SENIOR SEMINAR IN PHILOSOPHY



SENIOR SEMINAR IN PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy 198

Fall 2007

Professor Amy Kind Office Hours:

Bauer 217; x73782 M 2:30 – 4:30 p.m.

amy.kind@claremontmckenna.edu or by appointment



Course Description

The Senior Seminar serves as a capstone experience for the philosophy major at CMC. All CMC philosophy majors and dual majors are required to take the seminar in their senior year. This semester, the theme will be “Life and Death.” What makes someone’s life go best for them? What is the meaning of life? How should death be understood? How should survival be understood? What makes death a bad thing? Should immortality be valued?

Course Texts

There are three required texts for the course that should be available at Huntley bookstore:

• Confrontations with the Reaper, Fred Feldman

• The Metaphysics of Death, John Martin Fischer (ed.)

• The Reasons of Love, Harry Frankfurt

Additional readings will be available online through the library’s electronic reserve system at:

(Password: kind198)

Please print out all electronic reserve readings, so that you have a copy to refer to during our class discussions.

Course Requirements

Papers (60% total)

There will be three 6-8 page papers assigned throughout the semester, each of which will be worth 20% of your course grade. Topics will be distributed approximately 10 days before the due date.

Paper #1 Due at the start of class on Tuesday, October 16

Paper #2 Due at the start of class on Tuesday, November 13

Paper #3 Due Wed., Dec. 19 at 2 p.m.

Response Papers (40% total)

There will be five short (2-3 page) reading response and analysis papers assigned throughout the semester. Each student is required to submit four of these – you may skip one without penalty. If you submit all five, you may drop your lowest score. These are due at the start of class on the following days:

Response #1 Thursday, Sept. 6

Response #2 Tuesday, Sept. 18

Response #3 Tuesday, Oct. 2

Response #4 Tuesday, Oct. 30

Response #5 Tuesday, Nov. 20

Attendance and Participation

Attendance in class is required. Barring exceptional circumstances, you should not be absent from class more than two times over the course of the semester. However, it is not enough merely to attend; you must also come to class having read and thought carefully about the assigned readings so that you are prepared to take an active part in our discussions. In general, you should be consistently and thoughtfully participating in our class discussions. By “thoughtful” I mean to remind you that it is quality, and not mere quantity, that matters when it comes to class participation. Although class participation does not account for a pre-set percentage of your course grade, I reserve the right either to lower your course grade for inadequate participation or to raise your course grade for exceptional participation.

Class Dinner

I will host a class dinner at my house in Claremont on Sunday, September 9 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. Directions and further details will follow.

Reading Schedule

All readings should be completed by the class period indicated. Readings marked (ER) can be found on electronic reserve at

The password to access these readings online is “kind198” – note that it is case-sensitive. When you access a reading via electronic reserve, please print out a copy for yourself.

Tues., Sept. 4 Course intro

Thurs., Sept. 6 Parfit, “What Makes Someone’s Life Go Best?” (Handout)

UNIT ONE: What, if any, is the meaning of life?

Tues., Sept. 11 Camus, “Absurdity is the Divorce Between Reason and the World” (ER); Nagel, “The Absurd” (ER)

Thurs., Sept. 13 Craig, “The Absurdity of Life Without God” (ER)

Tues., Sept. 18 Nozick, “Philosophy and the Meaning of Life” (ER)

Thurs., Sept. 20 Taylor, “The Meaning of Life” (ER)

Tues., Sept. 25 Frankfurt, Ch.1

Thurs., Sept. 27 Frankfurt, Chs. 2-3

Tues., Oct. 2 Wolf, “Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of the Good Life” (ER)

Thurs., Oct. 4 Singer, How Are We To Live, Chs. 11-12 (ER)

UNIT TWO: How should we understand death?

Tues., Oct. 9 Feldman, Ch. 1; Peter Singer, Rethinking Life and Death, pp. 20-56 (ER);

Arnquist, “SF Surgeon Charged…” (ER)

Thurs., Oct. 11 Feldman, Chs. 2-3

Tues., Oct. 16 Feldman, Ch. 4

Thurs., Oct. 18 Feldman, Ch. 5-7

Tues., Oct. 23 FALL BREAK

UNIT THREE: How should we understand survival?

Thurs., Oct. 25 Locke, excerpts from Essay Concerning Human Understanding (ER)

Tues., Oct. 30 Williams, “The Self and the Future” (ER)

Thurs., Nov. 1 Parfit, “The Unimportance of Identity” (ER)

UNIT FOUR: Should immortality be valued?

Tues., Nov. 6 Williams, “The Makropulos Case” (in Fischer)

Thurs., Nov. 8 Fischer, “Why Immortality is Not So Bad” (ER)

Tues., Nov. 13 Guest lecture, John Martin Fischer

UNIT FIVE: Is death really a bad thing for the one who dies?

Thurs., Nov. 15 excerpts from Epicurus, Lucretius (ER)

Tues., Nov. 20 Parfit, excerpt from “Reasons and Persons,” (in Fischer)

Thurs., Nov. 22 THANKSGIVING

Tues., Nov. 27 Brueckner and Fischer, “Why is Death Bad?” (in Fischer)

Thurs., Nov. 29 Thesis Mercy Day – No class

Tues., Dec. 4 Nagel, “Death” (in Fischer)

Thurs., Dec. 6 Feldman, Chs. 8-9

Tues., Dec. 11 Pitcher, “The Misfortunes of the Dead” (in Fischer)

Thurs., Dec. 13 Feinberg, “Harm to Others” (in Fischer)

Wed., Dec. 19 at 2 p.m. **Paper #3 due

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