Time Schedule:
Ann Michelle Baker
PHIL 241
Seattle Campus
Introduction to ethics through in-depth study of one or more selected topics (e.g., limits of moral community, animal rights, moral education, and freedom). Topics vary.
Class description
According to the editor of the text for this course, one of the most remarkable things about human beings is that “We can take our lives into our own hands and shape them in light of our best visions or ideals.” This course is about those visions or ideals, our views about what constitutes the good life for creatures like us, for human beings. The immediate goal of the course is to understand and evaluate many different views about the good life. We study different views about (i) the self; (ii) duties to ourselves and others (for example, honesty, integrity, self-respect, loyalty, and community); (iii) the kinds of duties we have not to harm others (we are obviously justified in harming others in self-defense, for example); (iv) the kinds of duties we have to help others (some think that we have a duty to donate some of our resources to charity); (v) the attributes of a life that make it good (for example, a life of pleasure, a life of virtue, and eternal life); and (vi) the relationships of a life that make it good (for example love, friendship, sex, marriage, and family). The ultimate goal of the course to provoke in each student the desire and to develop in each student the skill to understand, evaluate, and refine his or her own view of the good life. Meets VLPA or I&S requirement. Freshmen only. “W” course.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
