CCOG for PHL 202H Winter 2025
- Course Number:
- PHL 202H
- Course Title:
- Ethics: Honors
- Credit Hours:
- 4
- Lecture Hours:
- 40
- Lecture/Lab Hours:
- 0
- Lab Hours:
- 0
Course Description
Intended Outcomes for the course
Upon completion of the course students should be able to:
- Articulate key philosophical arguments in the field of ethics.
- Identify the influence of culturally based perspectives, values and beliefs to examine how diverse philosophical perspectives affect human experience.
- Construct arguments on ethical issues using critical reasoning to identify and investigate philosophical theses and evaluate information and its sources.
- Respond to arguments on ethical issues using critical reasoning to identify and investigate philosophical theses and evaluate information and its sources.
Additional Honors Outcomes:
- Analyze ethical arguments in light of original context and historical responses, along with consideration of contemporary concerns and relevant societal developments.
- Produce and present an original ethical argument in response to a primary text, using methods of philosophical inquiry and research and explaining the reasoning used.
- Lead discussion on a focused ethical topic, either theoretical or an application of ethical theory.
Integrative Learning
Students completing an associate degree at Portland Community College will be able to reflect on one’s work or competencies to make connections between course content and lived experience.
General education philosophy statement
Philosophy courses ask students to use critical thinking and reasoning skills in multiple ways: to identify the content, structure, and influence of beliefs, to examine how diverse philosophical perspectives affect human experience, and to construct and respond to arguments on a variety of philosophical issues. They encourage students to both create and understand their and others’ frameworks of meaning, and to use this new understanding in their own lived experience.
Outcome Assessment Strategies
Assessment strategies will include some of the following:
- Essays in the form of in-class exams, short papers, or term papers.
- Student presentations.
- Class and small group discussions.
- Portfolios.
- Service learning projects.
- Attendance.
Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)
The course will focus on the following topics and issues with a primary focus on the Western philosophical tradition:
- Meta-ethics (or Ethical Theory).
- Normative Ethics.
- What is the philosophical significance of core ethical concepts such as good, evil, right,and wrong?How have some historically significant philosophers (including, but not limited to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Bentham, Mill,Moore, Ayer) responded to philosophical questions concerning morality
- Epistemological and metaphysical issues that are raised in connection with Ethical Theories (such as, Are Ethical claims knowledge claims? In what ways do persons differ from other sorts of entities?).
Competencies and Skills:
- Comprehend philosophical writings dealing with morality.
- Paraphrase and explain ideas contained in philosophical writings dealing with morality.
- Critique and challenge philosophical ideas dealing with morality.
- Write philosophically coherent arguments concerning ethical theories and issues.
- Engage with others in understanding and presenting ethical theories and historical responses to those theories.
- Participate actively in ethical discussion, contributing and providing support for original ethical insights.
- Facilitate large or small group discussion of interpretations of ethical theories.
- Formulate ethical arguments which reflect understanding of significant issues in ethics.