WEEK 1
Jan. 15 – Welcome. Syllabus. House of Life. Ptah-hotep (Fordham, sofiatopia).
Jan. 17
Pyramid Texts
Osirian Revolution
Eloquent Peasant / Excerpt
Negative Confessions / Scroll / Text
Amenemope
Proverbs
WEEK 2
Jan. 22
Hinduism
Bhagavad Gita
Gandhi’s Gita
Hind Swaraj
===
Buddhism
Dhamma
Thich Nhat Hanh
Jan. 24 – WORKSHOP #1. Due at beginning of class: one paragraph presentation of Ethical Criteria presented since day one. We will have a workshop activity based on the material.
• Please indicate your name, the course, workshop number, and date in the upper left corner.
• In your title, identify the primary author.
• The paragraph should be at least 200 words in length, using at least three direct quotations from a primary text, using MLA style of format and citation.
• For reminders about MLA citation style, see “Purdue OWL” online.
• A primary text is written by one of the primary authors presented in class (usually in translation). Wikipedia is not a primary text. Brainy Quotes is not a primary text.
• To conserve paper, please list your work cited as the last paragraph of your exercise, not as a works-cited page.
• Simply present in a fair and sympathetic way what the teachings appear to teach about criteria that should guide ethical life. This is not the place to judge the value of the criteria. Here you are summarizing the primary author’s point of view.
WEEK 3
Jan. 29
Confucius
-Great Learning (classics.mit.edu)
-Analects (YellowBridge)
see Bks. 2, 7: after Foust 2012 (The Dial); also see 12.1, 17.6: after Shirong Luo 2012
-Doctrine of the Mean (nothingistic.org)
Mencius (nothingistic.org)
Xunxi (excerpts)
Jan. 31
Preface: Confucius and the Rectification of Names
Laozi: Dao de Ching
Chuang Tzu (nothingistic.org)
Zhou Dunyi
–overview
–image
–Tongshu
Afterword: Hindu Self and Buddhist No-self
WEEK 4
Feb. 5 – WORKSHOP #2. Due at beginning of class: one page development of a Case or Scenario where a contemporary stakeholder is faced with a difficult ethical choice going forward.
• Please indicate your name, the course, workshop number, and date in the upper left corner.
• In your title, identify the nature of the case or scenario.
• The paragraph should be at least 200 words in length. If you are referring to news stories or facts, provide direct quotations, using MLA style of format and citation.
• For reminders about MLA citation style, see “Purdue OWL” online.
• The case or scenario may be of a personal nature, family matter, business choice, or public policy at the city, county, state, national, or international level. If it is a personal scenario, it is acceptable to fictionalize the names to preserve privacy.
• Identify a stakeholder and present the facts that lead up to a point of choice and deliberation about what to do going forward.
• Please do not develop children as stakeholders. Let’s explore ethics for adult stakeholders.
• The thing of main importance is that there is some felt tension about what is the right or good thing to do, involving at least two preliminary courses of action. This is different from a tension involving what is simply tempting.
• Briefly discuss why the preliminary options each appear to have some merit.
• In the last sentence of the paragraph, pose a question that reminds the reader about the choice of preliminary options.
• This is an exercise in developing a case, scenario, and stakeholder. Please do not deliberate or decide the choice (even if you know how things turn out). Here we are rehearsing the moment of choice.
Feb. 7
Popol Vuh
Prof Notes: May be slow loading
Christenson Translation: Click on “English Translation” to get a free pdf
Dekanawidah
-Iroquois Constitution (Fordham)
-Franklin on Canassatego
Black Elk
Deloria
Anzaldua
-Borderlands / La Frontera (The Homeland, Aztlan)(How to Tame a Wild Tongue)
-keywords: Coatlicue / Nepantla / la Facultad / nahual / mestiza / mestizaje
WEEK 5
Feb. 12
Plato (@ Perseus)
-Alcibiades (@ Sanderson Beck)
-Phaedrus (@ Adelaide)
-Symposium (@ Adelaide)
-Republic (See esp. Bk IV @Adelaide)
Feb. 14 – WORSHOP #3. Due at the beginning of class. Three paragraphs (200 words each), or about two pages in MLA format:
1. In paragraph one, present a case or scenario involving a contemporary stakeholder who faces a difficult choice going forward (you may copy, revise, or replace the case for Workshop #2). Please remember to focus on facts and options for action. Leave the deliberation and choice for later paragraphs.
2. In paragraph two, present ethical criteria from some text that we have studied since the last ethical criteria exercise. In this second paragraph do not make any reference to the case that you developed in the first paragraph or any judgments about the value of the criteria (see guidelines from Workshop #1).
3. In the third paragraph discuss the case or scenario of the first paragraph in relation to criteria presented in the second paragraph. Show how the criteria in paragraph two would guide choice for the stakeholder in paragraph one. This is not the place to introduce new quotes or criteria from the text. Nor is this the place to unveil facts not revealed in the case or scenario. Given the facts in paragraph one, if the stakeholder were to be guided by the criteria in paragraph two, how would the stakeholder choose to act and why? What would the stakeholder do? If the criteria themselves generate a debate between two alternatives, what would be the best resolution of the debate according to the criteria themselves? In any event, the stakeholder must make a choice going forward, in a way that honors the integrity of the criteria as developed in paragraph two. We’ll call this an application of criteria to case or scenario.
WEEK 6
Feb. 19 – Aristotle’s Ethics (nothingistic.org)
Feb. 21 – Topics in the Aristotelian tradition:
al-Kindi
Averroes
Maimonides
Aquinas
MacIntyre
Laurence Thomas
WEEK 7
Feb. 26 – WORKSHOP #4. Due: 1-2 page development of case or scenario (see guidelines for Workshop #2; no criteria or application required).
Feb. 28 – Topics in the Platonist tradition:
Philo
Plotinus: Notes | On Virtue | The Good
Augustine: Faith, Hope, Love | On Christian Doctrine
Ghazali: Happiness | Revival
Buber
WEEK 8
Mar. 5
Epictetus
Aurelius
Spinoza (Ethics @MTSU: see IV. “joy”)
Kant
Rawls
Mar. 7 – WORKSHOP #5. Due: Two paragraphs (1-2 pages) of criteria and application (using cases previously presented).
In the title of your paper, please state your purpose. For example: “Applying Amenemope to Contemporary Dating.”
In the first full paragraph develop ethical criteria (as in Workshop #1) from one of the texts covered since our last criteria exercise; do not mention anything about the particular case that you have in mind.
In the second paragraph remind the reader briefly (with one or two sentences) of the case that you developed in the previous workshop and then apply to that case or scenario the criteria that you have just developed. Please remember this is not the place to introduce new criteria or new facts. Just deliberate the stakeholder to a choice that honors the criteria summarized in the first paragraph.
ATTACH the case or scenario that you developed last week (or substitute a new one as you please).
SPRING BREAK
WEEK 9
Mar. 19
Epicurus
Marx: On Epicurus / On Feuerbach / On Capital
Bentham / Mill
Singer
Mar. 21
Schleitheim
Hobbes
Locke
Jefferson
Hegel
Douglass
WEEK 10
Mar. 26 – WORKSHOP #6. 1-2 page development of case or scenario (no criteria or application today).
Mar. 28
Kant Right / Mine
Hegel
-Husserl
-Heidegger
-Sartre
Freud
-Lacan
-Zizek
WEEK 11
Apr. 2
Peirce (Fixation of Belief / How to Make our Ideas Clear / Evolutionary Love)
James (The Will to Believe)
Dewey (Democracy and Education)
Habermas
PLEASE NOTE SCHEDULE CHANGES BELOW
Apr. 4 – POSTPONED UNTIL APR 9 — WORKSHOP #7. Two paragraphs (1-2 pages) of criteria and application. Please review previous guidelines above. ATTACH WORKSHOP #6 case or scenario (or substitute).
WEEK 12
Apr. 9 – SEE WORKSHOP #7
Apr. 11
WEEK 13
Apr. 16 – WORKSHOP #8. Due: 1-2 page development of case or scenario (no criteria or application today).
Apr. 18 – NO CLASS
WEEK 14
Apr. 23
Farmer, Sr. (TSHA)
Thurman (Jesus and the Disinherited)
King (Letter from Birmingham Jail)
Apr. 25 – WORKSHOP #9. Two paragraphs (1-2 pages) of criteria and application. Please review previous guidelines above. ATTACH WORKSHOP #8 case or scenario.
WEEK 15
Apr. 30
Rand
Marcuse
Davis
Foucault
Butler
May 2 – Review Discussion (What sources would you draw upon to compare your own approach to ethical life? Which sources would you draw upon to contrast your own approach?) Review Discussion Continued (What unique terms or criteria would you use to profile your own approach to ethical life?)
WEEK 16
MAY 7: FINAL WORKSHOP, Four pages (mindful of previous guidelines).
(1) case or scenario
(2) criteria and application from one recent text
(3) criteria and application from any other text this semester, whether recent or not
(4) criteria and application from your own view of ethics.
MAY 9: Last turn-in opportunity for final workshop, in class, first 20 minutes (late penalty waived)
HAVE A GOOD SUMMER!
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