PROJECT COMPLETED! THANK YOU TO ALL CONTRIBUTORS! YOU CAN FIND THE TEXTBOOK TO THE LEFT OR HERE:
NOTE: I AM NO LONGER IN NEED OF AUTHORS! THE WORK IS PROGRESSING AHEAD OF SCHEDULE AND UNDER BUDGET AND WILL BE RELEASED BY THE END OF MAY! THANK YOU FOR ANY INTEREST!
CFP: Chapters for Introduction to Ethics OER textbook
Wanted: Philosophers to write brief chapters for lower-level
Philosophy textbooks for no money to create free textbooks for students to use
in perpetuity.
That’s right, I’m not going to pay you and no one’s going to
make any money off of this, and you’re going to release the work you create
under a CC-BY creative commons license for the primary purposes of making
education in Philosophy more affordable and accessible.
Long story short: I (Noah Levin, PhD, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Golden West College) want to primarily crowd-source two OER
(Open Educational Resource) textbooks in Philosophy, one for an intro-level
Ethics course and the other for an intro-level Philosophy of Western Religions
course, so I need people to write chapters for me (less than 10 pages in length and accessible to first-year college students). If you’re interested, keep reading.
Longer story: I have a sabbatical project to create two free Open
Educational Resource (OER) textbooks in Philosophy: one for an Introduction to
Ethics Class and one for a Philosophy of Western Religions Class (both at the
100 level). Part of these projects is that I get help writing them. I have
already created many completely free Philosophy textbooks (you can see them
here, and please do use them if you like them: http://ngefarpress.com ), so
you can see that just because they are free does not lessen their quality or
usefulness in education. In fact, a majority of the writings in these free
textbooks are also contained in a majority of the most popular textbooks in
their areas. These textbooks I have created make use of materials that are old
enough to be out of copyright and be free or are so prevalent (like logic) that
there are quality free texts already out there. The same is not true for Ethics
(since contemporary topics are, by their very nature, recent) and Philosophy of
Religion (since a lot of good advancement has occurred in the past 30 years in
that field). So while Ancient Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Logic,
Introduction to Philosophy, and the Philosophies of South and East Asia are
easy to compile from existing free works (at the introductory level), Ethics
and Religion are not. These are the last 2 courses I teach that I do not use
OERs for, and I would very much like to have all of my courses use free texts.
So, will you pretty please help me write these textbooks?
Why write something for free? I can offer up 5 good reasons
that should be enough:
2) Giving
away quality writings in Philosophy helps democratize philosophy by providing
free knowledge that is easy to obtain electronically.
3) No
one likes paying for textbooks. If you can spend some relatively small amount
of time on your end to save a lot of students a bit of their very hard-earned
money, you ought to do so because it is a categorical imperative, will maximize
utility, and will help cultivate the virtue of generosity.
4) You
will get a publication credit you can use! Just because it’s free and in a OER
doesn’t mean you didn’t do some real writing and make a real contribution to
education. Are you looking for some more lines on your CV? This would totally
help.
5) Satisfaction.
Writing something like this is very satisfying, and many students will
genuinely tell you that they appreciate your taking the time to contribute to
making their educations more affordable (without losing any quality).
You can find all the details for the project here: https://www.ngefarpress.com/p/cfp-oer-in-ethics.html
I would like to have authors identified and beginning work
by Mid-February, 2019. The final deadline for finished chapters will be April
1. Please contact me for more information at: nlevin@gwc.cccd.edu.
Here are the details on how to help with this project:
What I will be doing:
Creating an Open Educational Resource (OER) Textbook for an introductory-level Ethics
course.
What I need: A lot of people
to write a lot of chapters.
What you will do: Write a
chapter (or more) and release your work, for free, under a CC-BY license for
everyone to use for free in perpetuity. The chapters should each be less than 10 pages in length and
accessible to first-year college students with no philosophy background. The
way you approach the topic (including through the use of fiction) is entirely
up to you (subject to my approval and acceptance, of course).
To participate: Contact me,
Noah Levin, at nlevin@gwc.cccd.edu and
attach
-
A recent CV
-
A recent writing sample
-
A list of which THREE chapters you would be
interested in writing (in order of preference) along with a BRIEF (no more than
3 sentences) summary of how you will approach the topic (include this in the
body of your email)
I will send out initial acceptances no later than January 31 and then I will consider and accept proposals on a
rolling, first-come first-accepted basis.
Below is the table of contents for the works I will be creating. Since
this textbook is for use in my own courses, I am ONLY looking for chapters that
cover these specific topics (at this time) and will provide the finished
product as a .DOCX file (in addition to a .PDF and .ePub) for anyone to reuse,
edit, and add to for their own purposes. Please select your THREE possible
chapters from the bolded options.
The full table of contents is included so that you get an idea of the work as a
whole.
Introduction to Ethics: An Open
Educational Resource
(italicized chapters indicate
chapters that already have authors, * indicates works in the public domain, and
bolded ones indicate chapters that are
open for proposals):
Unit 1 –
Introduction to Contemporary Ethics: Technology, Affirmative Action, and
Immigration
1: The “Trolley Problem” and Self-Driving Cars
2: What is ethics and what makes something
a problem for morality?
3: “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” by Martin
Luther King, Jr.*
4: Affirmative Action: Pro and Con
5: The moral issues of immigration
6: Computer ethics: Hacking and Piracy
Unit 2 –
Torture, death, and the “greater good”
7: The ethics of torture
8: What moral obligations do we have (or
not have) to impoverished peoples?
9: Euthanasia: Pro and con
10: Capital Punishment: Pro and con
11: The arguments for abortion
12: The arguments against abortion
Unit Three –
Persons, Autonomy, the Environment, and Rights
13: Animal rights
14: John Rawls and the "Veil of
Ignorance"
15: Environmental Ethics
16: Rape, date rape, and the "Affirmative
Consent" law in California
17: The ethics of pornography
18: Existentialism and Genetic Engineering
Unit Four –
Happiness
19: Is happiness all that matters? Thoughts on the "Experience
Machine"
20: Utilitarianism (J.S. Mill)*
21: Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons
22: The Meaning of Life
23: The Ethic of Care
24: The Prisoner's Dilemma
Unit Five –
Religion, Law, and Absolute Morality
25: The Euthyphro Dilemma and Plato's Theory
of Justice* (Plato)
26: God, morality, and religion
27: Kant's "Categorical Imperative”*
28: “The Social Contract”*
29: Aristotles Virtue Ethics*
30: Other moral theories: Subjectivism, relativism,
emotivism, intuitionism, etc.
Tentative Deadlines:
Call For Proposals out: Jan 1, 2019
Preferred consideration for proposals: Jan 31
Final deadline for proposals: Feb 15 (late proposals will still be considered if space allows)
Confirmation of Proposal acceptance: No later than Feb 16
First draft of Chapters: March 15
It would also be much appreciated if all authors can review and comment on ONE other chapter. These will be assigned after the first drafts have been received.
Chapters sent out for review: March 16
Deadline for comments on other chapters: April 1
Deadline for final revisions: April 15
Completed draft of textbook out for author review: May 1
Deadline for comments on final draft: May 15
Final version released: May 28
Tentative Deadlines:
Call For Proposals out: Jan 1, 2019
Preferred consideration for proposals: Jan 31
Final deadline for proposals: Feb 15 (late proposals will still be considered if space allows)
Confirmation of Proposal acceptance: No later than Feb 16
First draft of Chapters: March 15
It would also be much appreciated if all authors can review and comment on ONE other chapter. These will be assigned after the first drafts have been received.
Chapters sent out for review: March 16
Deadline for comments on other chapters: April 1
Deadline for final revisions: April 15
Completed draft of textbook out for author review: May 1
Deadline for comments on final draft: May 15
Final version released: May 28
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