Utilitarianism

• A John Stuart Mill website that includes an online text version of Utilitarianism (which is handy for searching particular words or phrases in the text). Though the biographical details appear roughly accurate, the site is affiliated with a rather strange "BLTC Research" project.  The views expressed on these external links do not reflect the views of the University of Victoria...
• The (more authoritative) SEP pages for J.S. Mill and Consequentialism.
• An influential paper from 2010 by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton in which the authors claim that income above $75,000 increases subjective evaluations of how well one's life is going... but not reports of one's emotional well-being. Which indicator(s) ought toground a utilitarian's conception of the kind of utility to be maximized?
• The homepage for Oxfam Canada. How much would Juan give?
• The Hunger Site  a site that lets you help stop hunger just by clicking a mouse!

• A Thomas Hobbes timeline, and an online version of Leviathan. (We are reading chapters 13, 14 and 15) The entry for Thomas Hobbes at the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy also has useful historical and biographical details..
• The much more detailed SEP entry for Hobbes' Moral and Political Philosophy.
• An explanation of the Prisoner's Dilemma provided by Michael Green at the University of Chicago.  Be sure to click on "analysis" after playing a few times, and continue through the "range of cases" link for some of examples.

• A comprehenisve (but not recently updated) list of Kant links on the web.  It has links to online translations of Kant's philosophy, though not the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. For that you can go to the online version from Project Gutenberg.
• The Kantian Ethics resources from Lawrence Hinman's Ethics Matters site.  It even has some video footage of philosophers discussing Kant's ethics!
• A detailed SEP page for Kant's Moral Philosophy.
• The SEP page for the Doctrine of Double Effect by Alison McIntyre.
• An interview with Michael Otsuka about the Trolley Problem.
• A spoof of the Trolley Problem courtesy of Michael F. Patton.  It mixes in some inside jokes about skepticism (the brain in a vat stuff), but it is nevertheless a good parody of how convoluted the trolley literature can become.

• The entry for Aristotle from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  It has a nice chart of the virtues of character that lists the relevant extremes of excess and defect.
• An impressive set of online editions of Aristotle's writings, including the Nichomachean Ethics.
• The SEP entrries for Virtue Ethics (by Rosalind Hursthouse) and Aristotle's Ethics.
  

Useful Links:

• The Uvic Philosophy Department Homepage 

• Program requirements for the Minor in Applied Ethics

Reserve Readings, Assignments & Handouts:

• All of these materials can be found on Moodle at Uvic. If you experience difficulty getting access, please let me know.

Writing Help:

• Writing a Philosophy Paper by Peter Horban at SFU.  This is a brief but very good introduction to writing a philosophy paper.  (Note that although Horban recommends against lengthy introductions - a good idea - I still want a short introduction that tells the reader what your thesis will be, etc.)

• Information about proper citation from the Uvic Library.

• Further information about proper citation from the Uvic English Department's online Writing Guide.

• You can also get help at the Writing Centre at the Learning and Teaching Centre. Be sure to check their policies well in advance of anything being due.