HUM 295 ON BEING HUMAN: Personal Ethics and Social Harmony
This interdisciplinary Honors Seminar examines several notable philosophers and belief systems across time and cultures, to discuss relevant questions at the heart of being human:
What does it mean to be human?
What constitutes a flourishing life?
How can we best achieve a flourishing life?
How can we maintain harmony when personal and political values are in conflict?
Readings
1. Ancient Egyptian concept of Ma’at
2. Book II of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
3. The Analects of Confucius: excerpts from Robert Eno’s online translation
4. Sophocles’ Antigone (trans. George Theodoridis)
5. Seneca’s “On Peace of Mind”
6. Excerpts from Michel de Montaigne’s Essays and Monstesquieu’s Persian Letters
7. Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) legend: “Hodadenon or the Last One Left and the Chestnut Tree”
Videos
1. Antigone
2. Interview with contemporary American philosopher Martha Nussbaum
3. “Can Confucianism Save the World?” (symposium)
Program
Week 1: Introduction to ethics philosophy
Week 2: Ancient Egyptian concept of Ma’at
Week 3: Ancient Greece, Artistotle and the Mean (Book II of Nicomachean Ethics)
Week 4: Sophocles’ and Anouilh’s Antigone
Week 5: Ancient Roman Stoicism, Seneca
Week 6: Ancient China and Confucianism
Week 7: Renaissance authors Montaigne and Montesquieu on custom and cultural diversity
Week 8: Native American oral literature reflective of ethical-social values
Week 9: Contemporary American philosopher Martha Nussbaum on cultivating humanity
Week 10: Oral Presentations and discussion
Week 11: Oral Presentations and discussion
Week 12: Oral Presentations and discussion
