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.