Is America a racist nation? Is affirmative action reverse discrimination? Do minorities suffer from a "culture of poverty"? Should we embrace multiculturalism or a color-blind society?
Taking arguments from both sides of the debate, we will philosophically analyze these and other difficult questions of race and ethnicity in America. The first half of the class will revolve around the notion of identity--personal, racial, ethnic and national--and how it can be used to illuminate the issues in these debates. The second half will turn to the politics of race and the issues of justice and fairness
In this class, you will come to develop a new appreciation of race in America through reading, discussing issues with other students, and writing a series of critical commentaries on these issues.
By the time this course is over, students should be much more aware of how issues of race and ethnicity affect both personal and political identities, and how many contemporary debates can be understood more clearly when one factors in the importance of race and ethnicity in America.
UW Colleges Catalog Course Description for PHI 259: Philosophy and Racism - 3 credits. Examination of the concept of race in the societies that use this notion to structure themselves - with concentration on its use in the United States. The following topics are part of the course: what racism is, particularly how racism is seen from the dominant standpoint as opposed to how racism is seen from those who experience it; how the structure of racism has differed in regard to different ethnic groups; comparison of the experience of at least two different ethnic groups in the US in this regard; the place (or lack of place) of (im)morality in the creation of and in solutions to the problem. HU/ES
This class will focus on two issues. The first half of the class will examine the role of identity--racial, personal, ethnic and national--in the creation of a (dys)functional person. In the later half of the class, we will use this when we turn to the political significance of race and ethnicity in America and address contemporary debates on affirmative action and multiculturalism.
This class is discussion based and participation on boards will constitute 20% of your final grade. You will also be expected to write bi-weekly comment sheets, worth 40% of your final grade, in addition to traditional exams (of which there will be two, each worth 20% of the final grade).
Successful completion of this course will enhance students' ability to
By completing this course, students will be able to produce an argument which
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Troy Kozma
