Phil 8 EthicsThis course examines the ethical dimension of human life and behavior, and its main concern is how human beings exercise reflective, wise choices in their efforts to pursue what is good in their lives. How is the good connected with meaning and fulfillment in life? Is the analysis of good a practical learning that involves skills in action rather than skills in saying? Why is the ability to analyze "good" a never-ending quest in human life? What does it mean to be responsible for oneself? for others? Does what is good for us change over time? What kind of life is best for us in the long run? What have people from Philosophy, Psychology, Literature, and other Wisdom domains said about the "pursuit of what is good for human beings?" What are the commonly recognized characeristics of a good person? What do we mean by moral identity, and how do we form it? Why is moral identity explainable in the context of a narrative lived? These fundamental questions about the pursuit of the "good life" will be our main concern.
Outline of the Course
Required Readings: 1.This Syllabus, 2. Notes and Study Questions for Philosophy 8, and 3. Goleman's Emotional IQ. All three are required reading along with 4. the Syllabus for Creative Mind Humi 1 , 5. Aristotle's Ethics and Ethical Responsibility. Other remaining readings listed under the left-hand column under Phil 8 Ethics are suggested at times..
Optional Reading: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Schedule:
Weeks 1-2: Syllabus pp. 1-9, Realistic Ethics for Today pp.1-12 in Notes, Importance of: Narrative, Temperament, Psychological Development, Addendum IV p. 83-90 Notes , Emotional IQ pp. 3-95, and 215-228. Essay Assignment: Explain Erikson's Connection Between Basic Trust and Generativity.
Weeks 3-4: Aristotle's Theory of the Good, Aristotelian Principle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bks. 1 & 2, Project Cf. Aristotle's Ethics (this web site below) due @ end of 4th week
Weeks 5-6: Virtues of Self Control, Notes and Study Questions pp. 20-34, Addendum II on Emotional IQ, Emotional IQ pp. 96-212, Aristotle's Ethics Book III, chapters 10, 11, 12, Book IV, Chapters 1-9, Summary, and Mid-term
Weeks 7-8 The Virtues of Courage, pp. 35-49 in the Notes, Goleman's Emotional IQ pp. 215-228, and Nicomachean Ethics, Book III, chap. 6, 7, 8, 9,
Weeks 9-10 Virtues of Justice, Notes pp. 50-62, Nicomachean Ethics Book 5, Emotional IQ pp. 231-260, Essay on The Kite Runner or Essay on Movie Character.
Weeks 11-12 Practical Wisdom, Practical WisdomTheories from Psychology, Notes pp. 63-68, Addendum IV, Ethics Book VI, Emotional IQ pp. 261-287.
Main Themes
We will give major attention to how virtue theory is recognized today by many Moral Philosophers and Psychologists as an important comprehensive way to understand what we mean by an authentically good person. Virtue theory today is a major movement in Ethics that calls for a "retrieval" of those philosophers, like Aristotle, who developed a theory of "the good life" in a "good society." We will examine Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and some contemporary interpretations of that moral theory associated with John Dewey, Erik Erikson, Mark Johnson, Alisdair MacIntyre, Martha Nussbaum, and John Rawls. In addition, we will show some common ideas about virtue in Confucius and Buddha.
Another major focus, within Virtue Theory, is on Moral Philosophy or Ethics as therapy associated with therapeutic arts wherein the practical wisdom of the philosophical therapist is used to help people find the "good" in their own desires, hopes, dreams, temperament orientations, and natural strengths. In this way, ethics is not an alien, outside form of knowing the good that tells people how to behave or what to do; rather the philosophical therapist tries to listen to herself and to other people's accounts of their lives, conflicts, frustrations, and experiences so that the therapist can help discern the practical wisdom most applicable to the unfolding of life from each one's own resources. "Ethics as therapy" claims that moral philosophy (Ethics) does not deal just with human thought, inferences, premises, discursive reasoning, but has to grapple with human loves, desires, fears, angers, anxieties, and crippling traumas. We will spend much of our time showing that using language to name our emotions and passions is a form of therapeutic practice. That practice is one of the main meanings to the development of "virtue." Both Martha Nussbaum and Daniel Goleman are important sources for a therapeutic character for ethics. Goleman's Emotional IQis required for this reason.
A third main concern is the "long broad course" of a human life, or the virtues and the story that develops or unfolds as a narrative of an individual's life. People's life stories, not their individual acts, are our main concern. For that reason we focus on descriptions of persons and their habitual ways of living because this focus gives us a more accurate understanding of a good human being. Narrative theorists come from a critical understanding of how we all practically and realistically live; narrative theorists insist that we all live and are embedded in a larger history, and our lives reflect the images, customs, atttitudes, and circumstances of the historical period in which we live. In other words, we are "embedded" within a culture that conditions our lives, values, and perspectives. Ethics calls us to analyze the ways we are accustomed to think, evaluate them, and employ our own assimilation of those values most useful for our human development.
Narrative theory does not center on deductive uses for principles to find out what is the single right thing to do in each case we encounter. Rather, a moral imagination reflects on problematic cases which are very often not typical and do not reflect the typical form of moral reasoning from principles to conclusions. Conflict cases (another name for problematic cases) require reflective analysis of images, ideals, circumstances , and goals associated with the unique ways we have found, through our own experience, an analysis of becoming a good person. In other words, narrative theory stresses that adults have a long history of moral development; they have formed a moral identity as children and as adolescents. That moral identity developed throughout young adulthood and beyond. It consists in making choices about what to do; it focuses on what goals, strategies, and obstacles were encountered, and how we faced or coped with them; in conflict cases,especially,we needed to pay attention to details because those details helped shape our choices. In this way, our moral identity was formed by the choices we made. That does not mean we will have no reason to change patterns of past action, but it does mean that any new choices we make should reflect good reasons for making wiser choices that revise our previous ways of choosing. In that way, everone's moral identity is constantly developing over the years as they reflect on the good ideals and values they have made and make decisions to change.
To become good, or better than we were at any one time in our history, required, when two goods were in conflict with one another, a practical wisdom that made use of moral imagination; for example, should I serve in the military because I believe the defense of my country is a good for which I hold myself responsible, or should I refuse to enlist, remain a teacher of middle school because I hold the war in this case is not the solution to the issues of our political policies present in these circumstances? However a person decided this moral dilemma, they had to use a moral imagination already formed by a previous history of choices for good. That moral imagination was an important part of practical wisdom, and one purpose of practical wisdom was to deal with particular circumstances especially in atypical cases where attaining the good of virtue was problematic. People often experience conflict cases in their daily lives. Hence narrative ethics tends to focus on conflict cases that required practical wisdom (structures of mind and imagination) that help us form a coherent unified structure or identity in our lives. A morally good person is not just one single type of person, but a person whose identity reflected wisely on choices for good and becoming better by analyzing the directions, goals, and patterns that developed in their lives. In this way a narrative or unified structure to the story of their life developed. In new problemaic cases, we would expect any wise person to reflect on the narrative of their lives as a story of becoming a better person. In this sense, narrative theory is a reflective, practical way expected of people today. They formed their identity by becoming better, by paying attention to the details that were unique in their own experiences, and they made choices for good in past conflict cases that fit a critical pattern in their quest to become a better person. Why should they not pay attention to the long historical quest in the narrative that has formed their moral identity? We will see that ethics as narrative means that each of us has been living a narrative or story even if that story has not yet been told or said. In addition, the story or narrative we have been living can often be an encouragment to realize how well we have already developed strengths that formed our moral identity.
Another emphasis is that we concentrate on a "realistic ethics", one that is possible for us at this time in our history; we want to avoid an exagerrated or ideal emphasis on the ethical as an ahistorical form of human behavior, beyond realistic expectations. In this sense, we want to take a very critical perspective on what factors today in our contemporary world help or hinder the development of virtue. We want to emphasize the values or consistent strengths, already available in our culture, that enable us to develop those powers for good we already have as ordinary human beings. And we want to look at those factors that are especially inimical to the development of virtue and call for critical analysis of our social world.
Since a sizable part of a person's life story centers on the human moral struggles that make up that story, we now realize we must pay close attention to the basic "life orientation" or temperament that a person has by reason of his/her genetic and constitutional make-up. In many ways, our nature-given temperament is a fundamental "good" we already have upon which to build a flourishing life. It would be "unrealistic" to think that anyone of us could radically alter her/his temperament, but the alternative is to develop the strengths of temperament we already have while recognizing and compensating for our weaknesses and limitations.
A "realistic" ethics also will have to include what moral philosophers have taught about a good person (e.g. Socrates, Buddha, Confucius,Plato, Aristotle), and also what modern and contemporary moral philosophers (Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Dewey, Gadamer, James, Gandhi, MacIntyre, Gilligan, Rawls, Flanagan, Kegan, and others) have held about human moral behavior, and what developmental psychologists (e.g. Erikson), literary and film critics, neuroscientists, and humanists have uncovered about the struggle to become more responsible about our own human development in the quest for a "good life."
If some contemporary critics (Flanagan and Keegan) advocate a "realistic ethics" as a major need today, we want to know why they do so, and join with them to help those efforts to formulate a "realistic and integrated" ethics. What are some realistic ethical conflicts portrayed in todays films? What traumas leave people today with a sense of bewilderment and senselessness? Why are some people seemingly much more generous and respectful than others? Why are some people well organized, thoughtful, socially poised, cheerful, sympathetic, and caring? Why are some people suspicious, shy, almost paranoid? Why are others unable to form stable relationships, feel lonely, unwanted, unable to focus at work or school? Are we so engulfed in a culture of high expectations that we feel frustrated? Are we swamped with moral demands that are beyond our reach? Are we so conditioned by the accepted norms for "good" in our society at this point in its cultural development that our own moral development is frustrated or dysfunctional? Is there a moral pattern developing in our social world that calls each of us to focus in a practical way on the resolution of global moral issues? If these questions have even a partial ring of truth about our situation today, then we need to examine carefully "realistic ethical" expectations about a "good life."
Happily, at the center of thought today about a "realistic ethics" is a theme called "a retrieval of virtue theory", and we want to make that theme a central part of this course. We want to draw on the work of Gadamer, MacIntyre, Bernstein, Goleman, Gilligan, Howard Gardner, Jurgen Habermas, and many others who stand in the center or at the edges of a "retrieval" of ego strengths, virtue theory, or consistent human development (all synonyms for virtue).
These four main themes or perspectives will be combined throughout the course, but they are listed here in chronological order so that you can remember them.
1. Virtue Theory
2. Ethics as Therapy
3. Narrative Theory
4. A Realistic Contemporary Ethics (integrated, natural, possible for us).
Traditional Theoretical Perspectives
Several traditional perspectives will be mentioned and will be used to illustrate their significance for some issues. The following are the main traditional perspectives that will be mentioned.
"Code theorists" are useful because they simplify the norms or standards that human experience has found most beneficial, but they are not always so useful in conflict cases, and they don't help to account for moments in time when codes are changing. Some of the best known codes in the West are the ten commandments or the five pillars of Islam, or the Protestant Ethos. While these are religiously supported codes, many codes are not part of a religious ethics but are part of the "rules" for a corporation, or a large institution, or they are the "principles" that people have found useful in their experiences. Yet codes, principles or rules don't always reflect a level of ethical analysis that a "realistic" ethics today would legitimately expect. People can often use the rules as absolute norms or principles that simply carry "too much" guilt if people hold them "exceptionless" in every case. Still a code rule like "Do not Kill" is a very good norm or rule to follow practically all the time even if there may occasionally be exceptions (e.g. self defense, armed conflict).
"Consequentialists" are important because they ask us to analyze the ethical dimension of life by asking what the results or consequences of people's actions show. Even if a person is well intentioned and has a worthwhile object in mind, e.g. helping a person get home on a cold and rainy evening, he or she may run a red light, slide into a bystander, and injure both the bystander and the person they are driving. In situations like this, the consequentialist theory has to explain how responsibility and unintended consequences can be assessed. Again, unforseen consequences can be used to make people feel an overwhelming sense of guilt for something accidental.
"Teleologists" are like "consequentialists" but they stress that the goal of a person's acts, including their motives, form an end or purpose for the sake of which the action is done. That end can be analyzed to find out what good or benefit results. In this certain "kinds" of human actions have better goals or purposes than others.
"Utilitarians" are like the consequentialists because they focus on achieving a clear goal of "good" for the greatest number of people, and are willing to make compromises to achieve that end; they are,however, often unwilling to put much energy into examining the good as more than what is "satisfactory" here and now for people.
"Pure" obligation theorists help us to understand that the "ethical" dimension in human life is not reducible to the "factual", i.e. to "what people actually do or want", but is concerned with what people "ought" to do. Still, the "pure" obigation theorists tend to think that all ethical norms can be reduced to "imperatives" that admit of no exceptions, and this seems to most moral philosophers far too "unrealistic."
"Human Rights" theorists are also part of the ethical scenery today, and they are a vocal group with a good deal of intellectual analysis on their side; they have the advantage of being able to explain ethics in terms of "rights" that have emerged in the last several hundred years, and they often have a close relationship with recent legislation formulated in terms of rights or judgments in law cases. In addition, much social moral development over the last several hundred years has been formulated in terms of "human rights", and these formulas help us immensely to appreciate what is realistic today. They also have some dimensions that seem a little unrealistic; for example, they seem to work best explaining the ethical behavior in "wealthier" or more "developed" nations where "rights" have gained legal status. In large parts of the world, where "rights" have not had much of a legal role, the appeals to justification or violations of rights can seem very unreal. In addition, some people today can insist that their rights are absolute or without limitations and have been violated whenever they cannot have or do whatever they want.
For these and many other reasons, we will mention insights from these other theories when we find them "realistic" and helpful. Of course, "rights" theory has had a long history associated with American culture, and so we could expect to use some insights from "rights" theorists, especially in those cases where the legal and the moral coincide; still we will want to make use of many untraditional (not ordinarily philosophical) sources from "social analysis, " psychological development", "history," "film criticism", "imaginative literature", and "story telling" because all of these have the merit of helping us grasp ethical insights and the ways they can function for understanding a "realistic ethics" that is aimed at self-fulfillment.
"Virtue" theory will be one central focus of the course, along with Ethics as Therapy and Narrative or Story Telling because they all focus on practical wisdom, what Aristotle called "phronesis", because it is at the center of his portrait of human development. Practical Wisdom also has the merit of helping us focus on the long term development in a persons's life, or the results in the long run. Practical wisdom itself is a virtue that develops from experience and insight in self understanding, and it requires "life experience" over a wide range of human situations. Every "moral conversion" is an experience of practical wisdom associated with one or more of the virtues.
The virtues of self-control and self direction (part of an ethical realism associated with what we now call Emotional IQ) will occupty a central position in this course right at the beginning. We will look carefully at the offspring virtues associated with the main virtues of self control to get a more complete picture of how effective self control can be. In addition, the virtues associated with self-respect and respect for others will occupy a major portion of the course because they are a main part of our interpersonal life and can account for fulfillment in our associations with other people. Virtues connected with courage will also be important because so much of everyday life is a struggle to overcome obstacles amd disappointments.
Required Readings
I have prepared a set of Notes and Study Questions for Philosophy 8:Ethics which you can find in the bookstore; in addition, a summary of Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, a major classic, can be found on this web-site and should be read carefully. In class I will use some contemporary descriptions of virtue that Daniel Goleman uses to show how "virtue" theory can be an enormously important way of viewing everyday life. Goleman's book, "Emotional IQ" is selected for your reading, especially for a contemporary analysis of the virtues of self-control.
Optional Reading
I have chosen, as an optional reading for the assignment of an essay on moral analysis of virtues connected with justice, a book entitled The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini for students who may want to read and analyze the central character in this book rather than do an analyysis of a character from a movie.
Grades and Exams
We will have at least one mid-term and one final exam; each exam will be both objective (true/false, multiple choice, matching, or fill in the blanks) and essays. Your essays will have to be clear, accurate, and coherent. I explain what an essay needs in class. The basic elements of a good essay are accuracy and coherence. Accuracy means that the subject of the essay is clearly stated, that the sentences focus on the subject, and analyize how each part of the subject fits with the other parts. Coherence mans that the sentences fit together and explain one another forming a complete paragraph that is seprate from previous and following paragraphs and yet inter-connected with them.
Some essay questions that I expect students to know for a mid-term exam are:
1) Explain how Aristotle analyzes the good in itself and why this analysis is so important in Rawls' interpretation of the Aristotelian Principle.
2) How and why is "basic trust" important for Erikson? Why does he think "generativity" and "care" are the strengths needed for adulthood?
3) Why is narrative an important way of understanding the ethical dimension of human life? What is involved in a narrative of one's life?
4) Explain how Goleman understands the emotional IQ as a form of ethics as therapy?
5) What do we mean by a "realistic ethics" today?
6) Why is ethical knowing like the knowing that a gifted artist or athlete has?
7.) What does Nussbaum mean by "ethics as therapy?"
8) Why are the virtues of self-control said to be part of an "Emotional IQ"?
These questions are examples of the kind of questions I like to ask students on quizzes and on the mid-term exam. The material to study for the mid-term is covered in this Syllabus, the class lectures, Aristotle's Ethics, Emotional IQ, and in Addenda I, II, IV and some parts of III.
The final exam
This exam will cover the virtues of Courage, Patience, Perseverance, Justice and Practical Wisdom, Chapters 4, 5 and 6, and Addenda III, IV, and V in the Notes and Study Questions for Ethics. The following questions are important to study for the final exam.
1. Explain how a person with practical wisdom could "feel the good" to do and why this emotional IQ would be expressed by Goleman. What would the person feel? What would she want to do with her feelings? Why would Goleman think she was emotionally literate?
2. Describe "courage" and the role it plays in a realistic ethics today.
3. Why is patience important for a society like the one in which we live?
4. What does Rawls mean by fairmindedness? Explain clearly each of the 8 (eight) characteristics and why each is important for democracy today.
5. How does narrative, story-telling, and therapy combine with the development of virtue?
6. Explain clearly May's theory about how addiction can be therapeutically faced. Elaborate on addiction,will, willfullnes, willingness, "rock bottom", social, and any other subjects essential to his theory. Illustrate what you mean by using examples where you can..
7. Why are tolerance, honesty, and playfulness interpersonal?
8. Summarize Gilligan's response to Kohlberg.
9. How does Sternberg reinterpret Aristotle's "phronesis?"
10. Why are "moral vision", Goleman's "master aptitude", Erikson's "basic trust", and Sternberg's "bigger picture" important key ideas today?
In addition, students should know how respect and self respect are related to each other, how Rawls connects these virtues with distributive justice and with the Aristotelian Principle, and how each of the parts of justice is related to respect. Last, but not least, for the final exam the student will be expected to know Aristotle's theory of Practical Wisdom and its many interpretations today. In this regard, Sternberg, Goleman, Howard Gardner, Rawls, Gilligan, Kohlberg, Csikszentmihalyi, and Flanagan are some of the people whose understanding of practical wisdom continues to develop, at least in part, a version of Aristotle's wisdom for today. Be sure to read and analyze the section of your Notes on "Phronesis" or Practical Wisdom (p. 63) and connect it with Addendum 4 of the Notes.
Essay Assignment
In addition to written exams, each student will have to write an essay that analyzes a moral character displayed in a motion picture or work of fiction, and will present a 2-3 page written essay on the main virtue(s) of the character.For example, the "The Kite Runner" is a short work of fiction that I am recommending this quarter for moral analysis. I have also prepared a list of some movies a student might choose for his/her essay. The movies are suggested in an addendum on the left hand side of this web site. Both movies and fiction (the "Kite Runner" for this quarter) have a way of illustrating a "realistic ethics" because they focus on believable characters and conflict situations connected with courage, violence, love, justice, responsibility, respect, honesty, forgiveness, care, and many other themes. The 2-3 page assignment will be due on March 19, 2007 and it will count as points on your final exam.
The main object of the moral analysis is to connect a virtue or virtues with a "realistic" portrayal of the character over a life-time or a portion of a life-time. Instead of a movie a student may choose to write an essay on the moral virtue(s) displayed by the central character "Amir" in the novel The Kite Runner. Since this assignment will be c. 15% of your grade, you will want to do a good job on it; you make pick any movie from the list I suggest or a movie not on the list as long as it lends itself to analysis of virtues of the character(s). The "Kite Runner" is the only work of literature I will accept this quarter. I have chosen "Kite Runner" because of its clear portrayal of "Amir", its central character. Characters portrayed in literature and movies show us a human life over a signfigicant period of time and this avoids thinking of ethics as an analyis of single actions. When you choose "The Kite Runner" or film you want to analyze. make sure to identify and describe the person's behavior in terms of the virtue(s) illustrated, describe the conflict in the person's life, or the struggle to uncover or resolve the conflict. How did the characvter understand and analyze his/her life, and face it with some virtue or "ego-strength" that helped bring some good out of the conflict?
Case Studies
Finally, students will be expected to solve cases some of which I have printed out in Addendum III of your Notes and Study Questions for Phil. 8. These cases are hypotheical issues that represent "conflict" cases, and students will work on them in groups of two or three in class and outside class. Sometimes, the conflict cases will illustrate the need for a particular virtue and so use "virtue theory", and at other times, they will require an analysis that balances some features of one or more of the other perspectives, and so will require e.g. looking at "consequences" or "objects", or "motives", or "circumstances." In many cases, ethical advice or an ethics as therapy approach will be expected in the students' analyses. The conflict cases help us understand the different levels of ethical choice that are reasonable and appropriate. I have tried to make each conflict case "realistic" and I have provided a list of questions to be answered in each case. Sometimes we may follow the questions listed or raise other questions for discussion in class. Remember not to confuse ethics simply with the determination of isolated cases that mark a short period of time in a person's life; rather, our main emphasis is that ethics is best appreciated as a lifetime or long term quest for human fulfillment. Yet, each time we focus our attention on a case it can help us appreciate the need for reflection on and analysis of our feelings, motives, anticipation of consequences, and insights that form a larger interpretation of the conflict or issue.
Grades
Your final grade will be a cumulative point total for: 1) the exams, 2) the written presentation on the film, 3) any discussions of cases assigned in or outside class, 4) any important questions or answers you identify in class discussions, 5) attendance, class participation, and class discussions. All five are important factors in your grade
Attendance and Particpation
Attendance and participation are necessaary for your grade in the class; very few students can achieve a passing grade if they start missing classes.
Attendance and partcipation in class discussions are expected; cases to solve will be assigned periodically, unannounced quizzes will be given, and questions for student discussion will take place in class. All will be a part of your grade. Students who miss four (4) or more classes may be dropped or lose one letter grade for the course. The same for students who come late or leave early. If for some reason you have to leave early, let me know ahead of time. My usual policy in a case like that is to ask the student not to come. Coming late and leaving early are both immature and inappropriate forms of behavior, and they are disturbances to students and instructors who know that attention and active participation are acts that require respect for others.
Virtue Theory
I cannot stress enough the use of Virtue Theory and its close relative, Narrative Theory, as dominant instruments for a "realisitc ethics." In that way we will attempt a realistic Ethics that uses virtue theory to integrate all or most of the other perspectives.
In Addendum IV of the Notes and Study Questions I have prepared a summary of how "virtue theory" is manifested in Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, in Goleman's Emotional IQ, in Sternberg's Understanding Wisdom, in Csikszentmihalyi's Creativity, and in Flanagan's Varieties of Moral Personality. Developed contemporary versions of Aristotle's Practical Wisdom are manifestations of the "retrieval" of virtue theory today. So be sure to read and study carefully Addendum IV on page 83 of your "Notes.
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