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Our relationship to our rational and animal nature has always been a central theme in discussions of ethics and human nature. The passions in particular have often been associated with what is "animal" or "bestial" in us, while reason has often been viewed as what is distinctively human, and even equated with what is good for humans. Recent work in cognitive science provides new ways of looking at both reason and animals, and some recent writers have attempted to apply these insights to ethics. In particular, evolutionary psychology has provided material for discussions of whether such ethical characteristics as altruism can be explained in purely biologial terms, and studies of other social animals (particularly other primates) provides interestin g insights into how our own individual and social nature is shaped by species-specific characteristics that do not easily fit into the model of calculating reason. In this course we will read recent books and articles that attempt to appropriate insights from the cognitive sciences from a variety of perspectives, ranging from E.O. Wilson and D. Dawkins' reductionist approaches to Midgeley and Horst's accounts, which more closely related to traditional philosophical approaches to ethics.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS PHIL Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-26-2001
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