Seminar
Requirements
Philosophy
333--Ethical Theories
Michael Taber
Spring 2026
Because the readings will be the springboards
for our discussions, and because our discussions will be the primary focus of
the seminar, you will be required to keep up with the readings.
Your evaluation for the seminar will be
based on the following, with their point values (out of a semester total of 200):
· 3-6
pages – 30 (on longtermism)
· 4-6
pages – 40 (on Kantian deontology)
· 4-6
pages – 50 (on virtue/care ethics)
· Teach
Your Family – 10 pts.
· 8+
pages – 70 (your final paper on some topic relating to altruism and egoism)
As this is an upper-division seminar, you are expected
to contribute to making this a seminar. This means more than you being
present, more than you speaking only when called upon, and more than speaking
up on your own only once every few weeks. It also does not mean merely talking
often, as if the more sound waves created, the better.
Students can expect the Engaged Learning element of
this course to consist in preparing answers to reading questions circulated
prior to doing the readings. Your answers will be orally shared in class to
enrich our discussions.
Work due on a given class day is due at
the start of class, unless otherwise noted. Missing a tutorial costs one full
grade, even if the paper is turned in on time. Late (even barely late)
work loses the point equivalent of one half grade (=5%), and a further half
grade for each additional twenty-four hours of lateness. Keep in mind this cost
when deliberating about taking more time in which to complete a paper.
Final letter grades for
the course will correspond to the following percentages:
A- 90–92 A 93–100 A+
**
B- 80–82 B
83–86 B+
87–89
C- 70–72 C 73–76 C+ 77–79
D- ** D 60–66 D+
67–69
F 0–59 ** =
doesn’t exist at SMCM
Attendance
policy
Executive summary:
Don’t exceed the two-week mark!
You have sensibly
chosen a small college. If you had wanted to be facelessly anonymous, you could
have chosen to enroll at Enormous U. Directly relating to each other about matters
of (I’m sure you’ll come to agree) great importance to us as individuals and as
members of communities is the best of college experiences.
This course is
structured as a seminar. That means we use real-time, in-person discussions to
explore, understand, and even disagree about the text assigned. Even though I
have guideposts for the discussions, the presence or absence of individuals in
a class on a given day will shape how that day’s conversation unfolds and what
new understandings we develop as a class. Missing class isn’t just about
missing the content. In this course, it’s not just about “what we go over,” but
“HOW” we go over it that’s critical for your learning. That’s why showing up
matters.
For at least this
reason, regular attendance at, and participation in, the class are central to
this course. (Besides, it’s well-nigh impossible to do well in this course
without regular attendance, and difficult without regular participation.)
For this course,
everyone is allowed four absences (excused or unexcused) per semester. Having a
fifth absence—excused or unexcused—will result in failing the course, despite
the quality of the rest of the student’s work. (Arriving
to class more than 20 minutes late or departing from class more than 20 minutes
early counts as an absence.)
(Students using an
approved ADA accommodation for “modified attendance policy” will be granted one
extra absence; so the grade wouldn’t be affected even with five absences, but
would automatically become an F upon the sixth.)
So because this is a
Tu/Th class, you get two weeks’ worth of absences. And you fail the course if
you exceed that. (Or if you hit your sixth class, if you have an approved ADA
accommodation for modified attendance policy.)
The one exception to
the preceding paragraph is for students who are forced by quarantine rules to
stay away from classes. In such cases, the student should contact the
instructor ASAP—and in any case, prior to the first class missed due to
quarantine.
The first recourse
students should use to catch up when absent—for any reason—is to look for a
communication from their Back-Up Buddy, a system to be explained and signed up
for in class. Students can also contact the instructor for added assistance, of
course.
As I hope is obvious—or
soon will be once the semester starts—the fact that you are allowed these absences without any
automatic loss of grade should not be interpreted as a recommendation to
actually use said absences. Not only do you want to avoid imprudently
and prematurely emptying your bank account only to find out that you’re getting
walloped with some virus near the end of the semester, but your ability to make
sense of the material, your ability to become fluent in philosophically
informed ways of thinking, and your ability to succeed in your assignments
would be unhappily compromised in proportion to your number of absences.
Tutorials
The first, second,
and fourth papers will be run as paired tutorials. You will be scheduled in
pairs to read your paper to me and to the other student. We will discuss your
paper with you, interrupting you more than once. Then the other student will
read their paper in the same way. So that we may follow along as you read,
ensure that the other student has access to your paper. Realize that it is your
paper which will be graded, not your reading of it or your answering any
questions which I or the other student may bring up. The purpose of having you
read the paper to me is that I can give you most comments directly and suggest
ways to improve your future work. This is much easier for me to do and much
more helpful to you than having you read my comments in dried ink on a dead
piece of paper. Because I will have to schedule many tutorial sessions, I am
canceling class for the days during which the tutorials will be held.
Writing
Since writing is
central to the course, both in reading others' and in creating your own,
respect for writing will manifest itself even at the level of writing
mechanics. You will be expected to take stylistic and mechanical concerns most
seriously in your three papers. As a motivational aid to this end, you will be
allowed two grammatical, spelling, or punctuation mistakes per page (partial
pages counting as full), after which you will lose one point for each mistake.
For example, if you have a 24-point paper of five pages, and you have made
thirteen mechanical errors, then you will receive a 21 for the paper. N.B.:
the same mistake (not just similar) repeated will count as one mistake. You
will be allowed to submit a revised version with the mechanical errors
corrected, and in these cases you will be assigned the average of your original
and revised grade.
You might consider spending a bit of time
at my writing site. Few would fail to benefit.
Personal laptops, tablets, or phones
This seminar requires a
free-flowing exchange of ideas, between you and the authors, as well as among
us. The presence of electronic devices, replete with their glowing
notifications, creates a barrier to this flow. Therefore, the use of
electronics is allowed in class only in order to access the readings online or
by those with documented needs of which I’ve been notified by official
channels.
Cell phones should be
stowed away in any case, and not simply on the table—even if turned upside
down—even if powered completely off. “Why,” you ask? Well, recent studies
indicate the distracting effect of even one’s phone turned
upside down—in fact, even a cell phone not
one’s own, laying on a nearby table.
In fact, of even a
drawing or a thought of a cell
phone. So I hereby prohibit you during
class even to think of a cell phone!
(I’ll keep mine away, too.)
And the dangers of cell
phone use extend outside of the classroom, as this
2018 study found.
(If a phone is the only
way you have of accessing the readings in class, fine…just give me a heads-up
so I know not to bark at you.)
As for note-taking, consult this
2016 report, which found superior
recall in students who took notes by hand compared to those who took them by
typing, and this
recent article sums up some of
the research findings.
Students with documented disabilities
“Following the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, and
applicable state law, St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) does not
discriminate against any individual on the basis of handicap or disability. As
a result, SMCM will consider requests for reasonable accommodations for
students who self-disclose a disability or disabling health conditions.
Accessibility Services works with students, faculty, and staff to promote
access on our campus.”
The SMCM Office
of Accessibility Services
Academic integrity
Of sickness makes
sickness,
Contagion of
trust can make trust.
--Marianne
Moore, American poet
from “In Distrust of Merits” (1943)
The College’s definitions and policies about academic
misconduct are laid out here. Ignorance of such matters is no excuse.
Academic misconduct can result in automatic failure of the course, regardless
of how well a student has been doing on other assignments. In addition,
extra-course penalties may be pursued, like being prohibited from ever
re-taking the class.
Useful (and short!) tutorials on topics like samples of
acceptable and unacceptable paraphrases can be found at a page put up by
Indiana University: https://plagiarism.iu.edu/
“So, what about using a chatbot?”
Using AI, including models like Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT,
can be helpful as a tool in studying for exams. There’s no guarantee that the
info you get from it will be accurate or to the point of the question. So you
have to refuse to surrender your good judgment. It’s ill-advised to parrot what
a chatbot tells you the answer is, just as it is to assume that the first hit
on a Google search for “best Thai restaurant near me” will delight your palate.
“OK, but what
about for writing papers?
AI can also be useful as a resource for getting clear on
some issues that you would need to understand in order to write the paper, as
would consulting Wikipedia or YouTube videos. In order, that is for YOU to
write the paper.
1.
It’s fine by me for you to use AI as a RESOURCE,
pre-writing.
AI can also be helpful as an editor, to do proofreading and
grammar- and spell-checking, and to improve the organization of a paper. I’m
not saying that the suggestions you get will always be correct, of course.
Don’t outsource your common sense. Also, be wary of missing an opportunity to
*learn* how a proposed revision of, say, a given wording is an
improvement. (Assuming, of course, that it is an improvement.)
2.
It’s fine by me for you to use AI as an EDITOR,
post-writing.
Where AI software should NOT be used is as an author.
For YOU are the author, and to represent the work of another (whether of
another person or of a software application) as if it were YOUR work is clearly
plagiarism. As with using any other source, you should not copy and paste into
your paper any content you did not create.
3.
It’s def NOT fine by me for you to use AI as an AUTHOR,
doing the writing.
Getting good at writing is a skill that many, many alumni
report as one of the most useful things they got out of St. Mary’s. So consider
that “using ChatGPT to write your term paper is like bringing a robot to the
gym to life weights for you” (James Gleick in “The Parrot in the Machine,” The
New York Review of Books, July 24, 2025, p. 43).
Send
me mail: mstaber at smcm dot edu
Go to the home
page for this
course.
Go to Michael Taber's home page.
Go to the SMCM home page.