Syllabus: Grades
Overall course grades will be a weighted average of participation in case discussions, preparation of position summaries, and the 7-10 page case analysis.
case analysis........25%
case discussions.....60%
case summaries......15%
Case Analyses:Details on the preparation and grading of case analyses are included on a separate handout. In general, your case analysis should be 7-10 double-spaced, typewritten pages. You may choose to write about any of the cases from the set used for this year’s Ethics Bowl competition. It is due by 5pm on the last day of the Winter Study Period, Friday, January 26, and may be submitted electronically, as an email attachment, or placed in my Harper House mailbox.
Case Discussions:Since this class will be entirely based on student discussion, it is essential that class members be well prepared for each meeting and actively contribute to the dialogue. At the end of the course, I will assign a letter grade for the case discussion element of the overall grade that involves a measure of the quality as well as quantity of each student`s in-class contributions.
Case Summaries:For those cases on which you are the "lead" you should prepare a summary of the consensus position, the arguments used to support it, and responses to potential objections considered. This will serve as a memory aid, to help in preparing for the regional competition, and as a check, to make sure that everyone understands the arguments that are to be offered. These summaries do not need to be either formal or extensive, but they should be understandable to your classmates. Once a case has been discussed, a summary should be written up and distributed within a few days. Anyone may recommend amending the summary to reflect omissions, to raise new considerations after the fact, or bring to light a misunderstanding; if the latter two are sufficiently extensive or deep, then the case may need to be reconsidered by the group as a whole. The summaries will be evaluated on the grounds of intelligibility and completeness, and will be assigned a letter grade on that basis.
An overall letter grade for work in the course will be calculated in accordance with the weighting scheme indicated above. These will be translated into Winter Study grades as follows: A = Honors, B = Pass, C = Perfunctory Pass, D = Fail, F = Fail.
Attendance and Preparation for Class
The format, structure, and grading of the course entail that attendance at all class meetings is both necessary and expected.
Academic Honesty
As in all courses at Williams, all students in PHIL 213 are expected to act in accordance with the Honor Code, which is available online (Williams Honor Code). In particular, this means that students should follow the "basic rules of attribution" in their case analyses, as outlined in the Honor Code. Please ask if you have any questions about whether or how to credit your sources.
Respect in the Classroom
The success of this class depends critically on mutual respect among participants. It is my hope and expectation that we will engage in discussions concerning important moral issues about which class members may disagree. Respect in the classroom does not preclude expressing such disagreement or criticism, but it does require that disagreement and criticism be based solely on the merits of arguments presented and not on personal characteristics such as an individual’s ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, handicap, or religious faith, etc. Moreover, respect requires that disagreements and criticism be expressed with sensitivity and with a constructive purpose.