Dowling College SSC6645 Exploring the Self Fall 2009

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Dowling College Exploring the Self Fall 2009

Racanelli Center 323 Mondays 5:30 pm - 8:11 pm

SSC 6645 91432

Dr Christian Perring

E-mail: perringc@dowling.edu [All email to me should have "SSC 6645" in the subject line]

Office Phone: 244-3349

Office: 330B RC (next to the computer lab)

Office Hours: MW 11:30AM - 1:00PM, F 8.00-9.00AM or by appointment

Course Description

This semester we will examine the history of the notion of self-control. This is an essential idea to our conceptions of maturity, civilization, competence, and moral responsibility. We often assume that we know what it means and that our current definitions are the best. However, on inspecting the history of the idea, we see that there has been considerable variation in how cultures have understood self-control, and furthermore, that we can question whether we currently are thinking about it in the best way.

In order to understand the notion of self-control, we have to have a way of distinguishing between self and non-self. The simplest examples come from when other people control you: if other people are able to run your life and you cannot do anything about it, then you are not able to control your own life. For example, a slave lacks control over his or her life. Indeed, if no-one else has power over one's life, then there is a puzzle about what we could even mean by self-control. If no-one else is telling you what to do, then you thereby have control of your self. So we need to consider examples of where we say that people lose their self-control: when they have terrible rages and kill others in acts of passion; when they have bipolar disorder and go into a manic phase; when they have ADHD and are unable to concentrate or sit still; when an habitual drinker who has joined AA and given up drinking then relapses; when a person with Tourette's Syndrome curses in very offensive ways; when a person has sex with another against their better judgment; when a person who is trying to restrict her calorie intake gives into a craving for a pint of ice cream; when a student becomes bored and stops paying attention in class. We have many ways of explaining what goes on in these cases: we talk about overpowering desires, disinhibition, neurological disorders, weakness of will, momentary lack of judgment, and chemical imbalances. In all the cases, there is some sense in which the agent knows that they should not do what they are doing, and yet they do it anyway. Often we talk about some non-rational part of the person overcoming the rational part. Sometimes we talk as if one's body or parts of one mind are not part of the self at all.

Our different ways of describing these actions have consequences for how we treat people who cannot control themselves. Broadly speaking, we can divide them into two groups: those for which the subjects are responsible for their failure to control themselves, and those for which the subjects are not responsible. A central focus for this course will be how we make this distinction, and how it has developed over time.

Course Requirements and Grading

· Attendance is required. If you miss more than 2 classes without a medical excuse, you fail the course. Being more than 10 minutes late for a class counts as half a class missed.

· Presentations. All students will do a presentation of 20 - 30 minutes. Presentation topics will be assigned by arrangement with me. 20% of the grade.

· For Education students: An assignment to show the link between the content of your course and your teaching. 10%. ~500 words or equivalent. Due by December 1.

· Paper. (Remainder of grade). All students will write a paper on a topic of their choice related to the seminar. The paper should be at least 3000 words long in order to achieve a passing grade. Your paper needs to include at least 6 scholarly references. Your paper must be submitted via Turnitin.com by December 16. Late papers lose 10% per day.

· Paper topics: you can write on anything connected with the course. It can be philosophical, historical, sociological, or anthropological. So, for example, you can write on Aristotle on becoming a virtuous person, the role of self-control in Christian thought, the methods of establishing personal discipline in the ancient world, methods of getting patients to behave in mental hospitals in different eras, the portrayal of the virtues of self-control in literature, the medicalization of the failure of self-control with categories such as ADHD or conduct disorder, the modern science of self-control, the history of addiction treatment, or ideologies that explicitly recommend giving up self-control and criticize self-control as limiting.

Any academic dishonesty will result in a failing grade and I will pass the information along to the Dean of Students.

Keeping Copies of Your Work. It is your responsibility to keep copies of all your work in this course until your final grade is submitted. You need to keep copies of your work in at least 3 different places, because all storage methods are fallible. Floppy disks are very unreliable and I recommend you don't use them. If you do use them, back them up every day. Better methods of storage are writable CDs, flashdrives or jumpdrives, zip-drives, hard disks, and emails to yourself with your work attached to the emails. You can also use free online backup programs such as Mozy. It can be a good idea to print out your work and keep a hard copy. But remember that no method of data storage is perfect, which is why you should keep your work stored in at least 3 separate places.

Cell phone ringers off. No texting. No food in class. You can use a laptop computer in class to take notes, but if I find anyone using their computer for any other purpose, then all computers will be banned.

Schedule

9/14 Introduction

9/21 Plato's explanation of people's irrationality

The three-part model of the self

Plato: The Republic: Especially books 4 & 8.

· Republic translation by CDC Reeve (Hackett, Third Edition)

· Jowett translation of the Republic online

Moral Intellectualism.

Plato: Protagoras

· Jowett translation of Protagoras online (MIT Classics Archive) (Perseus at Tufts

)

10/5 Aristotle's virtue theory and his discussion on incontinence