Ethics at the Intersection of Philosophy and Anthropology
Thursday, 26 January 2012
14:30 - 16:30
Location: CRASSH

Part I

Background Reading: Blackburn, Simon, (1998), Ruling Passions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Chapter 1: ‘Organising Practice’ (1-23); Chapter 9: ‘Relativism, Subjectivism, Knowledge’ (279-­310).

Week 1: Joyce, Richard, (2005), The Evolution of Morality, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, Chapter 4: ‘The Moral Sense’ (107-­142); Conclusion: ‘Living with an Adapted Mind’ (221-­230).

Week 2: David Wong, (2006), Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Chapter 1: ‘Pluralism and Ambivalence’ (5?28); Chapter 2: ‘Pluralistic Relativism’ (29­?75).

Week 3: Jesse Prinz, (2007), The Emotional Construction of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ‘Preamble: Naturalism and Hume’s Law’ (1­?10); Chapter 5: ‘Dining with Cannibals’ (173-­214).

Week 4: Review and Evaluation. James Laidlaw and Hallvard Lillehammer.

Part II

Background Reading: MacIntyre, Alasdair, (1984), After Virtue, London: Duckworth, Chapters 14?18 (181-­263).

Week 5: Lambek, Michael, (2000), ‘The Anthropology of Religion and the Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy’. Current Anthropology 41 (309­?320); ‘Nuriaty, the Saint, and the Sultan: Virtuous Subject and Subjective Virtuoso of the Postmodern Colony’, in Richard Werbner (ed.), Postcolonial Subjectivities in Africa. London: Zed Books (25-­?43).

Week 6: Mahmood, Saba, (2004), Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, Princeton: Princeton University Press, Chapter 4: ‘Positive Ethics and Ritual Conventions’ (118-­152). Hirschkind, Charles, (2006), The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics, New York: Columbia University Press, Chapter 3: ‘The Ethics of Listening’ (67­?104).

Week 7: Pandian, Anand, (2009), Crooked Stalks: Cultivating Virtue in South India, Durham: Duke University Press, ‘Introduction’ (1-­30); Chapter 3: ‘The Life of the Thief Leaves the Belly Always Boiling: On the Nature and Restraint of the Criminal Animal’ (103?140).

Week 8: Review and Evaluation. James Laidlaw & Hallvard Lillehammer.