Most of these have been in print for a while, and you can find inexpensive used copies online.
Additional readings will be made available through the Philosophy Department reserve file (behind the desk in the reception area of the department office), and online.
Optional prereading: MacIntyre, After Virtue, ch.1 ("A Disquieting Suggestion").
(Optional reading really is optional.)
Reading: MacIntyre, After Virtue, chs. 1-3.
Optional reading: Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, ch. 6 (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).
Happy Labor Day! Since our class day falls on the holiday, now's a good chance to get ahead on the reading for two weeks out (Sept. 15): After Virtue, chs. 9-11 and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, chs. 1-5. Take the books to the beach!
Reading: MacIntyre, After Virtue, chs. 4-6.
Optional reading: MacIntyre, "Hume on 'Is' and 'Ought'" (ch. 13 of Against the Self-Images of the Age).
Even more optional reading: MacIntyre, "Why Is the Search for the Foundations of Ethics So Frustrating?", Hastings Center Report 9(4), Aug. 1979: 16-22 (a sort of prequel to After Virtue).
Reading: Lux Cutler, "The Ethical Paintbrush"; Lola Warnick, "Pressure and Manipulation". Review After Virtue, pp. 70-75. After Virtue, chs. 9-11 and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, chs. 1-4.
Optional reading: Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions -- the moves we'll see MacIntyre making over the next couple of weeks will be easier to identify if you've encountered this short classic.
Reading: Sydney Gillman, "Kierkegaard's Inward Authority: A Reply to MacIntyre on Existentialist Choice"; Iragi Nshangalume, "Emotional Regulation"; Joseph Schallenberger, "Emotivism Doesn't Abide by the Conventions of the Philosophy Genre".
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? chapters 5-7. These chapters presuppose familiarity with Aristotle's Ethics, and ch. 5, with Plato; if you have that background, I recommend reading these chapters straight through, and carefully. If not, read the following passages: Pay special attention to 76f, from "I now have to add to this..." [comes in the middle of the first full para.] to "Psychologies thus understood express and presuppose moralities" and to pp. 78-81, from "To engage in intellectual enquiry..." to ""Return now to Plato." And read pp. 88-92 (top, "...are one and the same"); pp. 97f, two paras. starting "In the Nicomachean Ethics..."; p. 99, para. starting "Aristotle, like most Greeks..."; ch. 7 up to p. 118 ("...moving dialectically between them");
Optional reading: MacIntyre, "Poetry as Political Philosophy" (ch. 9 in Ethics and Politics); "Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative, and the Philosophy of Science" in The Tasks of Philosophy.
Reading: Sunny Singh, "Whose Questions? Which Normality?"; Sam Cannon, "Blurring the Moral Distinction Between Social Roles and Characters in an Emotivist Society".
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Ch. 8 up to p. 134 (through the first full para., "...of the ongoing activity of the polis"); pp. 139-41, from "The logical structure of the practical syllogism..." to "...extra ecclesiam nulla salus; on p. 143, 2/3 of the way down the page, from "The claim on his own behalf..." to the end of the para.; ch. 10; in ch. 11, pp. 205f, from "What is clear nonetheless..." to "...in respect of both theses and arguments"; para. bridging pp. 206f. Speedread/skim ch. 12, but pay close attention to the following passages: para. bridging pp. 210f ("One concerned the relationship..."); two paras. bridging pp. 211f ("Any answer to the dominant political question..."); para. bridging pp. 222f; para. bridging pp. 234f ("Stair's thesis..."). You can skip ch. 13, except for pp. 251f, from "The institutionalized role..." to "...the Scottish seventeenth and eighteenth centuries".
And take a look at Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, I:13 (in the handout from last class).
Optional reading: WJWR chs. 14-16; you can speedread these, but if you have prior familiarity with Hume, you might slow down on ch. 16.
Have a great fall break -- take Dependent Rational Animals to Bermuda!
Reading: Dependent Rational Animals, yup, all of it! Nicolas Arkilo, "The Unreliability of Retrospection to Assess Progress in Virtue Ethics"; Dailen Lobdell, "Midterm Essay".
Optional reading: MacIntyre, "What Is a Human Body?" in The Tasks of Philosophy.
Reading: Review Dependent Rational Animals. Michael Mertens, "On the Claim that Virtue Ethics is Relativist"; Jaden Gamache, "In Defense of the Bureaucratic Manager."
Optional reading: For your amusement, Kim Sterelny, "Minds: Extended or Scaffolded?", the section "Extended Digestion", at pp. 467-69.
Reading: Henry Lindsey, "Friction in the Progress of Traditions"; Tyler Evarts, "MacIntyre’s Westphalian Oversight"; Maddox Stinson, "Challenging MacIntyre’s Notion of the Constancy of the Employment of Reason". Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, secs. 12, 16, 17, 19, 20; Gay Science, secs. 110, 111, 112, 121. (Look in the handout!) Review Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, chs. 1 and 2, and along with ch. 2, read on pp. 214f, from "The function of genealogy as emancipatory..." through "...the defeat of the encyclopaedists, presuppose that stance".
Optional reading: Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, ch. 9. And if you've been wondering why I keep telling you to avoid words like "objective," take a look at Heather Douglas,"The Irreducible Complexity of Objectivity".
Reading: Marshal Ruiz, "Exclusive Education versus Inclusive Societies"; Jordan Ogg, "Moving Forward with Emotivism". Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, pp. 229 (from "The good that is our final end...") to 242, 309-15; Then start reading from the beginning -- aim to get to p. 79. (Mostly familiar material, at a higher level of granularity, so you can move quickly through it -- but slow down for the arguments.)
Optional reading: Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, pp. 243-309.
Reading: Zoe Marsh, "Sorry? Emotivism's Multitool"; Lauren Smith, "In Pursuit of Fortitude". Read the excerpts from the Groundwork in the previous session's handout. Then, in Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, speedread chs. 3-6 (this stretch goes over ground you'll find familiar from Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, but with somewhat more granularity and focus; if you're working on a paper that engages WJWR, you'll find this helpful.) I recommend you slow down and read for the arguments at: p. 64, para. starting "The standards of achievement..."; p. 65, para. starting "By contrast..."; p. 68, para. starting "What was it about philosophy..."; p. 92, para. starting "By accepting authority..." to the end of the page; pp. 93f, from "Some modern writers..." to "...a series of corresponding signs"; pp. 111f, para. starting "For each contending party..."; pp. 113f, two paras. starting "We have in the central intellectual conflicts..."; pp. 116f, three paras., starting "Every tradition which..."; pp. 119f, two paras. starting "First, although it is true..."; p. 125, para. starting "Within Aquinas's scheme of thought..."; para. bridging pp. 127f. Then slow down and read chs. 7-8. attentively.
Optional reading: MacIntyre, "Hegel on Faces and Skulls," sec. III (The Tasks of Philosophy, pp. 84f). Margaret Bowman, Are Our Goals Really What We're After?
Reading: Olivia Church, "Beyond the Horizon"; Matthew Merback, "Contesting MacIntyre's Homeric Analysis". Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, 114-65. "Moral Relativism, Truth and Justification" (ch. 3 in The Tasks of Philosophy).
Optional reading: MacIntyre, "Rationality and the Explanation of Action", in Against the Self-Images of the Age.
Reading: Jacob Gerhardt, "Imagined Communities and MacIntyrean Practices"; Hyrum Carlile, "Human Flourishing and Human Cooperation"; Orlando Narvaez, "Representations of Reason Are Not Bound to Be Linguistic". Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, pp. 189-202. "Truthfulness and Lies: What Is the Problem and What Can We Learn from Mill?"; "Truthfulness and Lies: What Can We Learn from Kant?" (chs. 6 and 7 of Ethics and Politics).
Optional reading: "Truth as a Good" (ch. 10 of The Tasks of Philosophy).
Reading: "Some Enlightenment Projects Reconsidered," and "Social Structures and Their Threats to Agency" (chs. 10 and 11 of Ethics and Politics); Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, 202-220.
Optional reading: "The Ends of Life, the Ends of Philosophical Writing" (ch. 7 of The Tasks of Philosophy).