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1240 Social Sciences and Humanities
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
Phone: (530) 752-0607
Fax: (530) 752-8964
Immanuel Kant
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- The title and course description for this course have changed since previous offerings.
This is the home page of G. J. Mattey's Philosophy 24, Introduction to Ethics and Political Philosophy, for Spring Quarter, 2014.
The Course
Philosophy 24 introduces the student to some of the main topics in ethics. Readings will be taken from classical and contemporary sources, found in the course text, Moral Philosophy: A Reader.
General Catalog Course Description
Reading of historical and contemporary philosophical works in ethics. Topics include the nature of morality, the justification of moral claims, and major ethical theories, such as consequentialist, deontological, and virtue theories.
The Topic
Ethics historically had addressed the following related topics concerning individual persons: (1) What makes a person or a person’s life good or bad? (2) Under what conditions is a person’s action right or wrong? (3) What is the source of the values good, bad, right, and wrong?