Unit 1: The Good Life

What is Philosophy?

Goals

In this session, we’ll welcome you to our course.  By the end of our lecture class, you will:

1. Understand why Philosophy has been called the Queen of the Sciences, the Handmaiden to Theology, and the the Handmaiden to the Sciences.
2. Grasp the difference between Philosophy as a Way of Life and Philosophy as an academic discipline in the modern university.
3. Understand the overall structure of this course, including a brief introduction to Think Journals, Dialogue Groups, and the Apology Writing Assignment.

To Do:

Complete: Philosophical Inventory

The Examined Life & Logic 101

Western Philosophy is often traced back to Socrates who famously claimed that the unexamined life was not worth living. But what does it mean to live an examined life? And is Socrates’ claim plausible? Should you care about living an examined life? And if so, how do you go about doing that?

Goals

By the end of the lecture, you will:

1. Understand what it means to live an Examined Life
2. Understand what it takes to offer a general account of a value concept.
3. Practice raising counterexamples and improving general accounts in light of them.

Read This:

• The Examined Life

To Do:

Record the vocabulary words and complete these questions in your notes before you come to class. Once you have completed them, you will be ready for anything that HQ Trivia throws at you!

1. What form do philosophical arguments come in?
2. Sort the following three statements into premises and conclusion: (i) Veronica is a Notre Dame student. (ii) Therefore Veronica is a human being. (iii) All Notre Dame students are human beings.
3. Create a counterexample for the following statement: All animals weigh less than 1000 pounds.
4. Are there any good reasons to be good at analyzing arguments besides being a philosopher?

Responding to Value Diversity

People change their values during their lives and their is heated value disagreement between cultures and religions. How should we respond to the fact that there is so much value diversity and conflict? Should we be Close-Minded and Judgmental? Open-Minded and Tolerant? Should we conclude that values are all Relative or Subjective?

Goals

By the end of the lecture, you will:

1. Understand the difference between Cultural Relativism and Individual Subjectivism.
2. Grasp the differences between being open minded and tolerant and close minded and judgmental.
3. Appreciate the value of distinguishing between Government Policies, Social Norms, and Individual Ideals.
4. Take an initial stand on how to react to the values depicted in A Doll’s House.

Read This:

1. Watch A Doll’s Housebefore class on Monday
2. Read "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism" by James Rachels (REDO and LINK)

Meaning of Life

To Do:

Write down the definitions for all the vocabulary terms and complete these questions in your notes before you come to class. Once you have completed them, you will be ready for anything that HQ Trivia throws at you!

1. How does Taylor alter the Myth of Sisyphus?
2. In what way does Taylor think migrating birds are related to meaningful human lives?
3. If life is like a road trip, what does Taylor think makes it meaningful, the journey or the destination?

Hedonism

Most people think that pleasure is good for you and that pain is bad. Hedonists claim that pleasure and pain are in fact all that matters when it comes to living the Good Life. But the concrete advice they have about how to live the most pleasant life you can surprises many people. How would you arrange your life if you adopted the Hedonists standard for the Good Life?

Goals

By the end of the lecture, you will:

1. Understand the difference between sound and valid arguments for a general account of the Good Life.
2. Grasp the difference between an account working well in the study and its working well on the street.
3. Understand the Hedonists account of the Good Life
4. Understand how the Hedonists claimed their account would apply in the street.

Read This:

1. Read the Hedonists Guide to Modern Living Interactive Essay (REDO and NEW LINK)

Apology of Socrates

Do This:

Complete these questions in your notes before you come to class. Once you have completed them, you will be ready for anything that HQ Trivia throws at you!

1. How is a philosophical apology different than what we typically think of as an apology?
2. When Socrates speaks to the politician who has a reputation for wisdom, he comes away from their conversation thinking that he is wiser than the politician. Why does he think this?
3. What were the primary charges against Socrates that led to his execution?

Virtue and Stoic Freedom from Fate

Greek and Roman Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius and Seneca claim that things benefit us only when they make us better people. Based on that assumption, they argued that while virtue and vice make us better and worse, feelings of pleasure and pain do not. Consequently, they maintained that the Good Life is a life of virtue, open to all. On this view, how well we live us entirely up to us; we can freely choose to be perfectly happy, regardless of any misfortunes that befall us or any privileges we are denied.

Goals

By the end of the lecture, you will:

1. Understand the basic Stoic Argument against Hedonism.
2. Grasp the Stoic view that virtue is the complete good.
3. Understand the Stoic’s objections to harboring and acting on emotions such as fear, anger, and grief.
4. Grasp the distinction between choice-worthy items that the wise will pick and personal goods that make our lives better .

Read This:

1. Read the Stoic Happiness Interactive Essay (REDO and Re Link)

Create Your Own Meaning

Do This:

Complete these questions in your notes before you come to class. Once you have completed them, you will be ready for anything that HQ Trivia throws at you!

1. What are the three characteristics that define existentialism?
2. Sartre is famous for the slogan “existence precedes essence”.  What does this mean for him?  How does it put him at odds with Aristotle?
3. What is nihilsim? How does Sartre respond to the objection that his existentialism is nihilistic?

Meaningful Lives

Susan Wolf has a number of ideas about what it takes to make a life meaningful. Working through her account will help us to understand our own meaning and purpose. Once we understand the three ways in which our lives can have meaning, we will more effectively be able to articulate how we view our own lives.

Goals

By the end of the lecture, you will:

1. Articulate Susan Wolf’s three part analysis of meaningful lives
2. Explain what objective meaning is
3. Decide whether you think that there is objective meaning or whether all meaning is subjective

Do This:

Complete these questions in your notes before you come to class. Once you have completed them, you will be ready for anything that HQ Trivia throws at you!

1. What are the three criteria that Wolf gives for a meaningful life?
2. What is the difference between subjective and objective meaning?
3. How does living a meaningful life relate to living an ethical life?

Is Life Absurd?

We have already seen that Sartre thinks that humans must create their own meaning, that we do not have a pre-existing essence that determines how to live a meaningful life. This answer, however, does not seem satisfying to everyone. Today, we’ll look at arguments that our meaning comes from God and the life without God is ultimately absurd.

Goals

By the end of the lecture, you will:

1. Be able to articulate how God and immortality bear upon whether human life has any meaning, value, or purpose
2. Evaluate arguments that life without God lacks meaning
3. Articulate how God either does or does not inform your own view of the good life

Do This:

Complete these questions in your notes before you come to class. Once you have completed them, you will be ready for anything that HQ Trivia throws at you!

1. There are several authors considered in the article – which authors defended belief in God, and which defended atheism?
2. What was Dostoyevsky’s response to the problem of evil?
3. What is the difference between relative and ultimate significance? How does Craig think the existence of God effects whether our life have relative or ultimate significance?
4. Craig thinks that atheists, like Sartre, cannot live consistent lives. Why does Craig think that atheists must ultimately be inconsistent?

Join a Movement

What should you focus your time and attention on if you want your life to be more meaningful? Should philosophy be put in the service of action? Or is the main role of philosophy to feed our contemplative sides? Today we consider one proposal — the good life is one dedicated to justice and action on behalf of the good.

Goals

By the end of the lecture, you will:

1. Understand the ways in which Martin Luther King uses the image of Socrates to defend activism
2. Consider whether King’s argument for civil disobedience is sound
3. Consider current social and political structures that King’s arguments might apply to

Do This:

Complete these questions in your notes before you come to class. Once you have completed them, you will be ready for anything that HQ Trivia throws at you!

1. When and why did MLK Jr. write his Letter from a Birmingham Jail?
2. MLK Jr. is from Atlanta, not Birmingham. Why was he in Birmingham?
3. What are the four steps for demonstrating nonviolently?
4. MLK Jr. appeals to two types of laws in his Letter – what are these two types of laws?

Does God Exist?

How does religious faith (or lack thereof) figure into living a meaningful life?  That’s the topic of our third unit.  In this session, we will consider one popular argument for the existence of God, the Ontological Argument.

Goals

By the end of the lecture, you will:

1. You will be able to define “natural theology” and distinguish it from other kinds of theology.
2. You will understand the logical structure of Anselm’s Ontological Argument.
3. You will consider the religious importance of arguments for God’s existence

Do This:

Complete these questions in your notes before you come to class. Once you have completed them, you will be ready for anything that HQ Trivia throws at you!

1. What is the difference between natural theology and divine revelation?
2. What are some things that exist only in the understanding? What are something things that exist in the understanding and in reality?
3. Explain Gaunilo’s Perfect Island Objection. What is Gaunilo hoping to show with this example?