Philosophy

Full course description

In this course, we explore the field of philosophical ethics. We study the grand narratives in ethics, such as the three leading normative ethical approaches (virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and deontological ethics). We read original texts written by thinkers from the great traditions of philosophy: ancient philosophy, Christian philosophy, modern philosophy, and postmodern philosophy. We discuss Aristotelian virtue ethics, Stoic wisdom, the Christianised life as taught by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill), Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy, the ‘grand style’ of Friedrich Nietzsche, Carol Gilligan her ethics of care, Hans Jonas his ethics for the technological age, and the ‘banality of evil’ by Hannah Arendt. The challenge is to interpret these texts, especially the non-contemporary ones, from the perspective of the authors and their audience. A pitfall that has to be prevented is to read and interpret these texts merely from our own perspective. You are also very much encouraged to read texts in their original language (e.g. Kant; Nietzsche). Also, we encourage you to look for similarities and differences between the texts, concepts, and authors.

Course objectives

• To explore the most important ethical approaches and to gain increased understanding of essential philosophical concepts, theories, and authors. 

• To study primary texts of ethics written by the most eminent philosophers of the past millennia.

• To evaluate and discuss cases through the lens of different ethical perspectives. 

• To compare and contrast different philosophical concepts, theories, and authors.

This course focuses on the problems and methods of philosophy through a survey of philosophical responses to the following questions: What exist and what is its nature? What is it to have a mind and knowledge, and how much knowledge do we really have? Can we freely determine our actions, what actions are moral or immoral, and what is the good life for a human being? What is justice and is it possible to design a just government for human societies? The selection of readings is taken from the following four areas of philosophical thinking: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. The course provides a preliminary orientation to the notion of philosophical argument, its various forms, and the ways they can be analyzed. The course analyzes and comments on philosophical arguments, develops knowledge of the canonical position held by philosophers, and encourages students to develop and defend their own positions through careful argumentation.

The course explores modern and contemporary Jewish thought. It discusses the crisis of modernity and the transition towards an ethic of responsibility in Jewish authors of the 20th century.