Grades: the final grade is based on a total of 100 pts.

7 essays@10 pts.= 70 pts

7 individual essays @ 10 pts.

7 group essays @ 10 pts.

Group essays are collective versions of individual essays: Your score will be the higher of your individual essay or the group essay that addresses the same question.

If you fail to turn in an individual essay or participate in the group essay on a particular question, you will receive 50% of the score for the essay you did write.

Your score will be the higher of the individual essay and the group essay you write on each assigned question.

You will in fact write and do group work on 8 questions. The lowest of these scores will be dropped. So 7 essays will count toward your final score.

Final exam: 30 pts. maximum

See this link for a fuller explanation:grading requirements

Please check your grades online regularly to make sure they are accurate.

10 a.m. Section grades

12 noon section grades

Click on the appropriate link to see your grades. They will be listed by the last 4 digits of your student i.d. number.

Marks on Essays

How to do Well in Philosophy

Group Work Procedures

Class attendance and participation: I do not grade on attendance, but missing class will hurt your grade because we will do a lot of in-class writing for credit. If you are not in class on a day when we do such work you will not get credit for it and it cannot be made up. You should plan to be in class every day. If for some reason you do not think you can do this, then you should think seriously about dropping this class. Group work requires your participation and students who fail to participate will lose points from their scores.

If you are in need of an accommodation for a disability in order to participate fully in this class, please let me know immediately and if you have not done so, contact Services to Students with Disabilities at UH-183, 537-5328.

For University policies on course withdrawal, cheating and plagiarism, please see "General Regulations and Procedures" in the CSUSB Bulletin of Courses. Plagiarism occurs when you turn in work that is not your own but has been written by someone else: the author of a book or a website or Wikipedia or another student, husband, wife, girlfriend, friend. . . You written work must be written by you and you alone. Plagiarized essays will not receive credit. In serious cases students may be dismissed from the University.

The Philosophy Department Logic Lab is located in the basement of University Hall, UH 052 (x72667). This lab has computers with access to the Web. The official purpose of the logic lab is to provide students in logic, critical thinking and philosophy courses with computer assisted instruction in logic and critical thinking. In addition to providing students with instruction in logic and critical thinking, the Logic Lab is a place for students and faculty to meet and discuss philosophical issues. Faculty, majors and interested students can find informal discussions taking place there about everything from abstract objects and formal logic to the existence of God and animal rights. Come by and see us sometime. Student Assistants are on duty Monday through Friday. A schedule is available from the Dept. Office (x75869) or at the Logic Lab. There is free tutoring for some classes available in the Learning Center (UH 351) as well.

Assignments policy. I expect that you will turn assignments in on time, on the days listed below in the reading schedule, during class time. If for some very good reason, you cannot make it to class, you will be allowed to turn in one assignment for full credit no more than one class day late. Any work not turned in during class time on the assigned day will be considered late: this includes work turned in later that same day. Subsequent late work, if any, will have 3 points (out of a possible 10) deducted from its score if turned in one class day late and 1 additional point deducted for each subsequent day late. Assignments turned in after the assignment has been discussed and its answer posted will not be accepted for any reason whatsoever. (If you have an illness or other event serious enough to keep you out for more than one class day, please bring a note from your doctor or other responsible person when you return to class. It is your responsibility to see to it that printers are functioning and the like, so it is unwise to wait until the last minute to write or print assignments. We will be doing in-class essay writing. Due to the nature of these assignments, there can be no makeup work on these essays.

Course Description

The ancient Greek philosophers thought of ethics as about how best to live one's life, rather than about specific moral problems such as abortion or sexual activity. Ethics was the study of how to live a good life. I follow in this tradition. Specifically this course will ask how the fact that we are mortal creatures with a limited life span affects the question of how we should live during that limited span. We shall look at ideas about the nature of death, the possibility of an afterlife, the possible meanings of life and death, and how these ideas have consequences for how we should live while we are alive. There is one text supplemented with primary sources on links in the Reading and Assignments Schedule below.

Text: Christopher Belshaw, Ten Good Questions about Life and Death.

FINAL EXAM:

Section Two (10 a.m. TTh): Thursday June 14^th at 10 a.m in UH240

Section Three, (12 noon, TTh): Tuesday June 12^th at 12 noon in UH240

• Please bring a blue book and pens (not pencils)

• The exam will consist of questions that you have already answered as either individual or group work. To study please read carefully the answers to these questions (questions 1-8) that I have posted above. Be sure you understand the answers and can reproduce them in your own words.