Aufbauseminar Fictional Ethics Mo 12:30-14:00

In Oceania there is no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future. ~ George Orwell - 1984 -What is right and what is wrong?” – A simple question to which, apparently, there is no answer. Right and wrong need further substantiation. From an ethical point of view, central questions are rather: Who defines right and wrong? What does it mean to do the right thing? When and where, and in which specific domains of action are right and wrong defined and negotiated? Or, on a broader level: How do concepts of right and wrong influence living together as a collective or society? This seminar will relate the above questions to various philosophical texts from the 20th and 21st century. In order to find answers to specific problems of right and wrong, we will read and discuss excerpts from a number of theoretical texts, which debate related concepts such as power, violence, authority, sovereignty, and justice. With the help of these concepts, we will discuss the fundamentally unstable dichotomies of human morality: good & evil, vice & virtue, and of course, right & wrong. For this purpose, the seminar will offer a range of approaches ranging from Michel Foucault’s poststructuralist take on ethics (biopower) to Giorgio Agamben’s racial ethics or Judith Butler’s anthropocentric political ethics of the early 21st century. Another field for debate is bioethics and its negotiations of how biotechnology, medicine, politics and law contribute to human responsibility concerning cloning and human genetic engineering. Eventually this leads to machine ethics, which is concerned with the status of artificial intelligence and bio-mechanic lifeforms. In this context, it does not suffice to speculate about ethics of future generations who will face beings that exceed our present conceptualizations. Instead, it will become urgent to ask the question of who we will debating with and how the ethical self-conception of these unknown beings will contradict, refuse, or even overthrow our own. In addition to reading and debating these texts, we will have brief discussion about negotiations of ethical questions in literary and dramatic texts such as Sarah Kane’s Cleansed, or Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. Additional examples concerning fictional ethics will come from movies like Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and Larry and Andy Wachowski’s The Matrix. Focal texts (preselection): Walter Benjamin – Zur Kritik der Gewalt Jacques Derrida – -Force of Law: The Mythical Foundation of Authority” Giorgio Agamben – Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life Michel Foucault – Security, Territory, Population Judith Butler – Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? Additional texts for further study: Niklas Luhmann – Macht René Girard – Das Heilige und die Gewalt Susan Sontag – Regarding the Pain of Others Donna – Haraway – -A Cyborg Manifesto” (in: Simians, Cyborgs and Women) Colin Allen, Wendell Wallach - Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right and Wrong LeistungsnachweisStudents will be able to acquire their BN by regular participation in class. Zielgruppe Please note that the seminar is addressed to students with great interest in dealing with philosophical concepts and questions. Anglistik IV: Modern English Literature Students will be able to acquire their BN by regular participation in class. Zielgruppe Please note that the seminar is addressed to students with great interest in dealing with philosophical concepts and questions. Universität Düsseldorf SoSe 2016 Baudner Eric