Get an introduction to environmental ethics, a philosophy that extends the ethical concepts traditionally applied to human behavior to address the entire natural world.
In this course, we introduce the concept of environmental ethics, a philosophy that extends the ethical concepts we traditionally apply to human behavior to the natural world. We will study the history of environmental ethics and the concept of environmental justice and explore how our views of the natural world have changed over time. Philosophers have debated the concept of environmental ethics since the 1800s, although many consider it to be a relatively new discipline. In this course, we identify key pioneers and events that have helped shape the global effort to help preserve our planet for future generations and species. We explore the notion of environmental justice and witness how a disregard for the environment can negatively impact entire communities. Finally, we explore political efforts that have promoted environmental sustainability in the United States and Europe. We see how our ethical beliefs and moral worldview can help shape the laws and regulations we create in terms of our sense of ethical responsibility, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
- Unit 1: Ethics and the Environment
- Unit 2: Environmental Ethics Approaches and World Views
- Unit 3: Environmental Ethics History and Its Pioneers
- Unit 4: Environmental Justice
- Unit 5: Environmental Law
- Define environmental ethics and describe the key concepts on which it is based;
- List the main environmental ethics approaches and viewpoints;
- Relate concepts in environmental ethics to various religious teachings and beliefs throughout the world;
- Explain how moral attitudes towards the natural world have changed over time;
- Identify key events in the history of the environmental ethics movement;
- Identify important pioneers in the environmental ethics movement;
- Discuss environmental justice and explain why certain social groups are at greater risk of experiencing the effects of environmental injustice; and
- Identify and evaluate the major environmental laws passed throughout the world, in particular those implemented in the United States and the European Union.
Improve your practice in nearly every major academic discipline, from the physical sciences and medicine to politics, law, and the humanities, by learning to think critically and reason through problems.
This course will introduce you to critical thinking, informal logic, and a small amount of formal logic. Its purpose is to provide you with the basic tools of analytical reasoning, which will give you a distinctive edge in various careers and courses of study. While many university courses focus on presenting content knowledge, the emphasis here is on learning how to think effectively. Although the techniques and concepts covered here are classified as philosophical, they are essential to the practice of nearly every major discipline, from the physical sciences and medicine to politics, law, and the humanities.
The course includes various reasoning skills, from verbal argument analysis to formal logic, visual and statistical reasoning, scientific methodology, and creative thinking. Mastering these skills will help you become a more perceptive reader and listener, a persuasive writer and presenter, and an effective researcher and scientist.
The first unit introduces the terrain of critical thinking and covers the basics of meaning analysis, while the second unit provides a primer for analyzing arguments. All of the material in these first units will be built upon in subsequent units, which cover informal and formal logic, Venn diagrams, scientific reasoning, and strategic and creative thinking.
- Unit 1: Introduction and Meaning Analysis
- Unit 2: Argument Analysis
- Unit 3: Basic Sentential Logic
- Unit 4: Venn Diagrams
- Unit 5: Fallacies
- Unit 6: Scientific Reasoning
- Unit 7: Strategic Reasoning and Creativity
- Explain what critical thinking is and why it is valuable;
- Describe the processes used to assess the credibility and reliability of sources;
- Distinguish between good and bad definitions and explicit and implicit meanings to remove ambiguity from poorly worded statements;
- Describe good and bad arguments that attempt to construct effective arguments;
- Describe common reasoning errors and fallacies;
- Apply sentential and categorical logic to practical examples of statements and arguments in real-world scenarios;
- Apply scientific methodology and scientific reasoning to real-world scenarios;
- Analyze arguments using use visualization tools; and
- Apply strategic reasoning and problem-solving to real-world scenarios.
Learn how to develop your moral reasoning skills and apply them to contemporary social and political issues. Topics include philosophical investigations of justice, the value of human life, the moral standing of the free market, fundamental human rights, and the conditions for a moral community.
This course introduces the basic concepts and methods of moral and political philosophy. Its primary focus is on the development of moral reasoning skills and the application of those skills to contemporary social and political issues. Although the course is organized around the central concept of justice, it uses this notion as a point of departure for discussing a wide range of philosophical topics and perspectives.
Topics range from the value of human life, the moral standing of the free market, and the notion of fundamental human rights, to equality of opportunity and the conditions for a moral community. You will study a number of important moral and political philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, and John Rawls.
This course will also examine contemporary thinkers such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, as well as news articles and primary source texts regarding important legal decisions. By the end of the course, you will have gained a detailed understanding of the philosophical issues involved in many contemporary debates in the public sphere, as well as a refined sense of your own moral and political positions and intuitions.
- Unit 1: Murder, Morality, and the Value of a Human Life
- Unit 2: Rights, the State, and the Free Market
- Unit 3: Morality, Markets, and Immanuel Kant
- Unit 4: John Rawls' Theory of Justice
- Unit 5: Ethics and the Politics of Virtue
- Identify and describe the major areas of moral and political theory;
- Explain how the major areas of moral and political philosophy differ from and relate to one another;
- Situate the arguments of major philosophical figures within the context of moral and political philosophy;
- Use the terminology of ethics and moral and political philosophy correctly and consistently;
- Apply critical thinking and reasoning skills to ethical issues in a variety of real-world contexts;
- Identify and describe major theories of justice and morality, including utilitarianism, libertarianism, social contract theory, deontology, natural law, and the ethics/politics of virtue;
- Analyze how moral and political dilemmas are handled differently by each set of theoretical principles;
- Analyze the consequences of various moral principles and interpret how these principles relate to concepts of justice;
- Discuss the relationship between morality and politics;
- Identify and describe the origins of western democratic politics and constitutional government; and
- Analyze a range of difficult and controversial moral and political issues.
Examine existence by studying the concrete reality of individual human beings via the works of Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Albert Camus.
Existentialism is a philosophical and literary movement that emerged in France shortly after World War II, spearheaded by figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. We can trace this movement back to the religious writings of Blaise Pascal in the 17th century and Søren Kierkegaard in the 19th century. The common thread that unites existentialists is the focus on existence, particularly the concrete existence of individual human beings.
Unlike rationalist thinkers such as René Descartes and G.W.F. Hegel, existentialists reject the idea that humans are fundamentally rational creatures living in an orderly, well-designed universe. They also do not believe that thoughtful consideration and reasoned deliberation can solve life's issues. Instead, existentialists view human beings as creatures whose reason is secondary to human passions and anxieties and who exist in an irrational, absurd, and insignificant universe. Existentialists claim that in such a cosmos, one strives to be the greatest person one can be, given one's religious, historical, cultural, economic, and personal circumstances.
Existentialists emphasize the human being's place in a complicated set of circumstances to highlight the uniqueness and individuality that each of us possesses. They emphasize the importance of the human body in all of our actions and judgments, saying that the mind cannot exist apart from the body (in contrast to the majority of rationalists, who assert that the mind is separate from the body).
In addition, existentialists consider whether absolute individual freedom is attainable; and, if so, what this means for our sense of personal, social, and divine responsibility. They also consider the consequences of the existence or nonexistence of God and what each option entails for our sense of freedom and responsibility. More than anything, existentialists ponder the implications of accepting death's inevitability in our lives.
This course examines the major figures and works of the existentialist movement from a historical perspective. Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Albert Camus are among the authors you will examine. You will be able to identify, analyze, and differentiate among important themes and figures in existentialism history. Most importantly, you will comprehend the contributions existentialist thinkers have made to our present view of human existence and our role in the universe.
- Unit 1: What is Existentialism?
- Unit 2: Søren Kierkegaard
- Unit 3: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Unit 4: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Unit 5: W.E.B. Du Bois
- Unit 6: Martin Heidegger
- Unit 7: Jean-Paul Sartre
- Unit 8: Simone de Beauvoir
- Unit 9: Albert Camus
- Define the term existentialism;
- Identify the key existential figures in the history of existentialism;
- Explain the basic themes of existentialist thought;
- Distinguish the various existential approaches taken by figures;
- Compare and contrast existentialist themes by different key figures;
- Summarize each major figure's particular contributions to existential philosophy; and
- Identify underrepresented existential perspectives, such as feminist and persons of color philosophical thought.
