Morality Matters: Race, Class, and Gender in Applied Ethics

INTRODUCTION

Moral Theories and Moral Reasoning

Arguments

Common Valid Forms of Argument

Common Invalid Forms of Argument

Fallacies

Evaluating Moral Arguments

Reconstructing Arguments and Evaluating Premises

Moral Scenarios for Opening Discussion

1 WHAT IS MORALITY? TRADITIONS AND THEORIES

Articles

Jonathan Bennett, "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn"

Philip Hallie, "The Evil that Men Think-And Do"

James Rachels, "Egoism and Moral Skepticism"

John Arthur, "Morality, Religion, and Conscience"

Jeremy Bentham, "Classical Hedonism"

Robert Nozick, "The Experience Machine"

John Stuart Mill, "Utilitarianism"

Immanuel Kant, "The Categorical Imperative"

Richard Taylor, "A Critique of Kantianism"

Aristotle, "Virtue Ethics"

Carol Gilligan, "In a Different Voice"

George Sher, "Other Voices, Other Rooms? Women's Psychology and Moral Theory"

Ronald Duska, "What is Literature to Ethics?"

Media Gallery

The Shop on Main Street (film summary)

Wall Street (film summary)

Ursula K. Le Guin,"The Ones Who Walk Away from the Omelas" (story summary)

Herman Melville, Billy Budd (novel summary)

Supplementary Readings

2 RELATIVISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Articles

Ruth Benedict, "A Defense of Moral Relativism"

W.T. Stace, "A Critique of Moral Relativism"

Mary Midgley, "Trying Out One's New Sword: A Critique of Moral Isolationism"

Martha Nussbaum "Imagination and the Perspectives of Others"

Claude Ake, "The African Context of Human Rights"

Jane Perlez, "Uganda's Women: Children, Drudgery, And Pain"

Kenneth K. Inada, "A Buddhist Response to the Nature of Human Rights"

Charlotte Bunch, "Women's Rights as Human Rights"

The United States Bill of Rights and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Media Gallery

Herodotus, "Morality as Custom" (summary)

Do The Right Thing (film summary)

Red Corner (film summary)

Welcome to Sarajevo (film summary)

Supplementary Readings

3 ABORTION AND EUTHANASIA

Articles

Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion"

Don Marquis, "Why Abortion is Immoral"

Sally Markowitz, "Abortion and Feminism"

Loretta J. Ross, "African-American Women and Abortion"

U.S. Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade

James Rachels, "Active and Passive Euthanasia"

Bonnie Steinbock, "The Intentional Termination of Life"

Joanne Lynn and James F. Childress, "Must Patients Always Be Given Food and Water?"

Media Gallery

A Private Matter (film summary)

Whose Life is it Anyway? (film summary)

Racing with the Moon (film summary)

Ernest Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants" (story summary)

The Case of Dr. Kevorkian (event summary)

Supplementary Readings

4 PUNISHMENT AND THE DEATH PENALTY

Articles

Albert Camus, "Reflections on the Guillotine"

Immanuel Kant, "The Retributive Theory of Punishment"

Ernest Van Den Haag, "On Deterrence and the Death Penalty"

Hugo Bedau, "The Death Penalty as a Deterrent"

Anthony Amsterdam, "Race and the Death Penalty"

U.S. Supreme Court, Furman v. Georgia

U.S. Supreme Court, Gregg v. Georgia

Media Gallery

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment (scene summary)

Sacco and Vanzetti (film summary)

Dead Man Walking (film summary)

The Green Mile (film summary)

Illinois Death Row Conviction Thrown Out (event summary)

Supplementary Readings

5 SEXUALITY AND MARRIAGE

Articles

Thomas Aquinas, "The Purpose of Sex"

Immanuel Kant, "On Sexuality and Marriage"

Richard Mohr, "Gay Basics: Some Questions, Facts, and Values"

Michael Levin, "Why Homosexuality is Abnormal"

U.S. Supreme Court, Bowers v. Hardwick

Richard Wasserstrom, "Is Adultery Immoral?"

Laurence Houlgate, "Is Divorce Immoral?"

Chesire Calhoun, "Feminism, Lesbianism and the Family"

Media Gallery

Doris Lessing, "Between Men" (story summary)

E. M. Forster, "The Road from Colonus" (story summary)

Crimes and Misdemeanors (film summary)

The Story of Us (film summary)

Love and Death on Long Island (film summary)

The Wedding Banquet (film summary)

The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act

Supplementary Readings

6 RACISM AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Articles

Kwame Anthony Appiah, "Racisms"

Jean-Paul Sartre, "Anti-Semite and Jew"

Richard Wasserstrom, "Racism and Sexism"

Bernard Boxill, "Blacks and Social Justice"

Lino A. Graglia, "Affirmative Discrimination"

Richard Kahlenberg, "Class, Not Race"

U.S. Supreme Court, Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke

Media Gallery

Ralph Ellison, "The Battle Royal" (story summary)

Gayl Jones, "White Rat" (story summary)

To Kill a Mockingbird (film summary)

White Man's Burden (film summary)

In the Heat of the Night (film summary)

Supplementary Readings

7 SEXISM AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Articles

Marilyn Frye, "Sexism"

Steven Goldberg, "The Inevitability of Patriarchy"

Plato, "On The Equality of Women"

Aristotle, "On the Inequality of Women"

John Stuart Mill, "Sexism as Inequality"

Simone de Beauvior, "The Second Sex"

Lois Pineau, "Date Rape: A Feminist Analysis"

Patricia Yancey Martin and Robert Hummer, "Fraternities and Rape on Campus"

Suzanne Pharr, "Hate Violence Against Women"

bell hooks, "Violence in Intimate Relationships"

Angela Davis, "Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist"

Media Gallery

Margaret Atwood, "Rape Fantasies" (story summary)

Irwin Shaw, "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" (story summary)

Thelma and Louise (film summary)

The Color Purple (film summary)

In the Company of Men (film summary)

The General's Daughter (film summary)

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Women

Supplementary Readings

8 PORNOGRAPHY AND HATE SPEECH

Articles

Catharine MacKinnon, "Pornography, Civil Rights and Speech"

Lisa Duggan, Nan D. Hunter and Carole S. Vance, "False Promises: Feminist Antipornography Legislation"

Gerald Gunther, "Good Speech, Bad Speech-No"

Andrew Altman, "Liberalism and Campus Hate Speech"

Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, "Dealing With Words that Wound"

U.S. District Court, Doe vs. University of Michigan

Media Gallery

The People of the State of California vs. Lawrence Ferlinghetti (case summary)

Blackboard Jungle (film summary)

American History X (film summary)

The People vs. Larry Flint (film summary)

Skokie Residents Combat Hatred (event summary)

2 Live Crew (event summary)

Supplementary Readings

9 POVERTY AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

Articles

Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence and Morality"

Garrett Hardin, "Lifeboat Ethics"

Diana M. Pearce, "The Feminization of Poverty"

Margaret B. Wilkerson & Jewell Handy Gresham, "The Racialization of Poverty"

Kai Nielsen, "Radical Egalitarianism"

John Rawls, "A Theory of Justice"

Tibor Machan, "The Nonexistence of Basic Welfare Rights"

Nancy Fraser, "Women, Welfare and the Politics of Need Interpretation"

Peter Marin, "Helping and Hating the Homeless"

Media Gallery

Jonathan Swift, "A Modest Proposal" (complete story)

Anzia Yezierska, "The Free Vacation House" (story summary)

Dorothy West, "Jack in the Pot" (story summary)

Soylent Green (film summary)

Lifeboat (film summary)

The Grapes of Wrath (film summary)

Supplementary Readings

10 ANIMAL RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

Articles

Aldo Leopold, "The Land Ethic"

Peter S. Wenz, "Ecology and Morality"

William F. Baxter, "People or Penguins"

Karen J. Warren, "Feminism and Ecology"

Karl Grossman, "Environmental Racism"

Peter Singer, "Animal Liberation"

Bonnie Steinbock, "Speciesism and the Idea of Equality"

Immanuel Kant, "Our Duty to Animals"

Media Gallery

George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant" (essay summary)

Gustave Flaubert, "The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaler" (story summary)

Blood of the Beasts (film summary)

All the Little Animals (film summary)

Gorillas in the Mist (film summary)

Never Cry Wolf (film summary)

Erin Brockovich (film summary)

Universal Declaration of the Rights of Animals

Supplementary Readings

GLOSSARY