Course Introduction
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Time: 50 hours
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College Credit Recommended
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Free Certificate
Topics range from the value of human life to the moral standing of the free market, the notion of fundamental human rights, 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.
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Course Syllabus
First, read the course syllabus. Then, enroll in the course by clicking "Enroll me". Click Unit 1 to read its introduction and learning outcomes. You will then see the learning materials and instructions on how to use them.
Unit 1: Murder, Morality, and the Value of Human Life
Everyone, whether they realize it or not, has some beliefs about the differences between right and wrong, or good and bad. We use these beliefs to guide our behavior, judge the behavior of others, and decide on laws and punishments in our society. Sometimes, however, situations arise that force us to call our moral beliefs into question and to debate the truth about moral behavior with our peers. It is usually the really difficult cases, in which the right thing to do is difficult to decide, and cases which divide people against one another in their opinions, that bring the differences in our moral intuitions into focus and force us to clarify our moral principles.
In this unit, we will investigate some notoriously difficult and divisive moral dilemmas involving justice, rights, and the value of human life. We will explore the moral theory of utilitarianism in depth, considering whether it can help us determine the right thing to do and how to produce a just society. Finally, this unit will introduce two ethical theories in contrast to utilitarianism: deontology and natural law.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 7 hours.
Unit 2: Rights, the State, and the Free Market
So far, we have predominantly considered theories of just action that base their criteria for justice on an action's consequences. Utilitarianism, as we have seen, provides a convincing justification for many of our moral intuitions, but even its more refined versions, such as the theory advanced by John Stuart Mill, start to seem unsatisfying once we realize that they reduce moral decisions to detached, rational calculations. If we want a completely adequate theory of just action, we may need to consider an alternative approach to justice and morality. Consequently, this course will continue to examine some other approaches to ethical questions which are not grounded in the consequences of an action. One such approach is represented by libertarianism, which argues that morality and justice are rooted in the natural rights of individual human beings. Consequences matter, of course, but they are always secondary to considerations of natural rights.
Libertarianism centers on the relationship between individual freedom and the laws of the state. In this unit, we will look at arguments on both sides of this question. Plato, in the dialogue known as the Crito, gives arguments that claim the individual does not have a right to defy his or her government. In contrast, contemporary proponents of libertarianism like Milton Friedman and Robert Nozick uphold individual rights and liberties. John Locke argues that the contract we have with our government can always be rescinded. Locke’s arguments have been influential in the shaping of modern western democracies, in general, and the United States in particular.Completing this unit should take you approximately 15 hours.
Unit 3: Morality, Markets, and Immanuel Kant
John Locke and the libertarian philosophers he inspired held that justice and morality are a matter of respecting the fundamental rights that all individuals hold in common – life, liberty, and property (including the property of one's self). Libertarians such as Milton Friedman argue these principles are incompatible with the government placing restrictions on the free market. But what happens when the market itself brings our rights into conflict with one another? In this unit, we examine several case studies in which individual rights are disputed, and we consider whether these cases provide sufficient reason to doubt the libertarian position.
Are individual rights enough to determine how to answer moral questions and how to propose a just society? Perhaps we need a more substantive philosophical approach to answer some of our moral and political questions. This is the position of Immanuel Kant, who suggests that we have certain moral obligations because we are human beings with moral reasoning capabilities. These capabilities lead to certain duties which we need to consider. We call Kant’s philosophy deontological, which means it is rooted in duty.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 10 hours.
Unit 4: John Rawls' Theory of Justice
In the 1970s, John Rawls put forward what is widely considered to be the most important contemporary theory of justice. Rawls' theory is an update of the traditional social contract approach, but its starting point, rather than the natural rights of individuals, is the deceptively simple idea of fairness. Who would disagree with the proposal that a just society should be a fair one?
As we shall see in this unit, Rawls' theory is both convincing and controversial. We will begin with Thomas Hobbes, one of the most well-known proponents of social contract theory in the history of philosophy. For Hobbes, life before the social contract, or life before government, is "nasty, brutish, and short". Hobbes makes this claim, because he finds that human nature itself tends towards selfishness and cruel treatment of others, especially without a contract with a government that keeps the peace and punishes those who break contracts.
Rawls has a somewhat more positive view of human nature: he is an advocate of political liberalism, and his political philosophy conflicts with many popular contemporary ideas and ideologies. Therefore, we will be looking at issues of equality in society and the questions of whether certain social goods - such as income, education, and opportunity - should be redistributed in order to ensure fairness.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 9 hours.
Unit 5: Ethics and Politics of Virtue
Prior to any of the theories we have considered so far, most accounts of what it is for a person to be moral, or for a society to be just, centered on some conception of virtue. The most famous proponent of virtue as the basis for living a good human life and creating a good state is Aristotle. Although recently, Alasdair MacIntyre and a growing number of moral and political theorists have been returning to the concept of virtue as an antidote to what they interpret as an over-emphasis on individual rights and freedoms and a neglect of community and tradition in political thought since the Enlightenment. But can we as a society come to agree about what living virtuously means?
In this unit, we will examine Aristotle's theory of a society organized on the basis of virtue, as well as some modern communitarian extensions of his general line of thought. We will contrast Aristotle's notion of virtue with the existentialist concepts of will to power (as in Friedrich Nietszche) and radical freedom and radical responsibility (as in Jean-Paul Sartre). We will see how these theories bear on certain controversial topics of our day. Upon completing this course you will be able to consider these type of difficult controversies with a much richer and more informed perspective.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 10 hours.
Study Guide
This study guide will help you get ready for the final exam. It discusses the key topics in each unit, walks through the learning outcomes, and lists important vocabulary. It is not meant to replace the course materials!
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Certificate Final Exam
Take this exam if you want to earn a free Course Completion Certificate.
To receive a free Course Completion Certificate, you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on this final exam. Your grade for the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you can take it again as many times as you want, with a 7-day waiting period between each attempt.
Once you pass this final exam, you will be awarded a free Course Completion Certificate.
- Receive a grade Receive a pass grade
Saylor Direct Credit
Take this exam if you want to earn college credit for this course. This course is eligible for college credit through Saylor Academy's Saylor Direct Credit Program.
The Saylor Direct Credit Final Exam requires a proctoring fee of $5. To pass this course and earn a Credly Badge and official transcript, you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on the Saylor Direct Credit Final Exam. Your grade for this exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you can take it again a maximum of 3 times, with a 14-day waiting period between each attempt.
We are partnering with SmarterProctoring to help make the proctoring fee more affordable. We will be recording you, your screen, and the audio in your room during the exam. This is an automated proctoring service, but no decisions are automated; recordings are only viewed by our staff with the purpose of making sure it is you taking the exam and verifying any questions about exam integrity. We understand that there are challenges with learning at home - we won't invalidate your exam just because your child ran into the room!
Requirements:
- Desktop Computer
- Chrome (v74+)
- Webcam + Microphone
- 1mbps+ Internet Connection
Once you pass this final exam, you will be awarded a Credly Badge and can request an official transcript.
- Desktop Computer