Yuuki Ohta

Although Anscombe introduced the term 'consequentialism' in her paper 'Modern Moral Philosophy', it has since been used quite differently from her original intentions. I identify three claims Anscombe makes about 'consequentialism' that do not apply to consequentialism as it is standardly understood today. In order to understand what Anscombe meant by 'consequentialism' and what her problems with it were, one needs to understand Aquinas's conception of human action within which she operates. I offer a sketch of this conception, and in terms of it give a characterisation of 'consequentialism' as Anscombe meant it. The aforementioned three claims of Anscombe's make perfect sense with respect to 'consequentialism' thus understood, and the metaethical significance of 'Modern Moral Philosophy', over and above its occasioning the revival of virtue theory, is highlighted.

Inspired by Bernard Williams, I strive to teach "philosophy as a humanistic discipline." In this essay I present my basic understanding of what teaching philosophy at the university level is and why it matters, by unpacking this slogan one word at a time, starting from the last.

Extrapolating from Williams’s formulation of internalism about reasons, I offer a sketch of a conception of practical identity constituted by certain of the agent’s conative states and their content. First I make some preliminary distinctions among the kinds of conative states, arguing that the conative states that belong to (what Williams calls) an agent’s motivational set are those whose contents are adopted as his ends. Next I discuss the phenomenon of practical necessity, which suggests that certain practical engagements one has with certain concepts are such that, if one loses them one also loses one’s “hold on reality.” Such practically engaged concepts constitute the matter of one’s practical identity. The constitution of the matter of practical identity is historically and culturally contingent; it cannot therefore issue in normative reasons that are objective in the sense an externalist might demand.

I present what I take to be Kant’s conception of immortality, where it is achieved not by one’s never dying, but by one’s ever living. I first sketch Kant’s conception of human action performed on a maxim, explain the sense in which some maxims are constitutive of the character of the subject endowed with the power of choice (Willkür), and explicate the problem posed by the ‘radical innate evil in human nature’, also identifying a prior problem of the possibility of realising a self in action, whether good or evil. I propose that Kant’s practical postulate of the immortality of the soul may be understood as part of his answer to these problems. Specifically, I argue that for Kant immortality is something atemporal, something achieved or actualised whenever one performs an action for a reason, that is, whenever a *Gesinnung*—good or evil—is adopted as the ground of the reason for which one acts. [Slides available upon request]

I give a sketch of Debbie Roberts's 'Inclusive view' of thick concepts,  according to which they are wholly and thickly evaluative. As Roberts admits, the nature of thick evaluative properties needs further explication. I propose a version of buck-passing account as a first step in this project, adopting a basically Thomistic conceptions of human agency and practical reasoning. I answer some initial objections this proposal encounters, arguing that buck-passing need not involve denying shapelessness, and that on the Thomistic view there is no 'wrong' kind of reasons. [Slides available upon request]

This set of notes gives informal, practical advice and some tips for undergraduates studying philosophy. It is designed in particular for those who study philosophy in the Oxford-style tutorial system, where the student is expected to work largely independently, producing short essays for weekly tutorials, which consist in critical discussions the student engages in with a tutor and (usually) one or two other students. But a number of points I make below are applicable generally for the study of philosophy, and students working in formats other than the tutorial system may find some of them helpful.

This is a reading list for an introductory course in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Enmeshed in the course are three strands: first, topics in philosophical aesthetics, having to do with key ideas within the domain of the aesthetic and the artistic, e.g. beauty, value, intention, interpretation, objectivity; second, topics in the philosophy of art, having to do with philosophical questions raised by the individual arts, e.g. definition of and metaphysical issues about works of art, depiction (pictorial representation), expression; third, topics in the history of aesthetics and the philosophy of art, having to do with some major texts from the canon of Western philosophy, namely those by Plato, Aristotle, Hume and Kant.

This course is an introduction to some major themes in metaethics. Metaethics, in the context of this course, is centrally a critical reflective attempt to make sense of normative ethics, which in turn can be understood as an attempt to offer some general, theoretical account of our ethical thought, talk, and action. Normative ethics has traditionally taken, and today still typically takes, the form of a philosophical enquiry into morality.  What we shall scrutinise in this course is the nature and the possibility of such an enquiry, or as I shall call it, moral philosophy.

This is an intermediate course in the practical philosophy of two of the greatest philosophers of the modern period in the West: David Hume and Immanuel Kant. We shall study the accounts these two philosophers give of three major themes in practical philosophy—practical reason, beauty, and morality—as well as some of the ways in which their ideas and insights are developed.

To borrow Bernard Williams’s useful distinction, this is a course in the history of philosophy, rather than in the history of ideas: our central objective is to philosophise now with the two philosophers, and not (merely) to gain historical understanding of their philosophical thought as a thing of the past—although, of course, to a large extent the former requires the latter (this methodological point is as it were an ulterior theme of the course).

This is a reading list for an intermediate or advanced undergraduate course in two of the central subfields of philosophy in the so-called analytical tradition: epistemology and metaphysics (each corresponding to one of the nouns in the course title). It is designed to serve as a reading list for the eponymous Oxford FHS paper, but may be used for other (types of) courses.

This course is an introduction to metaethics. Provisionally and loosely, we can say that metaethics is a philosophical attempt to make sense of our ethical thought, talk, action and practice.

Is there such a thing as how things ethically are anyway, which our ethical thought represents? Is there such a thing as ethical knowledge, and if there is, what, if anything, is special about it? How does ethical discourse relate to desire, action, and personal character and life? What bearing do the deliverances of the natural sciences have on ethics? Is ethics itself a kind of inchoate science, or is it more like mathematics, or again is it no more than a hodgepodge of subjective preferences? What can philosophy do for the ethical life?

We shall address these and many other metaethical questions, by examining a number of highly influential texts written in the last fifty years.

This course is an introduction to philosophy. It is designed as an engaging invitation to the discipline of philosophy, placing a particular emphasis on showing the extremely wide range of subjects and problems that the discipline deals with, as well as the great variety of style in philosophising.

We shall study a number of highly influential texts by eminent philosophers, all but one written in the twentieth century, on a wide variety of topics. In doing so we shall learn the basics of the art of philosophising: how to read, write, and discuss just about anything philosophically. We shall also familiarise ourselves with some significant concepts, useful distinctions, and argumentative moves that are regularly deployed in philosophy.

In this course we shall study Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals very closely, cover to cover (in translation), along with a number of important secondary pieces written on it.

The Groundwork is not only among the most important and influential works in the canon of moral philosophy in the West, but also at the heart of Kant’s practical philosophy. Its remit extends far beyond the confines of first-order normative ethics (although there is a lot of that), and covers such topics as the status of common sense, action, rational agency, practical reasoning, happiness, teleology, the idea of humanity, autonomy, freedom, transcendental idealism, and the limits of philosophical reflection on morality. It is a dense and difficult text; it is, however, tremendously rewarding to examine.

The course is designed for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates interested in Kant in particular or in the history of modern philosophy in general, as well as for those at a comparable level working in such areas as ethics, metaethics, and philosophy of action.