Philosophy 210 – Thinking Critically
Fall 2009
PRISM ID: 7725
TuTh 1:00pm-2:15pm
Room 215
Professor: Tait Szabo
Office: room 214
Office Hours: M 3-3:50pm, W 2-3:50pm, T and Th 2:25-3:50pm, and by appointment.
E-mail: tait.szabo@uwc.edu
Course Description: Students will learn critical thinking skills and apply them to the analysis of currently debated topics. These topics may include war, capital punishment, famine relief, killing nonhuman animals, smoking bans, prostitution, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage. The course will enable students to identify and evaluate complex chains of reasoning, and to produce sound arguments free of common mistakes.
Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites for this course.
Recommended Coursework: ENG 101 or ENG 102
Associates Degree requirements: Application and Performance
Required Texts: Readings for this course will be taken from the anthology below:
Boonin, David, and Graham Oddie, eds. What's Wrong? Applied Ethicists and Their Critics. 2nd ed. Oxford, 2010.
Course Requirements and Assessment
Proficiencies: The goal of the course is to teach students how to think and write critically about philosophical questions. Students will learn how to analyze, synthesize, evaluate and interpret philosophical ideas, and to recognize fallacious and inconsistent reasoning.
Assessment: A UW Colleges-wide assessment program has been put into place to enhance the quality and effectiveness of the curriculum, programs, and services of the institution. The following areas of proficiency will be assessed because they are of primary importance in the education of our students: Analytical Skills, Quantitative Skills, Communication Skills, and Aesthetic Skills. For more information, go to Assessment Program. This class will not be assessed.
Exams: Students will take three in-class exams, including the final exam. Details will be provided later. Each exam will count for 20% of your final course grade.
Critical Reaction Emails:
You will be responsible for sending reaction e-mails to me throughout the semester starting with Section Two (see the course schedule below). These e-mails should be at least two substantial paragraphs in length. The first paragraph should briefly summarize what you take to be the thesis, main point, or purpose of the reading being discussed. The second paragraph and beyond should contain your critical reaction to the reading. Here, you should be critically evaluating some aspect of the reading: what was particularly interesting, convincing, problematic, confusing, etc.? Your reaction e-mails will not be evaluated for correctness, but they should demonstrate a serious engagement with the reading for class. Reaction e-mails that fail to seriously engage the reading will receive no credit.There are two important rules to keep in mind for this assignment: first, the e-mails must be received before we discuss the reading in class, and second, you can turn in no more than one per week. If you turn in ten satisfactorily, you will receive an A for this portion of your grade. For each one not turned in, this portion of your grade will decrease by one-third of a letter grade (so, turning in nine earns an A-, eight a B+, etc.; turning in zero, however, will earn an F). For our purposes, each week ends at the start of our Thursday class; any reaction e-mails sent afterwards will count for the next week.
You will need to adhere to three rules in formatting your reaction e-mails. First, the subject of your e-mails should include all of the following: the course number; the number of the reaction; and, the name of the philosopher or philosophers to whom you’ll be responding (e.g., "PHI 210 Reaction 1: Thomson"). Second, don’t send any attachments; your reaction e-mail should be the text of the e-mail itself. And third, don’t include other business (questions about assignments, requests for a meeting, etc.) in your reaction e-mails; send all of that stuff as a separate correspondence.Your critical reaction emails grade will count for 20% of your final course grade.
Class Participation and Attendance: Attendance will not be taken in this course. Participation, however, makes up 20% of your final course grade, and it will be impossible to receive a good participation grade without good attendance.
Extra Credit: There will be no opportunities for extra credit.
Appointments and Office Hours: Please feel free to drop by my office during office hours. If you wish To see me outside these set times I am always available by appointment. Email can be sent any time. Give me a Day or two to answer. Please include the phrase "PHI 210" in the subject line.
Policy Statements
Academic Integrity: There is a zero-tolerance policy for academic misconduct. Academic misconduct may include: cheating, plagiarism, aid of academic dishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. All incidents of academic misconduct will be reported. Students who are found to be in violation of academic integrity may be subject to academic discipline.
Classroom Behavior: Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Those who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to academic discipline. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with differences of race, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender, gender variance, and nationalities. Class rosters are provided to the instructor with the student's legal name. I will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name or gender pronoun. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I may make appropriate changes to my records.
Disabilities: If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please inform me in a timely manner (i.e. during the first two weeks) so that your needs may be addressed.
Religion: I will make every effort to reasonably and fairly deal with all students who, because of religious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled exams, assignments or required attendance. In this class, every effort will be made to accommodate all students who, because of religious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled exams, provided they notify me well in advance (at least two weeks) of the scheduled conflict. If an exam is scheduled on a religious holiday, affected students may be provided with the opportunity for a makeup exam.
Class Schedule: The following is a tentative schedule of the course and may change if required.
You will be expected to have read the assigned reading by the time you attend the relevant class. Readings are referred to by author, title and page numbers (all page references are to the text edited by Boonin and Oddie).
Important Dates:
September 2nd: First day of classes
September 7th: Labor Day (no classes)
October 6th: First Exam Study Guide
November 12th: Second Exam Study Guide
November 26th-27th: Thanksgiving (no classes)
December 15th: last day of classes
December 17th-19th and 21st-23rd: Final Exams
Final Exam: Dec 22, 1:00PM - 3:00PM
Readings
Section One
Validity, Soundness, and Fallacies
Reading: Introduction 1-9
Inference-Indicators and the Logical Structure of an Argument
Extracting an Argument from a Text
The Method of Counterexample
Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory
Reading: Introduction 24-30
Section Two
War
Reading: Introduction 9-11 (Arguments from analogy), Fullinwider and His Critics 33-43
Capital Punishment
Reading: Nathanson and His Critics 424-434
Killing Nonhuman Animals
Reading: Introduction 16-21 (Arguments from inference to the best explanation) and 22-24 (Arguments by reduction to absurdity), Regan and His Critics 111-130
Famine Relief
Reading: Singer and His Critics 135-154
Smoking Bans
Reading: Introduction 12-16 (Bare-Difference arguments), Goodin and His Critics 499-535
Homosexuality
Reading: Levin and His Critics 157-185
Same-Sex Marriage
Reading: Jordan and His Critics 299-311
Prostitution
Reading: Introduction 21-22 (Arguments by process of elimination), Ericsson and His Critics 233-255