DAY 70 May 20 Philosopher's Declaration of Human Rights

Step 1: As usual we'll start with the Card Game of Ethical Fun!

Step 2: clearly we didn't get through yesterday's posted stuff so we'll do that today.

Step 3: if we have time we'll get working on your next marked assignment, Philosopher's Declaration of Human Rights.  First I'll distribute a copy of the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights, we'll have a look at this video on some of the shortcomings of governments when it comes to following basic tenets of human rights, and then we'll get on with the assignment.

DAY 69 May 19 Philosopher's Declaration of Human Rights

Today we'll start our exploration of Ethics and Human Rights.

Step 1: In your Green Philosophy Bites Folder, please spend two minutes on each of these four basic Ethical Questions, answering them for yourself.

1. Are Moral Choices Possible?
2. Why Do the Right Thing?
3. Can People Be Good Without Religion?
4. How Should the Rightness and Wrongness of an Action Be Determined?



Step 2:  Please complete the chart below: most philosophers address all the questions, some do not.
How Philosophers Answer the Main Ethical Questions

Are Moral Choices Possible?
Socrates: 
Epicurus: 
Thomas Aquinas:
Søren Kierkegaard:
Friedrich Nietzsche:
Jean Paul Sartre:
Jeremy Bentham:
John Stuart Mill:
Immanuel Kant:
Ayn Rand:


Why Do the Right Thing?
Socrates:
Epicurus:
Thomas Aquinas:
Søren Kierkegaard:
Friedrich Nietzsche: 
Jean Paul Sartre:
Jeremy Bentham:
John Stuart Mill:
Immanuel Kant:
Ayn Rand:

Can People Be Good Without Religion?
Socrates:
Epicurus:
Thomas Aquinas:
Søren Kierkegaard: 
Friedrich Nietzsche:
Jean Paul Sartre: 
Jeremy Bentham:
John Stuart Mill: 
Immanuel Kant: 
Ayn Rand:

How Should the Rightness or Wrongness of Actions be Determined?
Socrates: 
Epicurus:
Thomas Aquinas: 
Søren Kierkegaard: 
Friedrich Nietzsche:
Jean Paul Sartre: 
Jeremy Bentham: 
John Stuart Mill: 
Immanuel Kant: 
Ayn Rand: 

How Philosophers Answer the Main Ethical Questions

Are Moral Choices Possible?

Socrates: Yes moral choices are possible.
Epicurus: Yes moral choices are possible, doing the right thing paves the way for ataraxia.
Thomas Aquinas: Yes moral choices are
Søren Kierkegaard: Yes moral choices are possible. Everyone is responsible for his/her own actions.
Friedrich Nietzsche: Yes moral choices are possible. Everyone is responsible for his/her own actions.
Jean Paul Sartre: Yes moral choices are possible. Everyone is responsible for his/her own actions.
Jeremy Bentham: Yes moral choices are possible. The moral choice is the one which brings the most good to the most people. (consequentalist theory)
John Stuart Mill: Yes moral choices are possible. A moral choice is one that brings the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest amount of people.
Immanuel Kant: Yes moral choices are possible. A moral choice is one that has a moral intent.
Ayn Rand: Yes moral choices are possible. A moral choice is one that has the best interests of the self at heart.



Why Do the Right Thing?

Socrates: Because doing the right/ethical thing is the cornerstone to living "the good life".
Epicurus: Doing the right thing paves the way for ataraxia/serenity which is the greatest pleasure of the mind.
Thomas Aquinas: God deemed it right, and Aquinas is condemned to a perpetual life of follwing gods word without fail.
Søren Kierkegaard: Because going against your authenticity feels wrong.
Friedrich Nietzsche: Because moral actions lead society towards the cultivating the overman, the advent of whom benefits all.
Jean Paul Sartre-----------------
Jeremy Bentham: ---------------
John Stuart Mill:--------------
Immanuel Kant:----------------
Ayn Rand: Because you wouldnt want "wrong" things done to yourself, so do not do them to others.


Can People Be Good Without Religion?

Socrates: Probably, but it doesn't specify.
Epicurus: Probably, but it doesn't specify.
Thomas Aquinas: No, conforming to God's rules is "good" to Aquinas.
Søren Kierkegaard: No, people must move beyond judging their actions according to reason or the standards of society, and become only accountable to god.
Friedrich Nietzsche: Yes people can be good without religion. "Faith in god is disappearing, and with it the universal values provided by that faith. 
Jean Paul Sartre: Yes people can be good without religion.
Jeremy Bentham: Not specified, but yes considering he believes that the greatest good to the greatest number of people is equivalent to right.
John Stuart Mill: Utilitarian, so probably.
Immanuel Kant: Probably, but it doesn't specify.
Ayn Rand: Probably, but it doesn't specify.


How Should the Rightness or Wrongness of Actions be Determined?

Socrates: Actions that go against the society made up of family and friends (laws) is wrong. Anything that conforms is right.
Epicurus: Right actions pave the way for ataraxia/serenity, wrong actions do the opposite.
Thomas Aquinas: What god deems right is right and what he deems wrong is wrong.
Søren Kierkegaard: What god deems right is right and what he deems wrong is wrong.
Friedrich Nietzsche: People determine their own values.
Jean Paul Sartre: Each person defines right and wrong themselves and acts accordingly.
Jeremy Bentham: An action that brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people is the right one. (Hitler believed by eliminating the jews he was doing a great good for germany, there were far more aryans than jews in germany so was he doing the "right" thing for germans?)
John Stuart Mill: An action that brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people is the right one.
Immanuel Kant: The rightness of actions can be determined by the intent of the actions themselves (non-consequentialist)
Ayn Rand: Right actions are those which are in the selfs best interest.

DAY 68 May 18 Ethical Schools of Thought

In my absence today, please continue to work through Chapter 13 on the information below (this assumes, of course, that you have completed your work through Chapter 12 already!):

Chapter 13.  Your task now is to explain the 11 major schools of thoughts on the question of living a good life.  For each (Buddhism, Confucianism, Hedonism, Stoicism, Virtue Ethics, Thomists, Existentialism, Divine Command Theory, Utilitarianism, Egoism, Intuitionism, Post-modernism) school of thought make an organizer in your notes with the sub-headings below. At first you can each have a go at one of these schools of thought on chart paper and share it with the class, then tackle them all on your own for your notebook.

• School of Thought
•  Brief History
•  Main proponents
•  Summary of  the School's Response
•  Strengths of the Response
• Weaknesses of the Response  

DAY 67 May 17 Continue from Friday

Because so few of you showed up Friday it was impossible to do what we had planned, so we'll do it today.

Step 1: Ethical Card Game of Fun!

Step 2: Everyone will have a chance to run through their chart paper work from yesterday and present it to the class - in this way we can discuss your awesome ideas of the value of the various theories.

Step 3: Time for completing your notes on the various schools of thought on A Life Worth Living.

DAY 66 May 14 A Good Life Cont'd

Step 1:  Because of the success of some of the films at last night's Film Fest, we started out today's class by watching some of the best, in particular Sophie's and Sam's contributions - fabulous stuff, ladies!

Step 2: Ethical Card Game of Fun!

Step 3: Everyone will have a chance to run through their chart paper work from yesterday and present it to the class - in this way we can discuss your awesome ideas of the value of the various theories.

Step 4: Time for completing your notes on the various schools of thought on A Life Worth Living.

DAY 65 May 13 A Good Life

Step 1: Back to the card game of fun and five minutes of interesting discussion!

Step 2: For the written record now . . . let's make a clear distinction between Ethics and Morals.

Ethics can generally be described throughout humanity as the Golden Rule.  In all cultures going back through history, as far as we know we have always adhered to the principle that we should treat other people no differently than the way we would like to be treated.

Morals on the other hand can best be described as the practices, principles and teachings of right or wrong behaviour - these change across time, generations, cultures and they can change based on experience.

Philosophers ask questions like these when thinking about Ethics and Morals:

1. What is a good life?

2. What is a good person?

3. What is the right thing to do?

In your Green Philosophy Bites folder please spend 2 minutes on each of the questions above, but answer them as if you were once again FIVE YEARS OLD.

Here's an example of an issue you might face sometime soon - "Lawyers".

Step 3: Now we'll spend a little time figuring out what you think today.  One of the main questions of Philosophy is, "What is the life worth living?".  Let's list your answers below (by the way, that question is what Socrates taught Plato as the most basic Philosophical question, so we're in good company here!):

Your answers will go here . . . . 
Love
Success
Fulfilment
Pleasure
Happiness
Experience
Career
Compassion
Fun
Companionship
No regrets


Step 4: Chapter 13.  Your task now is to explain the 11 major schools of thoughts on the question of living a good life.  For each (Buddhism, Confucianism, Hedonism, Stoicism, Virtue Ethics, Thomists, Existentialism, Divine Command Theory, Utilitarianism, Egoism, Intuitionism, Post-modernism) school of thought make an organizer in your notes with the sub-headings below. At first you can each have a go at one of these schools of thought on chart paper and share it with the class, then tackle them all on your own for your notebook.

• School of Thought
•  Brief History
•  Main proponents
•  Summary of  the School's Response
•  Strengths of the Response
• Weaknesses of the Response 

DAY 64 May 12 Ashley Article

Step 1: As usual we'll start with the card game of fun and your discussions about the ideas from some great minds of the past.

Step 2: Quick review of the Golden Mean Thought Experiment from yesterday.

Step 3: In your Green Philosophy Bites folder please choose ONE option from each category for your future unborn child and explain to yourself why you chose that option.  One minute for each choice, total of five minutes!

Physical Features
Make my child beautiful
Make my child athletic
Make my child tall
       
Health
Remove all genes for inherited diseases
Add a gene strengthening my child's immune system
       
Intelligence
Make my child shrewd in business
Make my child a musical prodigy
Make my child an artistic genius
       
Emotions
Remove the gene for feeling emotional pain
Remove the genes for lying, cheating, and stealing
Add a gene for honesty
   
Social Skills 
Make my child the life of the party
Make my child compassionate
Make my child confident


Step 4: Please read the Ashley Article handout.  For further information on Ashley and her family's journey check out their family blog: Ashley Treatment.  And check out the family's suggestion for the ethical treatment of patients in Ashley's condition, Ashley Treatment Summary.

Please answer these Ashley Article Questions fully in your notebook:

1.  Who is the moral agent who exhibited the virtues or extremes of behaviour?

2.  Describe the moral agent's behaviour.

3.  Do you think the moral agent's actions were morally right or morally wrong?  Why?

4.  Draw a continuum similar to the one show in Fig 12.2 on p. 245 of your text.  Label it with a virtue exhibited (or not exhibited) by the moral agent and add the extremes at either end.  Locate the moral agent on the continuum .  Please comment on what you've drawn.

5.  Were the actions of the moral agent good?  Were they right?  Explain the difference.

6.  Please comment, using quotes, on what two different philosophers might say about the situation in which Ashley and her family find themselves.

We'll take these up tomorrow.

DAY 63 May 11 Ethics Intro Still

Step 1: As usual, we'll start the class by having one of you pick a card from the 12 remaining and then that person will lead a discussion on their corresponding idea.

Step 2: Quick review of the note-taking you've done so far . . . .  I want to see your notebooks!

Step 3: In your Green Philosophy Bites folder please respond to this question in five minutes:

How do we determine the rightness or wrongness of an action?


Step 4: Pick a partner for the Finding the Golden Mean thought experiment.

DAY 62 May 10 Ethics Intro

Step 1: Today we'll start thinking about some new ideas below.  I'd like to open the next 13 classes with a discussion about one of them.

One of you will choose a card which will match with one of the ideas below.  Then your job will be to lead a five minute discussion with the class on the idea - clearly what we're trying to open up, apart from lots of cans of worms, is a meaningful exchange of ideas.

What you will aim to do is get people to identify the main ethical idea, perhaps a theory, and perhaps even a philosopher (other than the one who made the statement) who would agree or disagree with the statement and we'll see where the discussions go.  I'm really hoping that QUESTIONS arise from our discussions.

ACE. (Albert Einstein)  Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

2. (Salman Rushdie)  I hate admitting that my enemies have a point..

3. (Thomas Edison) Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

4. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn) Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right.

5. (Elvin Stackman) Science cannot stop while ethics catches up.    


6. (Potter Stewart) Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. 

7. (George Bernard Shaw) Liberty means responsibility. That is why most people dread it.  

8. (H.A. Pritchard) Right action is that which is morally suitable to the situation in which an individual finds herself.

9. (Plato)  Is something holy beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved by the gods?  

10. (Jeremy Bentham) Nature has placed people under the governance of two sovereign masters: pain and pleasure.

JACK. (Aristotle) Intellectual virtue owes its strength to teaching, while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit. 

QUEEN. (Isaac Asimov)  Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what is right.

KING. (Elie Wiesel)  If one is indifferent, one dies before one actually dies.  


Step 2: Next we'll go through some Ethics Vocabulary.

Step 3: In your Green Philosophy Bites folder, please respond in 5 minutes to this question:

Can People Be Good Without Religious Involvement?  Who determines this?




Step 4: Read pp. 248 - 259 in the text and take notes on the main ideas, the philosophers and their theories.  You should consider the questions you come across in the text too.  These need to be completed before tomorrow's class.
 

Day 61 May 7 Ethics Introduction

Today is the first day of Ethics!!  Yay, a new unit and one which always fills students' hearts with passion about personal beliefs, values, morals and other fun things like that.

Introduction to Ethics

ETHICS is the area of Philosophy that deals with the study of the how we decide what to think or do in a given situation: how do we apply values, how do we classify something as good or bad, how do we know something is right or wrong, what is morality, are moral choices even possible?

UNIT EXPECTATIONS
By the end of this unit you will be able to:
•  demonstrate an understanding of the main questions, concepts, and theories of ethics
•  evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of responses to ethical questions and moral problems defended by some major philosophers and schools of philosophy, and defend your own responses
•  describe how problems in ethics and the theories that address them may be illustrated in stories
•  illustrate the relevance of philosophical theories of ethics to concrete moral problems in everyday life
•  demonstrate an understanding of how philosophical theories of ethics are implicit in other subjects

UNIT OVERVIEW
This unit introduces you to the fundamental questions of Ethics and discusses many of the answers that ethicists have developed.  We will use the following chapters in your textbook:

Chapter 12, “Introducing Ethics,” examines what ethics is and provides a brief overview of the history of ethics, then focuses on some of the key questions that Ethicists attempt to answer.

Chapter 13, “Answering Questions That Matter,” extends the discussion of key ethical questions and explores how they have been answered by philosophers from various world traditions.

Chapter 14, “Ethics in the World,” focuses on several current ethical issues and discusses how ethical theories can be applied to them.

Step 1:  Take 5 minutes to write everything you possibly can into your Philosophy Bites Green Folder on the topic: Ethics.  Themes to keep in mind include ideas, people, choices, circumstances - you can write single words or short phrases. 

Step 2:  We'll watch this short Friends video and then respond to each of the questions below.  We'll have three people discuss each of these questions below - should be fun!

1. Are Moral Choices Possible?

2. Why Do the Right Thing?


Step 3:  Read and take notes on pp. 242 - 247 of the text. 

DAY 60 May 6 Seminar Epistemology

Today, the Epistemology Seminar will run with these folks:
Emily
Kara
Sean
Jessica
Kalsey
Sophie
Tia
Raven

I realize that there's a buyout for Dodgeball today but if you're on this list your may NOT buy out for it.  Seminar's must get done today.  Tomorrow (Friday) we start Ethics.

DAY 59 May 5 Work Period

I am away at a conference today so there is no class today.

You should use this time to get prepared for the upcoming seminar (8 of you) or to study or complete any work that's still outstanding (oh I know, I know, ALL of your work is outstanding in quality, but some is outstanding as in, "not yet submitted").

DAY 58 May 4 Play Preview

As we had Robin Hood previews today and four of our members are in it, we couldn't very well miss is so we went to the preview.  Afterward you had a catch up day for work still outstanding and/or studying that needed to be done.

DAY 57 May 3 Seminar 2 Epistemology

Seminar 2 group 1 is today - Epistemology. 

All Q & A are due at the beginning of class.

Carly, Hayley, Cara, Sam and Jeff are on deck today.

DAY 56 April 30 Seminar 2 Prep

Q & A are on the plate today.  The Internet was down so I didn't update the blog on time, however, to confirm yesterday's decision, the play people and Jeff will go for their seminar on Monday. 

All Q & A are due on Monday at the beginning of class.

DAY 55 April 29 Seminar Q & A

This was a day to start preparing your actual Q & A for the upcoming Epistemology Seminar.

We decided that since the play previews are on Tuesday, that on Monday the group for seminar would be:
Sam
Carly
Hayley
Cara
Jeff volunteered to be the fifth.

All Q & A are due at the beginning of class on Monday.