Course Director: Chandra Kumar

Email: MODR1730I@gmail.com (email for the course) or chandrak@yorku.ca (Please try to use the gmail address, not my York address, for emails related to the course).

Time and Location: Thursday, 2:30-5:30. VH 3009.

Zoom Office Hours: Tuesdays, 2:30-3:30. Zoom link will be sent to your email.

The main purpose of this course is to develop our capacities for critical reasoning about social issues, including moral and political debates. ‘Critical reasoning’ refers to the use of logic, evidence and argument in forming and evaluating one’s own (or others’) opinions, in order to arrive at the most justified position possible on a given topic. Critical reasoning can help us to identify arguments (in books, journal articles, newspapers, films, literature, on television, radio, ‘social media’, and so on), to detect fallacies and other weaknesses in those arguments, and to understand how those arguments may be rationally strengthened and improved—if they can be.  The course is intended to enhance your capacity to identify, reconstruct, and evaluate arguments in general, and arguments about social issues in particular.

All readings will be accessible online or provided to you electronically. Some readings will be accessible through Scott Library e-resources (for which you will need your York Passport ID), some will be accessible online (for which links will be provided), and some will be provided to you electronically by the Course Director. You can, of course, print these out if you wish to have hard copies. We may also watch one or two documentary films on some moral or political topic.

Readings will be announced on a class-to-class basis. This enables the Course Director to customize the curriculum by taking into account the progress of the course, and the interests and needs of the students.

AGAIN: Since we are not using e-class for this course, announcements and course material will be sent via email by the Course Director to the students’ ‘preferred email’ – the email address students gave as their ‘preferred email’ to York University. You should check that email fairly regularly, and make sure to check your spam folder if you think you did not receive an email sent by the instructor.

1. Five short written assignments – (dates TBA): 3% each, 15% total.
2. First exam, Oct. 27, 20%.
3. Second exam, Feb. 2, 20%.
4. Third exam, Mar. 23, 20%.
5. Short essay, 4-6 pages double-spaced, due no later than April 15, 25%.

NOTE 1: We will NOT be using e-class. Instead, all course material will be provided by email—to what you listed as your ‘preferred email’ with York U.

NOTE 2: Zoom office hours will start during the second week of classes.

Plan for the Course and Grade Breakdown

In this course, we will focus on i) arguments and reasoning in general, with a focus on logic and fallacies and ii) moral, political, and social arguments and reasoning in particular. In the first area, we will go from relatively simple steps for identifying and evaluating arguments to more complex procedures for assessing more complex arguments and theories. In the second area, we will consider various social issues. Readings on these issues—which may include topics such as abortion, capitalism versus socialism, war in Ukraine, religion and morality, pandemic ethics, terrorism, gender justice, racism, poverty, propaganda and global warming—will be provided.

Students will be responsible for submitting five short written assignments during this course (due dates TBA). The assignments will be very short – one or two paragraphs. For each assignment that you do not submit on time, you will lose 3% of your final grade. If you submit all five assignments on time, and do each assignment (more or less) properly, this gives you 15% of your final grade. All the assignments will be sent to you via email at least five days prior to the due date. There will also be three exams, each worth 20% of your final grade, and one short essay worth 25% of your final grade. So, the grade breakdown will be as follows.