This module provides students with an opportunity for deep engagement with recent work in moral philosophy. We cover five topics across the ten classes, with two classes on each topic.

These topics are likely to include:

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Moral Aggregation

Is there any number of people you should save from a moderately large burden, such as paralysis, rather than saving one person from a very large burden, such as death? Is there any number of people you should save from a very small burden, such as a headache, rather than saving one person from a very large burden, such as death? Many people answer these questions ‘yes’ and ‘no’, respectively. Can this position be defended?

Indicative Reading: Alex Voorhoeve, ‘How Should We Aggregate Competing Claims?’, Ethics 125 (2014): 64–87

Collective Harm

Many of our choices collectively inflict grave harms on humans, animals, and the environment. Think of buying clothes from sweatshops, eating meat, or driving gas-guzzling cars. However, when considered individually, these choices seem to make extremely little difference to anyone, and they might even make no difference at all. This makes it difficult to explain why we ought not to make these choices. Is there a plausible explanation?

Indicative Reading: Julia Nefsky, ‘Fairness, Participation, and the Real Problem of Collective Harm’, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 5 (2015): 245–271

Moral Uncertainty

You have a slight preference for the burger, but the salad also sounds nice. You stare hard into the distance, wondering whether the vegetarians are right. You cannot decide—it seems just as likely they are right as that they are wrong. What should you do?

You give up on assessing vegetarianism and reason as follows: If the vegetarians are wrong, it is slightly better for you to choose the burger, for that is what you prefer. If they are right, it is much better for you to choose the salad, for choosing the burger would be morally very bad. So, taking both prudential and moral considerations into account, the expected value of the salad is greater than that of the burger. So, you should choose the salad.

Your reasoning seems plausible. But it assumes that what you should do is sensitive to your normative uncertainty—to your levels of confidence in competing normative theories. Is this assumption correct? What are its consequences?

Indicative Reading: William MacAskill and Toby Ord, 'Why Maximize Expected Choice-Worthiness?', Noûs 54 (2020): 327–353

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The module is assessed by a summative essay which will focus on one of the topics covered. You will be strongly encouraged to write a formative essay (maximum length 2000 words), which will be due around the end of week 8. The formative essay is intended to serve as a draft of the summative, so it may answer the same question.

By the end of the module, you should have developed a good understanding of some of the debates at the cutting edge of moral philosophy and be able to explain these debate to others; have developed the skills needed to critically evaluate these debates; have developed your writing and communication skills, particularly with respect to clarity and structure; and have produced an essay that demonstrates these skills with respect to one of these debates.

Philosophy Area B