FIL4010 - Aktuelle emner i filosofi

Kort om emnet

Emnekoden FIL4010 brukes for å kunne tilby seminarer ut over det ordinære emnetilbudet på masterprogrammet i filosofi. Innhold, undervisningsform og vurderingsform vil variere fra semester til semester.

Høsten 2006 tilbys følgende seminar: "Evolutionary, experimental and neuroscientific approaches to morality and free will"

In this course, we will look at ways in which scientific discoveries about the origin and nature of human morality and agency can illuminate the philosophical discussion of these issues.

1. Neuroscience, moral psychology and ethics

Over the last 10 years, experimental and empirical approaches to philosophy in general and moral psychology in particular have become increasingly common. Philosophers such as John Doris, Stephen Stich, Shaun Nichols and Jesse Prinz draw on social psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and other sciences in order to discuss which mental processes in fact underlie moral reasoning and behaviour. Some philosophers (Peter Singer, Sharon Street, Shaun Nichols) also seek to draw conclusions from this empirical research concerning traditional questions in meta-ethics and moral philosophy. Two such questions which we will look at are:

a. How new knowledge about the origin of our moral intuitions raises questions about their relevance for moral theory. b. Do recent scientific results in moral psychology undermine certain traditional arguments for moral realism?

2. Neuroscience, Agency and Free Will

Over the last 30 years neuroscience has grown increasingly interested in higher order cognition in general, and in how prefrontal cortex (PFC) controls behavior in particular. Suggested neural explanations of behavior are formulated not just at the cellular-molecular level, but also includes cognitive and apparently also normative descriptions like “working memory,” and “value.” We will try to relate this lingo to theories of agency and intentional psychology, focusing on two questions:

a. Compatibilists since Ayer have claimed that the problem of free will is not the one of finding actions that are not causally predetermined, but rather to find actions that are causally determined in the “right” way. Can considerations of how neural representations of (say) values affect behavior help clarify what the “right” way is? b. PFC-research is often motivated by case studies where lesions to PFC lead to behavioral deficits, for instance to a general dependency on environmental cures to initiate actions. (“Environmental dependency syndrome”) Can PFC-research help us conceptualize what makes some actions free and shed light on phenomena like weakness of the will?

Opptak og adgangsregulering

Studenter med studierett på program eller enkeltemner må hvert semester søke undervisningsopptak til emner i StudentWeb.

Dersom du ikke allerede har studieplass ved UiO, kan du lese om studietilbud og opptak til program, eller om muligheten for opptak til enkeltemner med ledig kapasitet.

Forkunnskaper

Ingen obligatoriske forkunnskaper utover generell studiekompetanse.

Undervisning

Seminar med aktiv deltakelse. Det forventes at deltakerne deltar med egne presentasjoner underveis i kurset.

Vurdering og eksamen

Det skrives et essay i løpet av semesteret som utgjør grunnlaget for endelig karakter.

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