Syllabus for Philosophy 2

We are going to look briefly at the overall history of the discussion of society and values. Our major emphasis is on Western thought, especially as it developed in modern times, but we will also look at certain Asian ideas.

WEEK 1: We need to begin with the recognition that a philosophical question has to be answered differently than a religious or a scientific question. However, there was a strong tendency in twentieth-century philosophy to restrict it to logic and the analysis of scientific method, and this week and next we will have to look more closely at this approach. Before we do, though, we are going to look at the beginnings of philosophy in both ancient Greece and ancient China since the basic questions for philosophy have not really changed since then. For this week's forum I will be asking you to introduce yourselves. This is what I would be calling on you to do in a regular classroom, and it is chance for you to see the diversity in age and experience and expectations there will be with the class. Keep in mind that you are also able to post your photo and a brief bio on your Moodle profile page.
WEEK 2: This week I want you to be thinking about whether it seems reasonable to expect objectively true answers when it comes to talking about right and wrong (a position we label as moral realism). We are looking at the case against this in the last century and the response. For the forum I am going to ask you for your own expectations about the answers we aim at in this course.

Much of twentieth-century philosophy has been about whether value judgments could ever be anything more than individual expressions of attitude, but more recently there has been a greater emphasis on what is called moral realism, a view that takes us back to the great history of philosophy in both Asia and the West. We are going to look more at the major ethical theories employed in moral decision making.

    WEEK 3: The basic theme that is going to run through the entire course is what we can mean when we talk about justice. We will learn about the classic objection made to Socrates, and we will see how the issue links in with any understanding we have about human nature itself. In the forum you will have a chance to present your own reflections on what we are learning.
     WEEK 4: Assuming it makes sense to look for objective answers in ethics, what are the leading alternatives in the way we do this? We are going to look in very general terms at several moral theories, then in the forum I am going to ask you about your own position on the possibility of being consistently moral in our actions.
     WEEK 5: In a complex society such as our own we can look at the overlap of moral values with religious teachings and with the law. We are going to look at two extremes and then in the forum, following up on last week's discussion, I am going to ask you for a first reaction to the issue of how to act rightly as an individual while respecting either religious or legal limitations in doing so.

As Americans we are very familiar with the concept of "self-evident" truths that are the basis for discussing what we mean by personal rights. This, however, is a concept that has come under serious challenge in modern times, and so we need to examine more carefully any basis for talking about a democratic system.

    WEEK 7: Ever since Plato political philosophy in the West has used the idea that the moral authority of the state (why we should still feel obliged to obey the law if we could get away with not doing so) is based on a promise of some sorts. This has been seen as what we would call a virtual contract--not something we actually sit down and sign but what is understood from the fact that we accept the protection and service provided by a government. The central issue is how we should understand whatever we call our indivfidual rights, and in your forum discussion I want you to explore how we should understand the first ten amendments to the American constitution.
    WEEK 8: After looking at the political theory that inspired our own form of government in the American Revolution we are going to look at the theory that inspired first the French Revolution just years after own own and then the form of government that for most of the twentieth century characterized the Soviet Union and the other countries seeing themselves as Communist. The key will be a quite different vision of why things would ever have gone wrong in a state of nature. Forr this week's discussion I will ask you to discuss the different ways of having a true rule of the people in a modern society.
    WEEK 9: The theories we have been looking at over the last two weeks have been secular in the sense that the basis for the legal systems proposed in them is not religious in origin. However, in recent years we have come to see that religion, far from being just a thing of the past, has assumed new importance in the discussion of how a society should work. When religious and political authority are essentially the same we talk about a theocracy. Your forum for this week will deal with just how we are to reconcile secular and religious values in what we expect in our legal structure.
    WEEK 10: A theocratic vision of society insists on the law making us be moral. Earlier we met John Stuart Mill proposing a quite different model which would not recognize "victimless crimes." We are going to take a closer look at Mill's ideas with special emphasis on the idea of free speech, but we are also going to look at a major objection to how Mill supports his position. In your forum for this week I am inviting you to examine this objection more carefully.
    WEEK 11: Early in the course we saw that Socrates made the idea of justice the key to his entire philosophy. We are now going to look more closely at still other positions about what we ought to take "justice" to mean. In the forum I am asking you to reflect on whether there is a moral obligation not just to obey "good" laws but also to work to change "bad" ones.

PHILOSOPHY 2: SOCIETY AND VALUES