Phil 261: Evil

Instructor: Prof. James (Jim) Sias

Fall 2020

Can people be evil? Can our actions be evil? If no, why not? And if yes, how so? These are the main
questions that we’ll attempt to answer in this course. For the first part of the course, we’ll discuss various
reasons for being skeptical of evil. Then we’ll treat evil as a topic in moral psychology, asking what kinds
of psychological features purportedly evil people and actions have in common. And finally, we’ll examine
a number of philosophical theories of evil.

Contact Information

Email: siasj@dickinson.edu Note:

Email is the best way to contact me, as
Office location: East College 206 I check it frequently most days. If I do
not reply to your email within 48 hours,
Office hours: Via email or by appt on Zoom you should assume that it was never
Office phone: (717) 245-1217 received in my inbox. Try sending
another.

Course Texts

1. Simon Baron-Cohen, The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty
2. Stephen Michaud & Hugh Aynesworth, The Only Living Witness: The True Story of ... Ted Bundy
3. Additional readings will be posted online.

Assignments

Critical book review

Grade Distribution
During the first few weeks of the semester, we’ll read Simon Baron-
15% Course participation
Cohen’s book The Science of Evil in its entirety. Your first writing
15% Critical book review
assignment will be to write a 3-4 page critical review of the book. As
25% First essay
a book review, it should summarize some of the main themes of the
25% Second essay
book, highlighting key issues and arguments. But as a critical book
20% Take-home final exam
review, it should also raise a potentially significant criticism or two.
Instructions will be posted online.

First and second essay

Your other writing assignments will be argumentative essays, each about 4-5 pages long. For the first essay,
I will choose the topic. For the second essay, you will choose the topic (I’ll post a list of potential topics to
the course website, in case you have trouble coming up with one on your own). Detailed instructions for
each essay will be posted online.
Course Policies & Procedures

Attendance & Participation

While I do not take attendance at each class meeting, I do keep track Please note that your physical presence
of who attends regularly and who does not. I also keep track of the in the room during a class meeting does
frequency with which students participate in class discussion. Full not constitute “participation” in the
course.
credit (15%) is reserved for those students with perfect or near-perfect
attendance, and who regularly participate in class discussion. Students
who attend regularly, but rarely or never participate in class discussion,
will receive a grade of 10% or lower.

Academic Conduct & Integrity

Academic misconduct of any form will not be tolerated. All cases of Plagiarism is a form of cheating that
suspected academic misconduct will be reported to the College. This involves any kind of presentation of
includes plagiarism and other forms of cheating, as well as the re-use someone else’s ideas as your own. Students
should note that this includes more
of work submitted for credit in another course. And according to the than just direct quotation without
“Community Standards” page on Dickinson’s website, “The typical proper citation. See the “Community
sanction for academic misconduct is an F in the course and stayed Standards” page on Dickinson’s website
suspension.” If students have any questions about the standards for for descriptions of different forms of
academic conduct and integrity at Dickinson College, they are encour- plagiarism, as well as a list of examples
of other forms of academic misconduct.
aged either to consult with the professor or to review the college’s full
policies, which are available online.

Late work
Late work will be accepted without penalty only if the student can pro- For the record: New days are counted
vide compelling evidence that the tardiness is due to illness, hardship, from the end of class on the day the
or required attendance at a school-sponsored event. Students must assignment was due. So, for instance,
if an assignment is due in class on a
notify the professor (via email) as soon as they become aware of one Thursday, and that class period ends
of these possible causes of tardiness. In all other cases – i.e., cases in at 2:45pm, the assignment will be
which a student’s work is late for reasons that are not recognized as considered one day late as of 2:46pm on
valid excuses – the student will be penalized one-third of a letter grade the same day.
for each day (including weekends) that the assignment is late – e.g.,
from a B+ to a B, then from a B to a B-, etc.

Accommodating students with disabilities

Dickinson values diverse types of learners and is committed to ensuring that each student is afforded equitable
access to participate in all learning experiences. If you have (or think you may have) a learning difference or
a disability – including a mental health, medical, or physical impairment – that would hinder your access to
learning or demonstrating knowledge in this class, please contact Access and Disability Services (ADS). They
will confidentially explain the accommodation request process and the type of documentation that Dean and
Director Marni Jones will need to determine your eligibility for reasonable accommodations. To learn more
about available supports, go to www.dickinson.edu/ADS or email access@dickinson.edu.

If you’ve already been granted accommodations at Dickinson, please follow the guidance at www.dickinson.edu/
AccessPlan for disclosing the accommodations for which you are eligible and scheduling a meeting with me as
soon as possible so that we can discuss your accommodations and finalize your Access Plan.

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Zoom meetings
The primary “synchronous” component of our course will consist in weekly class meetings on Zoom, during
which we’ll discuss the week’s material (readings, video lectures, etc.)—in this case, at the originally scheduled
meeting time on Thursday afternoons, from 1:30–2:45pm. Attendance at these meetings is a requirement of the
course, and participating during these discussions is the best way for you to impact your “Course Participation”
grade (see the section below this one for more).

Our Zoom meetings will be video recorded, and a link to the recording will be posted to Moodle and to the
course website for you to access after class. (You’ll have access to these links, and they should remain functional,
until after all final papers and exams are submitted at the end of the semester.)

This class may also be audio recorded by those students who have an accommodation to do so as granted by
Access and Disability Services (ADS). Recording of any session in this course other than for the above purposes
is strictly prohibited, and would be a breach of Dickinson’s Community Standards. It may also be a violation of
Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance laws.

Students may not share, send, post, publish, make public, or duplicate any recordings without the written au-
thorization of those recorded. Failure to abide by these rules is a breach of privacy and a violation of copyright
laws. It is furthermore considered a serious violation of Dickinson College Community Standards and subject to
disciplinary action. Unless informed otherwise, students are to destroy any recordings shared by their professors
at the end of the semester. Thank you for your compliance.

Active participation is an important and valued expectation for this class. To promote a positive class community
as well as meaningful and engaging exchanges of ideas, I’d like us all to have our cameras on during Zoom
meetings, whenever possible, but I understand that this may not always be possible. If you believe having your
camera on will be a problem for you, please contact me about this during the first week of classes.

Some other notes about remote (i.e., online) teaching and learning
Course Participation. Obviously, “course participation” will look a bit different than it ordinarily does when we
meet regularly in the classroom. As far as I’m concerned, there are a few different ways for you to ensure that
you earn a good grade for participation:
• The best way is to make frequent contributions to our group discussion during the Thursday afternoon Zoom
meetings. Inasmuch as you are able, do not be self-conscious about your comments or questions. Even if you
only speak up to say something like, “I really didn’t understand the author’s point on page 53 when she was
talking about such-and-such. Could you explain that?” that would be a useful contribution, since, probably,
other students were confused about the same thing.
• During the week, prior to our group meeting on Zoom, you can also participate by posting questions or other
reactions to the readings to the discussion forum on Moodle.
• Whenever students email me with questions or comments about course material, this, too, counts as “partici-
pation” in the course.
• Ordinarily, I’d also count any visit during office hours to talk about course material toward a student’s “par-
ticipation” grade. During the Fall 2020 semester, my “office hours” will take the form of either (a) email corre-
spondence (see the note above this one), or (b) one-on-one Zoom meetings, which I’ll schedule by request, and
which will be subject to availability.

Comprehending the Readings. When classes meet on campus, students have a tendency to rely heavily on their
professor’s lectures in order to comprehend the course readings. In fact, I’ve had students admit to my face that
they hardly ever even do the readings, since they feel like they “get everything they need” from the lectures.
When you’re taking a course online, however, there’s somewhat more of a burden placed on you to familiarize
yourself with the readings. And this is true even when there are video mini-lectures, as there will be in our case.

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• It might help to think of it more like an independent study ... with 15-30 other participants. Typically, with
independent studies, the professor points the student in the direction of things to read, research, etc., and then
student and professor meeting during the week to discuss (i.e., no lecture) everything the student read that
week. The professor’s job is to answer questions, provide background where helpful, offer useful insights or
criticisms, and so forth.

Course Exams. Since the exams will be take-home exams, which you’re free to take with the help of your text-
books and notes, you should expect them to ask more open-ended questions that will require some original,
critical thinking of your own. It’d be a waste of time (both yours and mine) for me to ask questions like, “Ac-
cording to Mill, what are the higher pleasures?” since you could just open up the Mill reading and write down
what he says. Instead, exam questions will be written in a way that presumes your understanding of the course
material, and then asks you to apply that understanding in some thoughtful way.

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