WEEK 1
Jan. 15 – Welcome. Syllabus. Hybrid Orientation. House of Life. Ptah-hotep (Fordham, sofiatopia).
Jan. 17 – WORKSHOP #1. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Board for WORKSHOP #1. Start a Thread. Subject line will be “Hello from (your first name).” Just introduce yourself to classmates and say something about your interest in philosophy and ethics. Do you have any existing interests in philosophy or ethics?
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for Workshop #1 and reply to threads from two other students. Just be nice.
WEEK 2
Jan. 22
Farmer, Sr. (TSHA)
Thurman (Jesus and the Disinherited)
King (Letter from Birmingham Jail)
Jan. 24 – WORKSHOP #2. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #2, start a thread. Subject line will be “your first name on your primary source.” Present one paragraph on Ethical Criteria covered since day one.
• 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.
• Please list your work cited as the last paragraph of your exercise.
• 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.
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 3
Jan. 29
Hinduism
Bhagavad Gita
Gandhi’s Gita (Discourse III)
Hind Swaraj (Chs. 13 & 17)
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Buddhism
Dhamma
Thich Nhat Hanh
Jan. 31 – WORKSHOP #3. Case or scenario. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #3, start a thread. Subject line will be “your first name on your case title.” Write a Case or Scenario where a contemporary stakeholder is faced with a difficult ethical choice going forward.
• 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.
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 4
Feb. 4
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)
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Laozi: Dao de Ching
Chuang Tzu (nothingistic.org)
Zhou Dunyi
–overview
–image
–Tongshu
Afterword: Hindu Self and Buddhist No-self
Feb. 6 – WORKSHOP #4. Criteria and application. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #4, start a thread. Subject line will be “your primary author on your case title.” Three paragraphs (200 words each), or about two pages in MLA format:
1. In paragraph one, just paste the case or scenario that you developed in the last workshop, involving a contemporary stakeholder who faces a difficult choice going forward (you may revise it or even write a new one if you please). 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 (i.e. since Gita). 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 (refer to 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.
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 5
Feb. 12
Popol Vuh
–Prof Notes
–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
Feb. 14 – WORKSHOP #5. Case or Scenario. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #5, start a thread. Subject line will be “your first name on your case title.” Write a Case or Scenario where a contemporary stakeholder is faced with a difficult ethical choice going forward. (Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #3).
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 6
Feb. 19
Plato (@ Perseus)
-Alcibiades (@ Sanderson Beck)
-Phaedrus (@ Adelaide)
-Symposium (@ Adelaide)
-Republic (See esp. Bk IV @Adelaide)
Feb. 21 – WORKSHOP #6. Criteria and application. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #6, start a thread. Subject line will be “your primary author on your case title.” Three paragraphs (200 words each), or about two pages in MLA format. Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #4.
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 7
Feb. 26 – Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics @ nothingistic.org
Feb. 28 – WORKSHOP #7. Case or Scenario. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #7, start a thread. Subject line will be “your first name on your case title.” Write a Case or Scenario where a contemporary stakeholder is faced with a difficult ethical choice going forward. (Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #3).
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 8
Mar. 5 – Topics in the Aristotelian tradition:
al-Kindi
Averroes
Maimonides
Aquinas
MacIntyre
Laurence Thomas
Mar. 7 – WORKSHOP #8. Criteria and application. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #8, start a thread. Subject line will be “your primary author on your case title.” Three paragraphs (200 words each), or about two pages in MLA format. Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #4.
Your thread is due by noon Friday, March 8. Between noon Friday and midnight of Monday, March 18, please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
SPRING BREAK
WEEK 9
Mar. 19 – Topics in the Platonist tradition
Philo
Plotinus: Notes | On Virtue | The Good
Augustine: Faith, Hope, Love | On Christian Doctrine
Ghazali: Happiness | Revival
Buber
Mar. 21 – – WORKSHOP #9. Case or Scenario. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #9, start a thread. Subject line will be “your first name on your case title.” Write a Case or Scenario where a contemporary stakeholder is faced with a difficult ethical choice going forward. (Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #3).
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 10
Mar. 26
Epictetus
Aurelius
Spinoza (Ethics @MTSU: see IV. “joy”)
Kant
Rawls
Mar. 28 – WORKSHOP #10. Criteria and application. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #10, start a thread. Subject line will be “your primary author on your case title.” Three paragraphs (200 words each), or about two pages in MLA format. Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #4.
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 11
Apr. 2
Epicurus
Marx: On Epicurus / On Feuerbach / On Capital
Bentham / Mill
Singer
Apr. 4 – WORKSHOP #11. Case or Scenario. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #11, start a thread. Subject line will be “your first name on your case title.” Write a Case or Scenario where a contemporary stakeholder is faced with a difficult ethical choice going forward. (Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #3).
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 12
Apr. 9
Schleitheim
Hobbes
Locke
Jefferson
Douglass
Apr. 11 – WORSHOP #12. Criteria and application. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #12, start a thread. Subject line will be “your primary author on your case title.” Three paragraphs (200 words each), or about two pages in MLA format. Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #4.
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 13
Apr. 16
Kant Right / Mine
Hegel
Husserl
Heidegger
Sartre
Freud
Lacan
Zizek
Apr. 18 – WORKSHOP #13. Case or Scenario. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #13, start a thread. Subject line will be “your first name on your case title.” Write a Case or Scenario where a contemporary stakeholder is faced with a difficult ethical choice going forward. (Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #3).
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 14
Apr. 23
Peirce (Fixation of Belief / How to Make our Ideas Clear / Evolutionary Love)
James (The Will to Believe)
Dewey (Democracy and Education)
Habermas
Apr. 25 – WORSHOP #14. Criteria and application. Please login to Blackboard and go to the Discussion Forum. Under Workshop #12, start a thread. Subject line will be “your primary author on your case title.” Three paragraphs (200 words each), or about two pages in MLA format. Please refer to guidelines for Workshop #4.
Your thread is due by noon Friday. Between noon Friday and midnight the following Monday please go back to the Forum for the workshop and reply to two threads from two other students. For grading purposes, each response needs to be at least two complete sentences.
WEEK 15
Apr. 30
WEEK 16
DUE by NOON MAY 8 FINAL WORKSHOP. As usual, post as thread at Blackboard Discussion forum. No replies to fellow students required (mindful of previous guidelines).
(1) case or scenario
(2) criteria and application from one recent text
(3) criteria and application from your own view of ethics.
HAVE A GOOD SUMMER!
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