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PHILOSOPHY 2/ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

  • Fall 2026
  • Monday/Wednesday/Friday 3:10-4:00 p.m.
  • 245 Li Ka Shing

R. Jay Wallace

  • Office: 134 Philosophy Hall
  • Email: rjw@berkeley.edu
  • Office Hours: Thursdays 2:30–4:00 p.m. (other times by appointment)

GSI’s:

Course Description:

An introduction to some central issues in moral and political philosophy. Questions to be addressed include the following:

  • Are there objective moral standards, or are moral and other values relative? What distinguishes moral reasons from reasons of other kinds? Do moral reasons and moral standards somehow come from God? Can we make sense of moral values and moral capacities in evolutionary terms?
  • What are some of our specific moral obligations and entitlements? Is it ever permissible to kill people, e.g. in the context of warfare or when you are trying to save others from being killed? How much must we sacrifice to help others in need? Does pornography objectify women? Is there a right to sex?
  • Can one lead a meaningful human life in a world without objective values? What is it to live a life of integrity? How might our own lives be affected by global crises (e.g. climate change and the future extinction of the species)? Is friendship necessarily at odds with morality?
  • What makes a society just, and worthy of our allegiance? What role do ideals of equality and freedom play in our conception of a good political community? How might the racism of our history and institutions have infected our philosophical theorizing about the subject of social justice? Do we have obligations to make reparations for injustices committed by our predecessors (such as chattel slavery)?
  • What is tolerance, and why should we practice it? What is the difference between behaviors that call for toleration and behaviors that should not be tolerated? Does the right to free speech extend to "hate speech"? How do these questions bear on current controversies about campus speech and academic freedom?

Texts:

The texts listed below have been collected in a physical course reader that you can purchase for $44.20 through Copy Central at 2411 Telegraph Ave. (The link will enable you to purchase the reader in advance before you pick it up; but you can also just pay at the store if that is more convenient.)

Requirements:

Two mid-term examinations, on September 14 and October 23; two short papers, due October 12-14 and November 17-19; and one final examination, on December 15. Note: all five of these written assignments must be completed and submitted in order to receive a passing grade for the class. Regular attendance at lectures, and conscientious participation in discussion sections, are also important elements of the course.

The short papers and the final exam will each count toward 20% of your final grade; the two mid-term exams will each count toward 15% of your final grade. 10% of the final grade will be based on your attendance and performance in sections and lectures.

Course Policies:

1. The class will be taught in-person at the scheduled times and places. Lectures will not be recorded. Lecture notes (power point slides) will be made available on bCourses in advance of each class meeting.

2. No networked devices may be used during the lectures; phones and laptops should be stowed out of sight, so that you can all concentrate together, without distraction, on the philosophical issues under discussion. 

3. AI models are remarkable technologies that will no doubt have a transformative impact on many aspects of human life (including scientific discovery and mathematical research). But they have no place in a course such as this one.

Why is that? Philosophy is a discipline in which we learn to think rigorously, for ourselves, about some of the most challenging and elusive questions that members of our species have faced. You will acquire these skills only if you read the assigned texts and critically engage with them—on your own, and in discussion with your teachers and your fellow students—and only if you work out what you think about the issues in prose that you have produced for yourself.

If you wanted to get in shape, you would not purchase a robot and send it to the gym every day to work out for you. By the same token, you cannot outsource your work to an AI model if you want to gain anything from an introductory class in philosophy!

For these reasons, we have structured the course to discourage, as far as we can, the use of AI models to complete the requirements. The readings have been made available in a physical reader to incentivize you to read and think about them for yourself (rather than relying on an AI-generated summary). And all exams and papers will be written by you—without notes—in a proctored classroom environment.

4. Due dates for written work will be enforced strictly. Students who submit late papers will ordinarily be penalized one grade interval (e.g. from B+ to B) for each 24-hour period that their paper is overdue.

Extensions will be granted only for exceptional situations that could not have been anticipated and coped with through careful advance planning (e.g. family emergencies, illnesses, personal crises, etc.). It is your responsibility to contact your GSI and/or the instructor immediately if you think that you have encountered a circumstance of the kind that might merit an extension.

DSP accommodation letters will of course be honored, but please communicate clearly with your GSI about the accommodations you will be needing. 

5. Our goal is that this classroom should be a participatory community where everyone can fulfill their potential for learning; there is no place for harassment, hostile treatment, or violence of any kind. We expect all participants in the course to treat each other with consideration and respect, in accordance with Berkeley's Principles of Community.

If you or someone you know experiences violence or hostile treatment (including sexual harassment), there are options, rights, and resources, including assistance with academics, reporting, and medical care. For more information, visit survivorsupport.berkeley.edu or path to care. You may also wish to consult the Department’s statement about equity and inclusion, which includes links to additional resources.

Computer-Based Test Facility

The two papers in this course will be administered in the Computer-Based Testing Facility (CBTF). Students are responsible for reading and following all CBTF policies and procedures, including instantiating a PrairieTest account, submitting any DSP accommodations in advance, and reserving and attending exam sessions on time. During CBTF sessions, students may use only the materials and resources expressly authorized by the course; unauthorized devices, materials, or resources are prohibited. CBTF proctors monitor all sessions and will document and report any suspected academic misconduct to the course staff. Suspected violations will be handled in accordance with the Berkeley Honor Code and the UC Berkeley Code of Student Conduct, and may result in penalties up to and including a failing grade on the exam or in the course and referral to the Center for Student Conduct. 

Approaching the Assignments:

Philosophical texts are fascinating, but also dense and somewhat gnarly. There are not a lot of pages assigned for each week of the course—typically two articles or chapters—but you will need to read them carefully and repeatedly. A good strategy would be to read the texts for a given week once or twice before the first lecture of that week, and then to go over them again before your discussion section meeting.

The goal is to learn to navigate challenging philosophical texts and to engage critically with the ideas and arguments in them. To that end, we will make study questions available about the readings for each week, which you should use as a guide while preparing the assignments. You should try to write up short answers to the study questions while you are doing the reading. This will also help you to prepare for the midterms and the final exam—the midterms will consist entirely of a selection of study questions for one section of the class, as will the first part of the final.

The papers and discussion sections will provide further opportunities to engage critically and independently with the issues we'll be discussing. If you approach the course conscientiously, you should acquire the ability to explain philosophical ideas in your own terms and to develop and defend your own take on them, which is tantamount to thinking for yourself.

Resources:

Here are some links to helpful resources for reading philosophy texts and writing papers in philosophy.

Readings:

1. God, Human Nature, and the Roots of Ethics.

Week of August 24   

[No class August 24]

  • Jia Tolentino, "The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams"
  • Bernard Williams, "The Amoralist"

Week of August 31     

  • Norman Kretzmann, "Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro"
  • Frans de Waal, "Morally Evolved"

Week of September 7     

[No class September 7}

  • Christine Korsgaard, "Morality and the Distinctiveness of Human Action"

[September 14: First mid-term examination]

2. Killing, Helping Others, and Sex.

Week of September 14   

Week of September 21 

Week of September 28

  • Rae Langton, "Sexual Solipsism" (excerpts: skip or skim secs. 2.2, 3.1, 3.4, 4.3)
  • Amia Srinivasan, "Does Anyone Have the Right To Sex?"                 

[Paper #1 due on October 12-14]

3. Morality, Friendship, and the Meaning of Life.

Week of October 5       

  • Susan Wolf, "The Meanings of Lives"
  • Cheshire Calhoun, "Standing for Something" 

Week of October 12         

Week of October 19

  • Dean Cocking and Jeanette Kennett, "Friendship and Moral Danger"

[October 23: Second mid-term examination]

4. Justice, Equality, and Reparations.

Week of October 26   

  • John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, selections    

Week of November 2

  • Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, selections

Week of November 9

[No class November 11]

  • Bernard Boxill and J. Angelo Corlett, "Black Reparations"
  • Supplementary reading: Ta-Nehisi Coates, "The Case for Reparations"

[Paper #2 due on November 17-19]

5. Pluralism, Toleration, and Free Speech.

Week of November 16

  • Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom, chap. 14
  • T. M. Scanlon, "The Difficulty of Tolerance"

Week of November 23

[No class on November 25 and 27]

  • T. M. Scanlon, "The Difficulty of Tolerance" (cont.)

Week of November 30

  • Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech, chaps. 1, 2
  • David Cole, "The University and Freedom of Expression" and "Academic Freedom in Peril"

[Week of December 7: Reading/Review/Recitation]              

[Final examination on December 15, 7:00-10:00 p.m., 245 Li Ka Shing]

Course Summary:

Course Summary
Date Details Due