First Day of Class

Posted: Wed, Sep 3, 2025

Today

  • Welcome! :-)
  • Normative ethics: What & how?
    • Bathroom break
  • Course logistics
  • Questions? & Plans for next week

Lon Fuller’s version of the grudge informer case

Lon Fuller’s version of the grudge informer case: The Purple Shirts came to power after a suspicious election.

  • Even though the Constitution, the Criminal Code, and other laws were never explicitly repealed, they were systemically neglected, misinterpreted, or misapplied.
  • The Purple Shirts also enacted secret statutes and retroactive statutes and practiced extralegal taking of property, beating, and killing.
  • Grudge informers reported personal enemies to the Purple Shirt authorities for political dissent and trivial offenses (like listening to foreign radio broadcasts or failing to report loss of identification documents within five days), which were crimes punishable by death.

The case was based on a 1944 judgment of a German court. The details are tricky, but roughly: A wife reported her husband’s insulting remarks about Hitler to the Nazi authorities, which led to an investigation and then a trial and a death sentence (the husband was later sent to the front). After the war, she was charged and convicted of “illegal deprivation of liberty” under German criminal law.

In-class activity: What does each deputy argue we should do, and why? What do you think we should do, and why?

Normative ethics: What?

There is an important sense in which what the grudge informers did was wrong.

  • It’s not positive/descriptive law; we’re talking about a moral wrong.
  • It’s also not positive/descriptive morality; we’re talking about something normative.
  • Nor is it prudence/self-interest; it’s fitting to hold the grudge informers morally accountable even if doing so would not advance our self-interest.

Normative ethical theory attempts to systematically figure out what makes an action right/wrong, a state of affairs good/bad, etc.

  • The traditional boundaries between subfields of philosophical ethics are murky: applied ethics—normative (“first-order”) ethics—metaethics.
  • People often teach applied ethics as normative-ethical-theories-applied-to-specific-cases. This distorts the complex interplay between theories and cases: Theories come from cases, and cases push back against theories.

Normative ethics: How?

Philosophy is an activity we do, not specific facts to be memorized.

  • Philosophy is a distinctive genre of texts: We are going to work with primary rather than secondary texts.
  • Philosophy is democratic: We treat these famous philosophers as our equals in a long conversation; philosophy really is for everybody.
  • Philosophy is anti-dogmatic: We believe something not because parents, society, etc., told us so, but because we reflectively endorse and “own up to” them; most of the time, we are all really just figuring things out.
  • So, philosophy is not “just opinions” or “no wrong answers”: Ideas and even truths abound. Not every idea ought to be taken equally seriously, nor is every truth equally significant. Don’t forget to ask: Is this right? What are we trying to do here?
  • Good philosophy should also be fun! I want us to get our hands dirty, so to speak.

I’d like us to think of our classroom as where we come to do philosophy together!

  • Usual class structure: Brief introduction -> small group discussion -> whole class discussion -> what I want you to get out of from the reading -> whole class discussion.
  • To make this work, I expect everybody to have read the assigned readings carefully and critically before coming to class (see the syllabus for tips).
  • Course lexicon: Philosophy words are hard and I want to help.
  • Bring the readings with you to class!
  • There will be a handout posted on the course website; take your own notes as well.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask right away if you have a question, if you are not sure what we are doing, if I use a word you don’t understand, etc.

Let’s take care of each other!

  • Some of the materials will be difficult for a lot of students; I’m here if you need to talk.
  • Philosophy is full of disagreements.
    • You can disagree without being a prick.
    • When I or your TA challenges you with follow-up questions, it means we are interested in what you are saying, not that we’re upset with you!!
    • Sometimes people read my sense of humor as passive aggression—I want to clarify that.

Teaching assistants

  • It’s a course requirement that you enroll in a discussion section.
    • Philosophy is something that we do better by doing it more.
    • Discussion sections also give students more individualized support.
  • Your TA is the instructor of your discussion section; they are also your go-to person for questions et alia.
  • Your TA may establish section-specific policies.
  • Discussion sections start meeting next week.

Office hours

  • Come talk to me about both the substance and the logistics of the course; I would also genuinely love to get to know you more!
  • No signups needed; candy jar provided.
  • If my office hours don’t work for you, please suggest three or four times for us to meet (“make an appointment”).

Ideas are powerful—don’t underestimate them!

If something goes wrong

Please reach out if there’s something going on in your life (it happens!).

Absences

  • Email me if there’s a reason you can’t come to class (I consider mental health to be a legitimate reason for missing class).
  • To catch up: Do the readings, read the handout, get notes from at least two classmates, and come to office hours to discuss questions/thoughts.

Makeups & extensions

  • If you email me six hours prior to the deadline: No questions asked.
  • A little bit later: A little bit of questions asked.
  • Much later: A legitimate reason expected.

Tour of …

  • Course website: https://ethics.dingherself.com
    • We will use CourseWroks only for things that need to be hidden behind a password (assignments/grades/certain readings).
  • Reading schedule
    • Two contrasts: Top-down vs. bottom-up; armchair vs. socially-engaged.
    • If a reading is not directly linked, I will upload it to CourseWorks > Files.
  • Assignments/exams

Plans for Monday

  • Please fill out the “getting to know you” survey.
  • Read Supreme Court cases on reproductive rights—focus on: how does the Court justify its decision?