Online Study Guide for Philosophy 3
(Introduction to Ethics)

Sandra LaFave
West Valley College

This is the online study guide for Philosophy 3. If you want to see the current syllabus for Philosophy 3, click here. The Syllabus contains dates, assignments, grading policies, and other useful information.

Current Calendar Summary
Print this file! It contains exam dates and due dates for papers for the current semester.

Free Tutoring is Available for This Class!

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Online Resources

• General philosophy resources online

• Excellent, comprehensive site on writing

• Online reviews of English grammar

• Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper by philosopher Jim Pryor of Princeton University

• "Writing papers for introductory moral philosophy courses" by philosopher Joseph Hernandez Cruz of Williams College

Online Notes

The following are required reading for Dr. LaFave's sections of Philosophy 3. If you are taking Phil 3 online, all the following files have already been incorporated into the class in Angel, so you don't really have to use this Study Guide.

If you have not taken Philosophy 1 (Introduction to Philosophy), or it's been a while since you've taken it, you may want to refer also to my Online Study Guide for Philosophy 1, especially the general background essays on free will, Hume, and Kant.

Who wrote this online study guide? Unless otherwise indicated, I, Sandra LaFave (your instructor), wrote everything listed here. So if you are in my class, it would be really dumb to plagiarize from these notes, right? If you are not in my class and you are thinking about plagiarizing from these notes, think again: your philosophy teacher can find these pages as easily as you did.

Please note that these readings are IN ADDITION TO the assigned readings listed in the Syllabus.

Readings for Test on Critical Thinking

• Study Guide for Critical Thinking Test

• What Is Philosophy?

• Introduction to Ethics

• Why Study Ethics? Stockdale's Answer

• Why Study Logic?

• Steps in Argument Analysis -- A Critical Thinking Checklist

• What is Bad Logic?

• Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

• Open and Closed Concepts and the Continuum Fallacy

• The Fallacies of Composition and Division

• Online resources for informal fallacies

  • On fallacies of relevance (irrelevant emotional appeals, ad hominem, appeal to questionable authority, appeal to ignorance, etc.)

  • On fallacies of presumption (accident, false cause, begging the question, complex question, etc.)

  • On fallacies of ambiguity (equivocation, amphiboly, composition, division, accent)

  • Excellent general site on fallacies ("The Fallacy Files")

  • Comprehensive list of fallacies — Host site is decidedly atheist and uses religious arguments as examples of fallacies.

  • Practical logic for Christians — Host site for Christian home-schooling parents

  • From Drury University

• Self Test on Logic Concepts

• Self Test on Fallacies

Readings for Test on Writing

• Why the English Review?

• Study Guide for English Test

• Amphibolies

• How to Write Good

• Examples of Bad Writing

• Avoiding Sexist Language

• Predict Your Essay Grade

• Sample Graded Papers

• Self Tests on English

Metaethics

• Introduction to Metaethics

• Relativism: Objectives and Readings

• Relativism

• Excerpt from Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct

• Writing a Paper on Relativism

• Sample Graded Paper on Relativism

• Ethics and Religion: Objectives and Readings

• Ethics and Religion

• Subjectivism: Objectives and Readings

  • Notes on Subjectivism

  • Thinking Critically About the "Subjective"/"Objective" Distinction

• Ethics and Ideology:Objectives and Readings

  • Ethics and Ideology (Notes on Nietzsche and Marx)

  • Nietzsche on Race and Sex

  • Marxist Economics

  • Affluenza

  • "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut

  • Ethics and Feminism

• Egoism: Objectives and Readings

  • Psychological Egoism and Ethical Egoism

  • 12 Ways to Be Perfectly Miserable

  • Are All Voluntary Acts Selfish?

  • Plato's Philosophy as a Reply to Glaucon's Challenge

  • Writing a Paper on Egoism

  • Sample Graded Paper on Egoism

• Midterm Exam

• Sample Graded Midterm

Normative Ethics

• Consequentialism: Objectives and Readings

  • Utilitarianism

• Non-Consequentialism: Objectives and Readings

  • Kant's Ethics

• Aretaic (Virtue) Ethics: Objectives and Readings

• Duties to the Less Fortunate

• Your Final Paper (Final Exam)

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Questions or comments about the WVC Philosophy Department?
sandy_lafave@wvmccd.cc.ca.us