Ethics

Undergraduate Programs

Description

Ethics is concerned with some of our deepest values and commitments. Considerations of right and wrong, of good and bad, permeate our public and private lives. The Ethics Minor provides the opportunity to investigate theoretical and applied ethics in a rigorous and deep way. This minor will be of special interest to students planning careers in the professions, including business, medicine, law, and others. Students completing the minor will develop a deeper reflective understanding of ethical values, an awareness of the history of ethical thought, an enhanced sense of our shared human values, and the ability to understand and critically evaluate the complex ethical issues of our time.

Minors

 Program Locations Total Credits
Ethics Minor
  • Mankato
 18

Policies & Faculty

Policies

Contact Information

226 Armstrong Hall

(507) 389-2012
https://carts.mnsu.edu/academics/philosophy/

Faculty

Chair
  • Brandon Cooke, PhD
Faculty

100 Level

Credits: 3

Introduction to the nature of philosophy and specific, basic problems.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06

Credits: 3

This course considers historical and contemporary analyses of the mind in relation to the body and the connection of the mind-body problem to other issues concerning both religion and science.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06

Credits: 3

Traditional syllogistic logic and an introduction to the elements of modern symbolic logic.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-02, GE-04

Credits: 3

This course explores what makes reasoning scientific as distinguished from non-scientific. Issues are inductive reasoning, causal reasoning, fallacies, hypothetico-deductive reasoning, falsifiability, and scientific knowledge.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-02, GE-04

Credits: 3

To what extent do the differences among races and between genders represent biological differences, and to what extent are they constructed by society? Is racism best conceptualized as an additional burden to sexism or as one different in kind?

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-07

Credits: 3

Discussion of theories of value and obligation.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Credits: 3

Survey of Asian philosophical traditions of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-08

Diverse Cultures: Purple

200 Level

Credits: 3

Discussion of the ways that a culture both creates human community and shapes self-identity. Exploration of similarities and differences between and interdependence among cultural traditions, and of vocabularies for assessing traditions.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-08

Credits: 3

Ethical perspectives relevant to issues such as euthanasia, genetic engineering, organ transplant, patients' rights, abortion, etc.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Credits: 3

Introduction to ethical theories and concepts and their application to specific cases in the world of business.V

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Credits: 3

Introduction to ethical theories and concepts and their application to specific cases in the world of business.V

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Credits: 3

Questions about human responsibilities to other animals and the environment gain urgency as environmental crises become more prevalent, and animal species continue to be eliminated. Learn about, critique, and apply the principles underlying evaluations of human environmental conduct.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-09, GE-10

Credits: 3

Consideration of the basic philosophical approaches to the idea of justice and how this idea relates to other fundamental ideas in political philosophy, ethics, and law.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

300 Level

Credits: 3

Study of the elements of first order symbolic logic, i.e., the propositional calculus and the predicate calculus, and its applications to ordinary language and mathematics.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-02, GE-04

Credits: 3

Human rights and responsibilities in relation to the organization of society and government.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Credits: 3

Topics in normative, meta-ethical and applied ethical theory.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Credits: 3

This course will introduce students to important texts in moral and social philosophy that provide the foundation for modern economics. In addition, we will discuss philosophical accounts of rationality, well being, and freedom and their relevance to economic analysis.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Credits: 3

Philosophers of Ancient Greece, Rome and the early middle ages: The presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic and Roman philosophers, St. Augustine.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06

Credits: 3

Late Medieval Philosophy and its influence on the Renaissance, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz and Continental Rationalism, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and British Empiricism, and Kant.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06

Credits: 3

Philosophers and philosophies of the 19th century.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06

Credits: 3

Critical discussion of the topics chosen from the Asian philosophical traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-08

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Credits: 3

Structure and logic of religious belief. Problems such as the existence of God, evil, immortality, miracles, and religious language.

Prerequisites: none

400 Level

Credits: 3

This course will undertake a close reading and study of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and other texts.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

A study of the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Theories of meaning, speech acts and semantics, relation of language to the world.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Theories of knowledge and justification, skeptical attacks on the possibility of knowledge, and anti-skeptical defenses.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

An investigation of the most fundamental concepts of reality, including the nature of things, identity over time, modality, causation, free will, space and time, and universals and particulars.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Major philosophers and philosophies of the late 20th Century.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Discussion of philosophical issues in law by way of connecting legal problems to well-developed and traditional problems in philosophy, e.g., in ethics, political philosophy, and epistemology, and investigates the philosophical underpinnings of the development of law. The course takes an analytical approach to law (as opposed to historical sociological, political, or legalistic approaches) and devotes a substantial part of the semester to a major work on law written by a philosopher.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 1-3

Intensive study of a single philosopher or topic.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

In-depth analysis of major European existentialists such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Aesthetic principles, theories, and the creative process. Theories of visual arts, music, literature, dance, etc.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

This course investigates some of the central philosophical issues in our thinking about film, including questions about narrative, ontology, ethical criticism of film, the role of artistic intentions in interpretation, artistic medium, and the art/entertainment distinction.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

The nature of consciousness, mind and body relations, freedom of action.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

This course examines the conceptual and philosophical complexities of efforts to understand the mind in science. Topics include the difference and similarities between humans and other animals, the nature of psychological explanation, and reductive strategies for explaining consciousness, intentionality and language. Fall

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Cognitive and epistemic issues surrounding sensory perception, including the nature of perception, its immediate objects, and its ability to deliver knowledge of the world.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Philosophical issues concerning the mental lives of non-human animals, with emphasis on consciousness, rationality, language, and implications for non-human animal ethics.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Nature of explanations, causality, theoretical entities, and selected problems.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

This course examines conceptual and philosophical issues in biology, the nature and scope of biological explanation and conflicts between evolutionary and religious explanations for the origin of life.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Examines the nature and methods of alternative strategies of theory construction in the social sciences and the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions and implications of such strategies. For example can people, their behavior and norms of rationality be understood in naturalistic terms or must they be understood only in culturally local terms.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 1-6

Special event of less than semester duration.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 1-6

.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 3

Restricted to Philosophy Honors students. Permission of department and instructor required.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 1

Restricted to Philosophy Honors students. Permission of department and instructor required.

Prerequisites: PHIL 495

Credits: 3

Restricted to Cognitive Science Majors in their final year.

Prerequisites: none

Credits: 1-6

Individual study of a philosopher or problem.

Prerequisites: none