PHIL 330 - Seminar in Ethics & Theory of Value

Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)

A seminar offering an in-depth exploration of a chosen topic in Ethics and Theory of Value.

Topic for 2024/25a: Automation and the Future of Work. This course considers contemporary debates about artificial intelligence and the future of work by comparing these debates with earlier waves of automation. In particular, we focus on the work of Marxist scholars writing about technology and unemployment during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. We read works by Harry Braverman, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, E.P. Thompson, and Kathi Weeks, as well as by Aaron Benanav, Gavin Mueller, Astra Taylor, Helen Hester, and Nick Srnicek. Assignments in this course are oriented around a single, ongoing research project. Students are required to conduct independent research culminating into two separate writing assignments (a survey paper and final article) submitted near the end of the semester. Along the way, students develop a research proposal, prepare an annotated bibliography, and lead an in-class discussion. Jamie Kelly.

Topic for 2024/25b: Ethics for a Heating World. Climate change raises urgent moral problems for which both received common-sense ethics and the historical tradition in moral philosophy are ill-equipped. Some of these arise from the fact that climate harms are caused not just by individual actions, but by political, economic, industrial and social systems, as well as from the fact that when individual actions, such as taking a flight, do cause climate harms, the causal chains connecting actions and their effects pass through vast and chaotic natural systems, so that effects are separated from causes in both space and time. Others arise from the fact that climate harms nearly always fall first and worst on the world’s most vulnerable populations, who have contributed least to climate change, so that climate harms usually involve injustice. Against the background of these facts, we consider questions including: how should we think about the climate-related moral obligations of individuals, of institutions (such as Vassar College) and of larger structured and unstructured groups up to and including nations? How should we think about obligations to people who have not yet been born? Do we have obligations to past generations? Do existential risks from climate change give us obligations that are different in kind from those given by risks that are serious, but not existential? Are there contexts in which individuals, nations, businesses, or institutions can meet their ethical obligations by offsetting their emissions? Do individuals or groups that have benefited from emitting activities owe reparations to those who have been disproportionately harmed by them? Could geoengineering ever be a morally acceptable option in the face of escalating climate risks? Jeffrey Seidman.

Prerequisite(s): Two intermediate or advanced Philosophy courses, or permission of the instructor.

One 3-hour period.

Course Format: CLS