Nadia Mazouz: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2022

Name	Prof. Dr. Nadia Mazouz
Field	Practical Philosophy
Address	Professur Praktische Philosophie ETH Zürich, STB F 19 Stampfenbachstrasse 69 8092 Zürich SWITZERLAND
Telephone	+41 44 632 83 38
E-mail	nadia.mazouz@gess.ethz.ch
Department	Humanities, Social and Political Sciences
Relationship	Full Professor

Number	Title	ECTS	Hours	Lecturers
851-0040-00L	Can it Be Permissible to Kill a Few in Order to Save Many?	3 credits	2S	N. Mazouz
Abstract	First, the relevant literature on moral justifications in trolley cases will be discussed (Foot, Thomson, Kamm, Otsuka, Kagan). Second, neuropsychological research on trolley cases (Greene, Haidt, Berker, Kamm) and third, applications of such moral reasoning in cases potentially arising in autonomous robots (Rahwan, Nyholm and Smids, Wolkenstein) will be considered.
Learning objective	Students will gain an overview of the current ethical debates surrounding the legitimacy of homicide-rescue-cases in specific types of situations. They will be enabled to interpret complex texts, identify the argumentation, to reflect it critically and to put it up for discussion.
Content	Killing innocents is generally thought to be morally impermissible – or so it seems from an intuitive point of view. However, there are situations where people can only be saved if less others are killed, for example in some traffic cases, in some cases in natural disasters, medical emergencies, terrorist attacks or humanitarian interventions. In some of these situations our intuitions stay clear and disaproving: it is not permissible to kill, even in order to save many lives, for example, to take the vital organs of one patient in order to save many more other patients. In other scenarios, the intuitions are less clear or even revert for most of us, like in the famous trolley-bystander case, in which a bystander can divert an out-of-control trolley heading towards five to a track where one person is trapped. How are these moral intuitions to be justified, if they are? In this seminar the relevant literature on moral justifications in such trolley cases will be reviewed as well as on methodological problems pertaining to the role of intuitions in moral justifications. Neuropsychological research on such cases as well as critique of the methods and normative presuppositions used in that research will be debated. Finally, attempts to apply such moral reasoning on allegedly analogous cases arising in autonomous robots will be discussed.
851-0041-00L	Research Colloquium for Practical Philosophy Does not take place this semester.	2 credits	1K	N. Mazouz
Abstract	Current topics of practical philosophy are discussed on the basis of texts and lectures
Learning objective	Students are introduced to current research in the field of practical philosophy.
851-0042-00L	Democracy (Theory) and Challenges Posed by the Digital Transformation Does not take place this semester.	3 credits	2S	N. Mazouz
Abstract	First, an overview of different theories of democracy will be given in order to make explicit their normatively distinguished features. Second, using examples of the social application of digital technologies, controversies about their impact and normative evaluation are discussed. Third, these dissents are related to the models of democracy elaborated in the first part and analyzed.
Learning objective	Students will gain an overview of different theories of democracy and the associated different types of challenges to democracy posed by the digital transformation of society. They will be enabled to interpret complex texts, to identify the argumentation, to reflect critically and to put it up for discussion.
Content	Researchers agree that the digital transformation of society is a challenge to democracy. What is disputed is how exactly it challenges or even endangers it. One reason for the disagreement is certainly due to different descriptions and assessments of the precise social effects and risks of various digital technologies. A second reason has to do with the diversity of theories of democracy. In democratic theory, a distinction is usually made between liberal, republican, pluralist-participatory, and deliberative models of democracy (and often many more). Depending on which model is used (and how exactly it is determined), political participation, elections, accountability of politicians, the role of central legal-political institutions (such as the constitution), political culture, and the quality of discourse in the political public sphere are conceived and evaluated differently. In a first step, this seminar will provide an overview of different theories of democracy, with the aim of making explicit the normative features of important elements of democracy (such as political participation). In a second step, examples of the social application of digital technologies are used to discuss both divergent descriptions of their impact and controversies about normative evaluations in the research literature. In a third step, these dissents are related to the models of democracy elaborated in the first part and analyzed.
862-0004-15L	Research Colloquium Philosophy for Master Students and PhD (HS 2022) For MAGPW and PhD students of D-GESS only.	2 credits	1K	R. Wagner, M. Hampe, N. Mazouz, L. Wingert
Abstract	Ph.D. students, post docs, members of staff, and senior colleagues from other philosophy departments will report on their work in progress. Furthermore, promissing new philosophical articles and parts of new philosophical books will be studied.
Learning objective	Ideas and arguments dealing with systematic problems especially in epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of mind will be scrutinized and elaborated.
862-0115-00L	Morality of War and Peace	3 credits	2S	N. Mazouz
Abstract	Can a war ever be morally justified? The focus of the seminar is the controversial debate in contemporary philosophical thinking about the moral problem of war, humanitarian intervention, the "new wars", terrorism and targeted killing.
Learning objective	The learning objective is twofold: the students should get to know the most important traditions of philosophical thinking about the morality of war; and they should learn to interpret philosophical texts, to think through the difficult problems that the texts raise, and to argue for and against the theses that are made explicit in the various approaches. Each participant is asked to choose a specific violent political conflict or war that interests him/her, be it historical or current. The students are given the opportunity to give a short lecture on the problem of moral justification in their concrete example using the philosophical theories discussed in the course.