticated version of ethical relativism.

Interview with Moral Psychologist Jonathan Haidt

The second one is an advanced overview of various versions of moral relativism:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Article on Moral Relativism

The Great Trashing of 2007

I had a fun weekend:

(See it all)

Reading Response #4

Reading response #4 is due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, November 14th, for the Holy Cross class, and Tuesday, November 20th, for the early morning class. The assignment is to write a one- to two-page response on the following:

Explain and philosophically defend your opinion about God. Do you believe God exists? Doesn't exist? Are you agnostic? By "philosophically defend" your opinion, I mean present an argument for why you believe what you believe. Feel free to use one or more of the arguments we've discussed in class. You can also come up with your own reasons.

Also, briefly say whether your opinion about God has changed at all after this section on philosophy of religion in this class. Have your reasons that support your opinion about God changed?

Pascal's Wager

Reading Response #3

As a little gift from me to you, I've decided to not assign anything for reading response #3. Everyone will get full credit for it (50 points).

Clearly, reading responses are better if they only exist in our minds than if they exist in reality.

Like a Watch, Only More So

Here are some links on the design argument for God's existence. First is a radio interview on Hume's criticisms of the design arg. Second is an article on evolution versus intelligent design.

Third is the article we discussed in class about all the "design flaws" in nature. Finally, here's an article on the new research that might show the appendix serves a purpose, and so wouldn't count as a design flaw. (Thanks to Tiffany for pointing this out in class!)

Finally, the National Public Radio show Fresh Air ran a pair of interviews with two scientists talking about whether God exists. The conversations touch on a lot of things we've been discussing in class.

Richard Dawkins pushing atheism

Francis Collins pushing theism

Hey, where's the interview with an agnostic? The media are so biased toward those with opinions.

If you've read a good article on intelligent design, recommend it to us by emailing me or posting the link in the comments section of this post.