Core Course: Moral Philosophy

Course

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/W_AAMPHUP014

Course Objective

1. Learn to conduct research in moral philosophy. 2. Learn to defend and sell your main finding in a final paper.

Course Content

This course addresses an actual topic in moral philosophy. Topic this year: interpersonal and intrapersonal dilemmas. What makes actors (individual or corporate) cooperate (e.g. reduce one’s carbon emissions by 45% in 2030)? A selected group may not want to cooperate. Yet others are willing to cooperate, but may still fail due to procrastination. Cooperation is costly, and for that reason it can be tempting to put off. Moreover, given certain “intransitive preference loops”, it can be tempting to keep delaying, and one may never meet any deadlines at all. In this course, you will investigate solutions to this problem. Central reading: Andreou’s Commitment and Resoluteness in Rational Choice (CUP, 2022). Possible research topics include: intransitive preferences and self-destructive behaviour; intrapersonal dilemmas (e.g. health); interpersonal dilemmas (e.g. climate change); similarity interpersonal and intrapersonal dilemmas; precommitment vs. resoluteness; responsibility and autonomy questions regarding these dilemmas; rationality questions regarding these dilemmas; individual vs. institutional level.

Teaching Methods

The setup: you will work on an individual research project (related to the topic), and we will meet weekly to discuss the readings as well the (intermediate) results of your projects.

Method of Assessment

Weekly handout/presentation (pass/fail) Final paper, 4k words (100% grade)

Literature

The readings will be announced on Canvas.

Target Audience

RMa and PhD students of the Graduate School of Humanities Open to other Ma students with a relevant background in moral philosophy
Academic year1/09/2431/08/25
Course level6.00 EC

Language of Tuition

  • English

Study type

  • Master