PHIL 110G
Equality and Justice
Fall 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------------Class Meeting Times:
Instructor:
Office:
Robert Rosenfeld
E-mail: rrosenfe@suffolk.edu
OR robert.rosenfeld@umb.edu
W-5-035
Office Hours:
Phone:
MW 4:00-5:45
MWF 9:45-10:15 AM
MW 3:00-3:45 PM
MW 5:55-6:20 PM
617-287-6527 (Office)
Advisor: Jim McCarthy
E-mail: Jim.McCarthy@umb.edu
Phone: 617-287-5500
857-205-3806 (Cell)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - This course is a First Year Seminar (FYS). First Year Seminars welcome
new students (with fewer than 30 transfer credits) to UMass Boston. These
small-sized courses are designed to prepare students for a successful college
experience. Students may choose from a variety of FYS courses, reflecting a
wide range of topics and disciplines. A major goal of First Year Seminars is
to practice the following habits of mind essential to university level
educational success: careful reading; clear writing; critical thinking;
information literacy and technology; working in teams; oral presentation; and
academic self-assessment.
You will be an active partner in this effort, along with your fellow
students, your instructor, and the course mentor and advisor. There will be
a great deal of reading, internet and library hunting, in-class writing, and
group work with your fellow students. There will be three formal written
assignments, which you will be expected to revise, expanding at least one of
them into a paper of suitable length and quality for inclusion in a Writing
Proficiency Portfolio.
ATTENDANCE IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE! You will be allowed up to three
"free" absences and an additional three excused (in writing, preferably)
absences--but no more. Beyond that, your grade will suffer incrementally
with each additional absence. (Excuses, however good they may be, will not
make you *present* here in class to assist and benefit from your fellow
students in the required discussion and group work!) If you missed the first
1-3 classes because you signed into the course late, these do count as
absences, although they can be excused ones.
NOTE THAT THE LONGER THURSDAY MEETING COUNTS AS TWO CLASSES!!
Note also that lateness and obvious inattentiveness will be treated as
partial absence, depending on how late and/or inattentive you are.
Lateness penalties are as follows:
11-30 minutes late -- 1/4
31-60 minutes late -- 1/2
61-80 minutes late -- 3/4
over 80 minutes late -- 1
class
class
class
class
All First Year Seminars meet 4 hours per week and carry 4 credits. A
mentor and a staff academic advisor are ordinarily assigned to each seminar.
Among other things, the mentor can help you with computer accounts, e-mail,
and with library research. The advisor will visit the class once or twice
during the semester, and can be contacted for help with choosing courses and
major, with financial aid, and any problems with university life in general.
UMass Boston is a wonderfully diverse community. We hope that you will
take advantage of the opportunity to learn about the rich array of opinions
and experiences that will inevitably be present in this class.
If you entered UMB with 30 or more transferable credits, you should not
be enrolled in this course. If you entered UMB with fewer than 30 credits
but have more than 30 credits now, you still need a First Year Seminar (a
G100 or 100G course, like this one) if you have not yet taken one. Note: If
you have taken another G100- or 100G-level course in any department at UMB,
you cannot receive credit for this one. Please note also that courses taken
at UMass Boston before matriculating do not count as transfer credits. Thus,
for example, if you took 36 UMass Boston credits as a special student and
then applied for admission, you still need to take a First Year Seminar.
Student Referral Program: If it appears to the teacher that you might
not pass this First Year Seminar, and if the instructor cannot figure out how
to support your success in the course, the instructor might inform the
director of the Student Referral Program (CC-1100;287-5500). The staff in
this program will attempt to help you address the difficulties that are
interfering with your success in the class. If you do not want your
instructor to let the Student Referral Program know that you are having
difficulty, please let your instructor know.
Accommodations: Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of
1990 offers guidelines for curriculum modifications and adaptations for
students with documented disabilities. If applicable, students may obtain
adaptation recommendations from the Ross Center for Disability Services, CC
2-2100, (617-287-7430). If this applies to you, you must present these
recommendations to each professor within a reasonable period, preferably by
the end of the Add/Drop period.
Student Conduct: Students are required to adhere to university policies
on academic honesty and student conduct. The current Code of Student
Conduct, including information about academic dishonesty is available online
at: http://www.umb.edu/academics/undergraduate/office/students/CodeofStudent
Conduct.html.
Assessment of these Courses: In addition to a Student Self
Assessment form to be completed at the end of each First Year Seminar,
an assessment committee will look at randomly chosen student writing
from First Year Seminars. Please save all your writing in this course so
that if you are randomly chosen you will have your work available. The
purpose of this is to improve the program and to improve particular
courses, as necessary. You may remove your name from your papers if you
choose to submit them anonymously. Your professor will let you know
later in the semester whether your portfolio has been selected.
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Schedule, Topics, and Readings:
The content of this course will emphasize issues of moral equality,
moral "inclusion" and justice, and the major kinds of moral reasoning
involved in these issues. The topics will progress approximately as follows:
Weeks 1-4 (1/28-2/20):
Oppression and Inequality
We will be reading several articles on the subject of racial, ethnic and
gender oppression. We will learn to recognize and define key concepts that
help unify the accounts of the authors involved. Groups will discuss and
analyze the relationships between these concepts as presented by the authors.
Each group, focusing on one article (or part thereof), will share the results
of their discussion with the class as a whole.
In addition, students will seek out at least one short article, column
or letter from an outside source, such as the library, the internet, or a
newspaper -- dealing with a selected race or gender issue, to share with the
class. We will discuss at least some of these short pieces and begin
learning how to evaluate them.
Reading: "Oppression," by Marilyn Frye; "A Different Mirror," by Ronald
Takaki; "Missing Persons and Others," by Arturo Madrid; "La Guera," by
Cherrie Moraga; plus some "student-discovered" reading based on individual
student searches.
Formal Written Work: A short (1000-1500 words) paper on the assigned
readings, showing how the authors define and illustrate oppression and other
related concepts. Due Monday, February 25th.
Weeks 4-6 (2/20-3/5):
Moral Decision-Making and Arguments
We will consider several moral dilemmas and examine the factors that
influence our decisions, such as consequences, principles, and particular
circumstances of the people and situations involved. We will examine what
goes into a moral argument as opposed to a factual one. Groups will discuss,
analyze and make recommendations on the cases, to be shared with the class as
a whole.
In addition, we will learn about some common fallacies in reasoning, and
apply these to the abortion issue. Discussion of an article on the topic
will be followed by a search of the internet for more examples of fallacies,
to be written up and shared with the class. (Students who have not gotten
access to or learned how to use the internet yet, will have to do so now!)
Reading: Handout:
Nalezinski
Informal Fallacies; "Abortion and Bad Reasoning," by Alix
Weeks 6-13 (3/5-4/23): Moral Inclusion and Moral Rights--The Cases of Unborn
Humans and Non-Human Animals
The issue of moral inclusion is that of distinguishing between beings
that count morally and beings that don't. What beings must be treated with
respect? What beings may be treated as objects for our use? And what
determines all this? Weeks 6 to 10 will focus on the abortion debate, and
weeks 10 to 13 on the status of animals.
During this portion of the course, you will begin learning how to read
college-level academic articles. In each 3-4-week period, four articles will
be divided between work groups, each group focusing on one article. Students
will be expected to at least "preread" or "skim" each article individually,
but each group will engage collaboratively in reconstructing a single
author's position, and identifying its strengths and weaknesses. Each group
will present the results of their analysis to the class as a whole. There
will be two formal presentations during this period, one for each of the two
issues.
Reading: (For the abortion issue:) "Why Abortion is Immoral," by Don Marquis;
"Abortion and the Corruption of Mind," by Gordon Zahn; "A Defense of
Abortion," by Judith Thomson; "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion," by
Mary Anne Warren; (and for the animals issue:) "All Animals are Equal," by
Peter Singer; "The Case for Animal Rights," by Tom Regan; "In Defense of the
Dignity of Being Human," by Willard Gaylin; "The Case for Animal
Experimentation," by Carl Cohen
Formal Written Work: A short (1000-1500 wds.) or long (1600-2200 wds. and at
least 5 complete pages) paper reviewing one or more of the articles on
abortion. The assignment sheet will give some suggestions about how to
review the article. Due Monday, April 7th.
Weeks 13-16 (4/23-5/14):
Social Justice and Access to Health Care
One week will be devoted to the basic philosophical issues of
distributive justice that lie behind the health-care debate. Students will
examine theoretical articles, "prereading" all of them individually, then
examining an article in more detail in a group and presenting the results to
the class.
The following week or two will be devoted to a discussion of factual and
policy issues: What is going on? What is failing? What measures will
actually work? Which ones won't? How can we tell? Students will seek
articles from as many sources as possible to bring in for discussion. Work
groups will take on the task of formulating a "statement of the problem" and
proposed solution to the health-care crisis. Again, each group will present
its findings for discussion by the entire class.
Reading: "Health Care as a Right: A Refutation," by Robert Sade; "A Theory
of Justice" (excerpts), by John Rawls; "Medical Individualism and the Right
to Health Care," by John Arras and Andrew Jameton; plus numerous studentdiscovered readings from the library, the internet and other media
Formal Written Work: A short (1000-1500 words) or long (1600-2200 words, 5+
pages) paper, taking the form of either: 1) an exposition and analysis of
arguments for and/or against animal liberation; or 2) a discussion of the
relative importance of individual and social responsibilities in the
provision of health care. Due Friday, May 16th.
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What will determine your grade:
15% -- Attendance. You should also be aware that excessive
absence will have an adverse effect on the portions of
your grade below. You cannot make them up simply by
"getting the notes," and only some of the work below can
be covered by "makeup" assignments. And again, lateness
will be counted as partial absence, as will obvious
inattention (e.g. sleeping, reading the paper, playing
video games).
15% -- Class participation, in open discussion and group work.
15% -- Individual written response pieces: These are short
informal writing assignments, which may be handwritten or
typed (handwritten if done in class). These will consist
of summaries of and/or responses to the reading
assignments, responses to in-class presentations by your
fellow students, quizzes on the readings, and two to four
"self-assessment" exercises. Some of these (but not the
self-assessments!) will be shared with your fellow
students and may be revised in response to group or class
discussion. Many will be "lightly-graded," meaning that
an honest effort that does what the assignment asks for
will receive a good score. There will be approximately
ten to twenty of these response pieces.
15% -- Formal presentations: These will generally be done in
teams, but each team member must present before the class.
Students will be the main evaluators of the presentations.
40% -- Formal written assignments: As outlined earlier, there
are three formal papers, any of which may be revised. At
least one of them is to be written as, or expanded into,
a longer (1600-2200 words, and at least five full pages
long) paper by final exam week. Be sure to heed the
warnings about plagiarism that will be given in class and
on formal paper assignment sheets!
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