PHIL 181: Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature with Prof. Tamar Gendler

Lecture 25 - Tying up Loose Ends [April 19, 2011]

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Overview:

Professor Gendler begins with brief introductory remarks about the course’s methodology, explaining the approach that was taken to reading and presenting various articles. She continues with a discussion of Cass Sunstein’s work on social norms, looking particularly at his account of the willingness to pay/willingness to accept distinction. The lecture continues with a consideration of how this distinction-–and the heuristic reasoning that gives rise to it–-might be used to explain our responses to the trolley problem. In the final segment of the lecture, Professor Gendler offers a way of thinking systematically about relations among the political philosophical views of Thomas Hobbes, John Rawls and Robert Nozick.

Resources:

Directed Exercise 10

Credit List [PDF]