PHIL 227Culture and Ethics

This course surveys a variety of competing ethical positions that have been, and continue to be, adopted by different cultures around the world. Can two competing ethical viewpoints both be right? If not, then what grounds should we adopt to decide between them, and under what circumstances? How can we negotiate the difficulties that such differences pose for our practical judgment and moral theorizing? Students will engage these questions by reading texts in philosophical ethics and meta-ethics, and by applying what they have learned in case studies of ethical differences among cultures.