TIME: Tuesdays 9:30a-11:30a

PLACE CUNY Graduate Center Room 7314

SCHEDULE

• SCHEDULE
• Meeting 1 — Opening
• Meeting 2 — Mozi: the institutional program (~50 pages)
• Meeting 3 — Mengzi (aka Mencius): Roles at the dawn of civilization
• Meeting 4 — Mengzi II: The dao of Yao and Shun and dealing with the givenness of relationality
• Meeting 5 — Mengzi III: A role-centric reading
• Meeting 6 — Roles I: Order, station, and legitimacy
• Meeting 7 — Roles II: Content, function, and the hard cases
• Meeting 8 — Roles III: practice, virtue, and framing
• Meeting 9 — Family I: relational grounding and non-fungibility
• Meeting 10 — Family II: does the duty survive?
• Meeting 11 — Zhuangzi I: Genuine pretending
• Meeting 12 — Zhuangzi II: Genuine pretending
• Meeting 13 — Wrap-up: role-based ethics under pressure
• Meeting 14 — Workshopping term papers

Meeting 1 — Opening

Date: 1 September 2026

Topic: Introducing a role-based alternative to character- and rule-based ethics, via contemporary moral psychology and cognitive science, before turning to the Chinese case studies.

Required

• Sarkissian, Hagop. 2025. "From Character Trouble to Role Solutions: A Way Forward in Contemporary Moral Psychology." Analysis. Proposes a dao-centered alternative to character-based ethics, organized around the social roles that structure moral life, responding to John Doris's character scepticism.
Sarkissian_2025_-_From_character_trouble_to_role_solutions_-_A_way_forward_in_contemporary_moral_psychology.pdf

Optional

Meeting 2 — Mozi: the institutional program (~50 pages)

Date: 8 September 2026

Topic: The Mohist theory of assignable, merit-based offices paired to objective standards ("roles as offices") — a contrast with Mengzi’s renlun ("roles as relations") taken up in Meetings 3–4 (returning in different ways in Meetings 7–8's Cordell/Dare debate.)

Required — primary (Fraser 2020, The Essential Mòzǐ)

• Models and Standards, 法儀 (Book 4) — entire
• Promoting the Worthy I, 尚賢 (Book 8) — entire
• Identifying Upward I, 尚同 (Book 11) — entire
• Inclusive Care III (Book 16) — entire, esp. 16.1a–b, 16.2–16.3, 16.5
• Moderation in Burial III, 節葬 (Book 25) — opening lines (25.1 in full, skim the rest)
• Heaven's Intent II, 天志 (Book 27)
• Geng Zhu, 耕柱 (Book 46) — 46.18 only (Wumazi on graded care)
• Greater Selection, 大取 (Book 44) — 44.6, 44.8, 44.10, 44.12, 44.14
• (the "Dialectics" fragments on 倫列 relation ranking and equal care; Fraser 2016's EC9, EC10, and EC13 are 44.6, 44.12, and 44.14 in the translation)
• Lu's Questions, 魯問 (Book 49) — the Wangzi Lü passage only (Mz 49/76–81; not in The Essential Mòzǐ — Knoblock & Riegel’s 2013 translation provided)
Fraser 2020 - The Essential Mòzĭ - Ethical, Political, and Dialectical Writings (selections).pdf4.8 MiB

Required — secondary

• Fraser, Chris. 2016. The Philosophy of the Mòzǐ: The First Consequentialists, pp. 143–149, 170–172 (stop at "Objections and Replies"), 180–184, and 213–215 with 229–231, plus ch. 5 n. 32 and ch. 6 n. 20. Focus on these ranges; skim the rest for context. Argues the Mohists hold a two-level structure — equal care at one level, role-differentiated duties at another — with relational virtues constitutive of (not derived from) benefit, though he grants this fits uneasily with equal care. Read with an eye to how much textual weight the equal-care reading carries: 46.18 and the Book 44 大取 fragments above are the primary evidence.
• The 214–215/229–231 pages call the Mohist program a "refugee ethic" whose austerity merely answers an era of scarcity. I’m not so sure of that. We’ll test that claim against 16.6 and the burial model in 25.4/25.8.
Fraser 2016 - The Philosophy of the Mòzĭ - The First Consequentialists (selections).pdf7.5 MiB

Optional

• SEP, "Mohism" — background entry for anyone coming to the Mohists cold.

Meeting 3 — Mengzi (aka Mencius): Roles at the dawn of civilization

Date: 15 September 2026

Topic: The renlun as roles instituted at the dawn of civilization, tested against the Mohist debate (3A5).

Translation: Suggested source Eno (2016, open access); Van Norden (2008), Bloom (2009), or Lau (1970/2003) also usable for comparison. I will bring my own translations

Required — primary 3A4, 3B9, 4A4, 4B28, 5A3, 4A27, 4A18, 4A19, 7A15, 7A37, 7A45, 7A46

Supplementary — primary 3A3, 5A1; 3A5; 6A5; 4A11; 7B31

Required — secondary

• Shun, Kwong-loi. 1991. "Mencius' Criticism of Mohism: An Analysis of Meng Tzu 3A:5." Philosophy East and West 41(2).
• Reconstructs Yi Zhi as a serious Mohist opponent rather than a hypocrite, reading the "two roots" charge as concerning whether the validity of a way of life and the emotional resources for living it share one source.
• Sarkissian, H. (ms.) "Sourcing Obligations." (Unpublished draft)

Optional

• Kim, Myeong-seok. (2018). Emotion and Judgment: Two Sources of Moral Motivation in Mèngzǐ. Dao, 17(1), 51–80.
• Argues Mengzian moral emotions are concern-based construals insufficient on their own to move action, requiring a second source in 智 (wisdom) and 權 (weighing).

Meeting 4 — Mengzi II: The dao of Yao and Shun and dealing with the givenness of relationality

Date: 22 September 2026

Topic: Succession, sagely governance, and the limits of filial obligation, via the Yao–Shun material.

Required — primary 3A4 (reread, fuller treatment); 4A1; 4B19; 5A5 and 5A6; 6A7; 7A16; 7A35

Supplementary — primary 5A3 (reread); 5A2; 4A2

Required — secondary

• Sarkissian, Hagop. "What to Do with the Relations We're Granted: A Reading of Mengzi 7B24." Draft.
• Challenges the traditional reading of 7B24 as sorting the senses and virtues into 'nature' and 'fate.' Instead argues the passage sorts relationships: sensory relations obtain whether or not we act, but relationships like father–son or ruler–minister only exist when we actively bring virtue to them — and that's where we should locate our identity.

Optional

• Tiwald, Justin. 2008. "A Right of Rebellion in the Mengzi?" Dao 7.
• Argues the text supports a mixed view: the people may participate in rebellion but not decide when it's warranted, with authority instituted by Heaven's appointment and executed by a "Heaven's Delegated Official."

Meeting 5 — Mengzi III: A role-centric reading

Date: 29 September 2026

Topic: Comparing Mengzian role-ethics to the Platonic/Aristotelian craft model of role.

Required

• King, R.A.H. 2025. "The lord a lord, the minister a minister, the father a father, the son a son": Roles and Virtues in Plato, Aristotle, the Mencius and the Xunzi (read §§6, 7, 9, 10). Argues Mengzian roles are ritually prescribed rather than functional, unlike the Platonic/Aristotelian ergon-based craft model.
King_2025_-_The_lord_a_lord_the_minister_a_minister_the_father_a_fath_..._on._Roles_and_virtues_in_Plato_Aristotle_the_Mencius_and_the_Xunzi_(Mencius).pdf

Optional

Meeting 6 — Roles I: Order, station, and legitimacy

Date: 6 October 2026

Topic: What validates one's station and its duties, and what survives when the surrounding order is imperfect.

Required

• Bradley, F.H. 1876. "My Station and Its Duties." Ethical Studies, Essay V (excerpt pp. 182–186).
• Argues one's station and its duties are the highest good, then partly undercuts this by admitting the community one belongs to may itself be "confused or rotten."
• Hirschman, Albert O. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (excerpted ch. 1, 3, 7).
• Describes exit, voice, and loyalty as institutional mechanisms of response to decline, arguing easy exit actively crowds out voice rather than merely coexisting with it.

Optional

• Blackman, Reuben. "Explaining Role-Based Reasons." In The Ethics of Social Roles.
• Argues roles ground reasons on their own terms, without validation from an outside ethical theory or ranking among roles.

Meeting 7 — Roles II: Content, function, and the hard cases

Date: 20 October 2026

Topic: What fixes the content of an underspecified role, tested against a hard case.

Required

• Hardimon, Michael O. 1994. "Role Obligations." Journal of Philosophy 91(7).
• Argues non-contractual role obligations get genuine normative force through role identification — occupying a role, recognizing it, and taking its norms as reasons.
• Cordell, Sean. "Role Ethics and Institutional Functions." In The Ethics of Social Roles.
• Argues role-requirements are fixed by an institution's characteristic activity (ergon), after rejecting backward-looking, present-focused, and forward-looking alternatives.
• Applbaum, Arthur Isak. "Professional Detachment: The Executioner of Paris." Harvard Law Review 109(2).
• Stages a defense of a role that looks indefensible from outside, arguing legitimate institutional authority keeps the role-occupant's hands clean of arbitrariness.

Meeting 8 — Roles III: practice, virtue, and framing

Date: 27 October 2026

Topic: Designed vs. undesigned roles, and whether virtue is basic to roles or general-and-then-applied.

Required

• Barber, Alex, and Sean Cordell. "Introduction." In The Ethics of Social Roles.
• Sets out a shared ontology of roles: occupancy conditions, performance conditions, and function.
• Dare, T. (2019). Roles all the way down. In T. Dare & C. Swanton (Eds.), Perspectives in Role Ethics: Virtues, Reasons, and Obligation (pp. 31–44). Routledge.
• Argues the most normatively weighty roles (father, friend, husband) are undesigned and get their force from Hart-style social rules rather than institutional charters.
• Garcia, J. L. A. (2015). Roles and Virtues. In L. Besser-Jones & M. Slote (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics (p. 415). Routledge.
• Defends a reverse-reductionist picture in which role-virtues are basic and general virtue is a byproduct of doing one's roles well.

Optional

• Ng, S. Y. (2024). Relational normativity: Williams’s thick ethical concepts in Confucian ethical communities. Philosophy East & West, 74(1). https://doi.org/10.1353/pew.0.0249

Meeting 9 — Family I: relational grounding and non-fungibility

Date: 3 November 2026

Topic: The general theory of why relationships — rather than roles or personal qualities — generate non-fungible reasons at all.

Required

• Scheffler, Samuel. "Morality and Reasonable Partiality." In Equality and Tradition, 41–74.
• Argues for relationship-dependent reasons not derivable from impartial principles alone.
• Wallace, R. Jay. "Duties of Love." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. 86 (2012).
• Defends non-reductionism about duties of love as sui generis relational duties, carving out parent-child as not subject to mutual negotiation.
• Kolodny, Niko. "Love as Valuing a Relationship." Philosophical Review 112(2), 2003 (full text required, especially §§6–7).
• Argues love is a final valuing of the relationship and nonfinal valuing of the person, explaining why loved ones aren't substitutable by someone with identical qualities.

Optional

• Cocking, Dean, and Jeanette Kennett. "Friendship and Moral Danger." Journal of Philosophy 97(5), 2000.
• Jeske, Diane. "Families, Friends, and Special Obligations." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 28(4), 1998.

Meeting 10 — Family II: does the duty survive?

Date: 10 November 2026

Topic: Whether filial obligation survives when the grounding relationship dissolves or is corrupted, across four positions.

Required

• Kolodny, Niko. "Which Relationships Justify Partiality? The Case of Parents and Children." Philosophy & Public Affairs 38(1), 2010 (pp. 55–75 only).
• Argues filial partiality is conditional on a parent having been willing to fulfill their responsibility — a narrow, structured exit.
• English, J. "What Do Grown Children Owe Their Parents?" In Aging and Ethics, 1992.
• Argues filial obligation reduces entirely to an ongoing friendship-type bond and dissolves fully when that bond does.
• Um, Sungwoo. "Gratitude for Being." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98(2), 2020.
• Argues filial gratitude is owed for a parent's role in the child's coming into being, not for services rendered, and isn't conditional on relationship quality.
• Moreau, Sophia. "Objectionable Obligations." Philosophical Review 135(2), 2026.
• Introduces cases where an obligation is genuinely binding yet the agent also has a standing complaint against the unjust structure that produced it.

Optional

• Um, Sungwoo. "What Is a Relational Virtue?" 2020.
• Broader companion piece making the general case for relational virtue via filial piety.
• Mathew, Sarah, and Robert Boyd. "Rethinking Reciprocity." Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2026.
• Reviews the empirical record on human cooperation against reciprocity models, arguing partner choice and forward-looking commitment explain close relationships better than debt-tracking.

Meeting 11 — Zhuangzi I: Genuine pretending

Date: 17 November 2026

Topic: The metaphysics of "genuine pretending" — perspective, transformation, and the zhenren as an alternative to a fixed or authentic self.

Required

• Ziporyn, Brook. 2015. "Zhuangzi as Philosopher." Hackett Publishing.
• Moeller, Hans-Georg, and Paul D'Ambrosio. 2017. "Introduction: A Joker in the Fold." In Genuine Pretending, 1–17.
• Introduces "genuine pretending" against the Confucian demand for sincere role-internalization, using the wild-card/joker metaphor and the butterfly dream to distinguish inhabiting an experience from being defined by it.
• Moeller and D'Ambrosio. 2017. "Where We Come From: On Rambling and the Art of Philosophizing." In Genuine Pretending, 164–171.
• Works out you 逸 (roaming) as the concept underlying genuine pretending.

Primary texts (trans. Ziporyn): Inner Chapters 1, 2, 6, 7 — read in full.

Optional

• Williams, John R. 2017. "The Vanishing Wild Card." Philosophy East and West 67(1).
• Argues Ziporyn's Wild Card can only defer, not adjudicate, questions that demand a fixed answer.

Meeting 12 — Zhuangzi II: Genuine pretending

Date: 24 November 2026

Topic: Genuine pretending against Confucian role ethics — sincerity, "dual correspondence," and role-occupancy as a survival strategy.

Required

• Moeller and D'Ambrosio. 2017. "Sincerity, Authenticity, and Ancient Chinese Philosophy" / "The Confucian Regime of Sincerity." In Genuine Pretending, 19–58.
• Argues the Confucian demand for dual correspondence creates a "regime of sincerity" burdened by constant self-suspicion about the genuineness of one's commitment.
• Moeller and D'Ambrosio. 2017. "Smooth Operators: The Arts of Genuine Pretending" (through "Social Survival"). In Genuine Pretending, 123–150.
• Reads Zhuangzi ch. 4 as a practical guide to occupying dangerous roles without personal attachment.

Primary texts (trans. Ziporyn): Inner Chapters 4, 5 — read in full.

Optional

• Cooper, David E. Review of Genuine Pretending, with response and reply. Los Angeles Review of Books, 2019.
• Argues Moeller and D'Ambrosio target the wrong (Romantic) notion of authenticity rather than the Heideggerian/Sartrean one, which may not rule out authenticity for the zhenren.

Meeting 13 — Wrap-up: role-based ethics under pressure

Date: 1 December 2026

Topic: The closing critique of role-based ethics, in three registers: Zhuangzi's ironic distance, a validation mechanism meeting a hard case, and a claim that some obligations need no role at all.

Required

• Swanton, C. (2019). Expertise and Virtue in Role Ethics. In T. Dare & C. Swanton (Eds.), Perspectives in Role Ethics: Virtues, Reasons, and Obligation (p. 45). Routledge.
• Argues role-norms need external validation from independent ethical theory to sort worthwhile roles from evil ones.
• de Kenessey, Ben. "Two Concepts of Directed Obligation." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2024.
• Distinguishes waivable constraint obligations from accountability obligations grounded in warranted resentment and forgiveness, using a stranger-to-stranger promise as the paradigm case for the latter.
• Martin, Adrienne M. "Owning Up and Lowering Down: The Power of Apology." Journal of Philosophy 107(10), 2010 (read §II and §IV in full).
• Develops a Strawsonian theory of resentment and apology, and distinguishes forgiveness from continued inclusion in a relationship.

Optional

• Pettigrove, G. (2019). Characters and Roles. In T. Dare & C. Swanton (Eds.), Perspectives in Role Ethics: Virtues, Reasons, and Obligation (p. 11). Routledge.
• Treats roles as an ingredient of character rather than the whole of it.

Meeting 14 — Workshopping term papers

Date: 8 December 2026

Topic: Final session; no new readings. Students circulate a term-paper draft in advance and workshop each other's work in class. Format: TBD.