This course is about how to live with uncertainty. How should our beliefs be shaped by evidence about the world? How should we make decisions when our actions have risky outcomes? How can we trust other people in shared projects?

This course has six parts.

1. Thinking Clearly. How is your mind vulnerable to biases that lead you away from the truth? What skills and habits will help you have beliefs that aim at what is true and make choices that aim at what is good? Why bother with tables and numbers when it comes to real life questions?

2. Responding to Evidence. How should you change your mind as you learn new things? How can you have coherent beliefs even when you aren’t sure what is true?

3. Choosing Well. What should you do when you don’t know how things will turn out?

4. Philosophical Foundations: Decisions. What justification is there for the standard rules of decision theory (from part 3)? Do the standard rules sometimes give the wrong answers?

5. Philosophical Foundations: Beliefs. What justification is there for the standard rules for degrees of belief (from part 2)?

6. Working Together. Why is it hard to solve social problems together? What factors make it easier or harder to cooperate?

This is a philosophy class, but we will also use tools and ideas from psychology, math, and economics.

This class fills a quantitative reasoning general education requirement (GE-F). In some ways it will be like a math class. It involves some numbers and equations, and there will be problem sets. But our main emphasis won’t be on calculation, but rather on conceptual understanding. How can we use probabilities to understand an uncertain world? What do they mean?

You will be evaluated not just on your ability to calculate correct answers, but also on your ability to think critically and write clearly.

This class does not assume you have any background in college-level math. But you will need to do some arithmetic. (For example, what is 2/3 of 3/5? What is 20% of 80?) And you will need to do some basic algebra. (For example, solve the equation 3p = p + 1 for p.) If you don’t remember how to do those things, you will need to do some review to brush up. This might be a helpful resource:

• https://www.khanacademy.org/math

This class does not assume you have any background in philosophy. But you will need to think carefully, and you will need to write clearly and directly. If you need help with your writing, the USC Writing Center might be a helpful resource:

• https://dornsife.usc.edu/writingcenter/

Goals

• You will think carefully and critically about what you should believe and what you should do.

• You will understand how cognitive biases can lead your beliefs away from the truth, and the habits of mind that can help compensate for them.

• You will use probabilities to understand how beliefs fit together and are supported by evidence. You will use diagrams, numbers, and symbols to determine how strong evidence for a claim is, and when a theory is more likely to be true. You will identify mistakes and confusions in real-life reasoning with probabilities. You will show how these tools can be applied to make progress on controversial philosophical questions.

• You will represent choices using diagrams, numbers, and symbols. You will use these tools to precisely describe difficult decisions, and to work out how to balance risks. You will apply these tools to philosophical questions.

• You will precisely explain and evaluate philosophical arguments about what you should do and what you should believe. You will understand and explain the central mathematical ideas that these philosophical arguments rely on. You will clearly distinguish descriptive claims about what will happen from normative claims about what should happen.

• You will represent cooperation problems using diagrams, numbers, and symbols. You will use these tools to precisely describe social relationships and explain special problems facing group decision-making.

Books

We have two main textbooks for this class:

• Reason Better, by David Manley
• Odds and Ends, by Jonathan Weisberg

Reason Better is only available through the Top Hat platform, which is described below. Odds and Ends is available for free online, here:

• https://jonathanweisberg.org/vip/

We will also use some short selections from other books and articles, which I will distribute through the course Top Hat site.

Top Hat

Our main textbook for the first half of the course, Reason Better, is a customized electronic textbook available through the Top Hat platform. We will also use Top Hat for in-class quizzes and participation.

This means you will need to register for our Top Hat course. (This will cost you some money, but it’s quite a bit less than the price of the hard copy textbooks I used to use for this course, so I think it’s a fair deal.)

An email invitation will be sent to you, but if don’t receive this email, you can register by going to our course website:

• https://app.tophat.com/e/248248

Our Course Join Code is 248248.

Your textbook will be applied at checkout for $60 (including your Top Hat subscription). Don’t worry if you don’t see any content in the course right away, I will make it available to you as we progress through the semester.

You can visit the Top Hat Overview within the Top Hat Success Center which outlines how you will register for a Top Hat account, as well as providing a brief overview to get you up and running on the system.

• https://success.tophat.com/s/article/Student-Top-Hat-Overview-and-Getting-Started-Guide

If you need help with Top Hat at any time, you can contact their Support Team directly by email (support@tophat.com), the in-app support button (this should be at the top right of the course page), or by calling 1-888-663-5491.

Meetings

For Jeff’s Wednesday office hours, you can reserve a one-on-one appointment using this website:

• https://calendly.com/jeff-russell

If you have class conflicts with our scheduled office hours, you can email Jeff to make an appointment for another time.

Evaluation

Assignment deadlines and midterm dates are provisional: I may adjust these dates if necessary. Watch for updates.

Reading questions

Purpose

• To help you keep up with the reading
• To make sure that you are reading carefully enough to understand the important ideas
• To help us track what ideas the class finds easy or difficult

Each section of the assigned reading on Top Hat has a few review questions at the end. Normally, your answers to reading questions will be due at midnight before the class meeting for that reading. These deadlines will be posted on Top Hat. Normally, half of the credit for this will be based on answering the question at all, and the other half will be based on whether you get it right.

Check-in quizzes

Purpose

• To help you keep up with core skills and central ideas all the way through the semester
• To help you get regular feedback about how well you are understanding ideas
• To help us get immediate feedback about how well we are communicating ideas

We will use Top Hat for frequent short in-class quizzes. Usually these quizzes will just be one or two questions. We will have one of them (or sometimes more than one) in almost every class. Some of these will be standard quizzes, in which you only get points for correct answers, and some of them will be purely participation-based.

Discussion activities

Purpose

• To practice skills, understand ideas more deeply, and have interesting discussions

Discussion section is a required part of this class. Be present, be prepared, and be on time. Ask questions, contribute to discussions, and participate in activities. Be helpful and respectful to others.

Problem sets

Purpose

• To practice core skills
• To get regular feedback on your progress with core skills

Problem sets will include calculations, drawing diagrams, as well as short written reflections about philosophical questions. There will be six problem sets, spread out through the semester (see the class schedule).

Problem sets will be due in class, at the beginning of the class. If you do not turn a problem set in at the beginning of class, you will use a late day (see the Late Policies below).

Modeling project

Purpose

• To apply the ideas of probability and decision theory to philosophical reasoning
• To make and defend simple but reasonable modeling assumptions
• To give clear philosophical and technical explanations

You will write an analytical essay applying tools from probability and decision theory to a philosophical or practical problem. This will have two parts. The first part is a detailed proposal, which will give you a chance to get feedback on your ideas and approach. The second part is the final essay, describing a specific philosophical problem, and explaining how we can use ideas from probability and decision theory to investigate it. See the class schedule for deadlines.

I will distribute separate handouts describing this project in more detail.

Midterms

There will be two in-class midterms (see the class schedule).

Purpose

• To help you consolidate your understanding

• To evaluate your knowledge and understanding of the main ideas

• To evaluate your ability to apply core skills

Final Exam

There will be a comprehensive in-class final exam.

Purpose

• To give you an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned through the whole semester, and put all the pieces together.

• To evaluate your understanding of ideas and mastery of skills from the entire class, and your ability to apply them.

Late Policies

Problem Sets and Modeling Project

Life is messy, and sometimes you just can’t reasonably get homework done on time. Instead of dealing with all of these problems case by case, everyone gets ten “late days” to use on any problem set or either part of the modeling project, no questions asked.

You can split up your late days however you want: for example, you can spend all your late days on one assignment and turn it in ten days late, or you can turn in every assignment one day late. (You can’t use just half a late day, though: if the assignment is a few hours late, that uses up a whole late day. Days when we don’t have class meetings still count, including weekends and holidays.)

There is no grade penalty for spending a late day. But after you have spent all of your late days, you will not get any more credit for late work. So don’t spend all your late days on the first assignment! Save them for real emergencies when you need them.

Late work can be turned into Jeff’s mailbox in the main philosophy office (MHP 113). Make sure to write the date and time that you turn it in at the top.

Reading Quizzes, Check-in Quizzes, and Discussion Activities

Reading questions, check-in quizzes, and discussion activities cannot be made up or turned in late. This is because these assignments are difficult to fairly administer at alternative times, and each particular one of them is worth a very small fraction of your overall grade.

Schedule

The following schedule is provisional. I will make adjustments through the semester. Watch for updates.

RB is Reason Better. O&E is Odds and Ends.

Equality

This classroom is a safe space. Discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, religion, age, or other identities is unacceptable. If at any time while at USC you feel you have experienced harassment or discrimination, you can file a complaint: see http://equity.usc.edu for more information. You are also welcome to bring the complaint to any faculty or staff member at USC.

Academic Conduct

Plagiarism – presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words – is a serious academic offense with serious consequences. Please familiarize yourself with the discussion of plagiarism in SCampus in Part B, Section 11, “Behavior Violating University Standards” <policy.usc.edu/scampus-part-b>. Other forms of academic dishonesty are equally unacceptable.  See additional information in SCampus and university policies on scientific misconduct, http://policy.usc.edu/scientific-misconduct.

Support Systems

Student Counseling Services (SCS) – (213) 740-7711 – 24/7 on call
Free and confidential mental health treatment for students, including short-term psychotherapy, group counseling, stress fitness workshops, and crisis intervention. http://engemannshc.usc.edu/counseling

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1 (800) 273-8255
Provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Services (RSVP) – (213) 740-4900 – 24/7 on call
Free and confidential therapy services, workshops, and training for situations related to gender-based harm. http://engemannshc.usc.edu/rsvp

Sexual Assault Resource Center
For more information about how to get help or help a survivor, rights, reporting options, and additional resources, visit the website: http://sarc.usc.edu

Office of Equity and Diversity (OED)/Title IX Compliance – (213) 740-5086
Works with faculty, staff, visitors, applicants, and students around issues of protected class. http://equity.usc.edu

Bias Assessment Response and Support
Incidents of bias, hate crimes and microaggressions need to be reported allowing for appropriate investigation and response. http://studentaffairs.usc.edu/bias-assessment-response-support

The Office of Disability Services and Programs
Provides certification for students with disabilities and helps arrange relevant accommodations. http://dsp.usc.edu

USC Support and Advocacy (USCSA) – (213) 821-4710
Assists students and families in resolving complex issues adversely affecting their success as a student EX: personal, financial, and academic. http://studentaffairs.usc.edu/ssa

Diversity at USC
Information on events, programs and training, the Diversity Task Force (including representatives for each school), chronology, participation, and various resources for students. http://diversity.usc.edu

USC Emergency Information
Provides safety and other updates, including ways in which instruction will be continued if an officially declared emergency makes travel to campus infeasible. http://emergency.usc.edu

USC Department of Public Safety – UPC: (213) 740-4321 – HSC: (323) 442-1000 – 24-hour emergency or to report a crime.
Provides overall safety to USC community. http://dps.usc.edu