Objective
- Evaluate the application of consequentialist and deontological ethics
Agenda
- Our final "extra topic" the year is a return to our abbreviated ethics unit. I'd intended to use the show Battlestar Galactica to showcase ethical dilemmas and spark some discussion. It was cut for time - which apparently wasn't needed since we made up many snow days.
- The next few days in class will consist of watching this show with interspersed discussion
- Be sure to complete the Battlestar Viewing Packet. This and your Purpose Project will represent your final grades in the course. Some questions are to be done BEFORE viewing, others AFTER.
Objective
- Describe the ideas of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus
Agenda
- Study
- Test #7: Existentialism
- Work Time - Purpose Projects
Objective
- Analyze the Haidt's conception of love
- Evaluate different approaches toward finding fulfillment
Agenda
- 500 Days of Summer
- Discussion
- General issues: what do you think of the main characters? Did one have a better approach than the other? Were both equally "to blame" for the problems in their relationship?
- Forms of attachment (Haidt)
- Buddhism/Stoicism/Aesthetic approaches vs. Attachment
- Do You Know Love?
- Summer doesn't think love is real - but Tom says: "You know it when you feel it."
- Is this true? Does Tom know it?
- How does one know the difference between passionate and companionate love?
- Getting Behind The Wall
- Summer: "I've never told anyone that before."
- Tom attaches major significance to this experience. Why? Should he?
- Certainty
- Tom: "I need to know you're not going to wake up and feel differently"
Summer: "I can't give you that. No one can."
- Is Tom's quest for certainty futile? How should he respond to that?
- The Ending
- What's Tom's lesson about fulfillment and meaning? Does he take the correct approach, or is he still in despair (in the Kierkegaardian sense)
Objective
- Analyze the Haidt's conception of love
- Evaluate different approaches toward finding fulfillment
Agenda
- Warm-Up #23: In The Happiness Hypothesis Haidt describes two forms of romantic love - what are they? Briefly describe the difference between the two.
- Bonus Course Content!
- So I accelerated our schedule and cut a few elements along the way, but we've made better time than we expected (and made up a lot of those lost snow days).
- As a result, in the next few weeks we'll have a chance to do lessons I had cut on account of time and/or extra stuff.
- 500 Days of Summer
- This was a candidate for Unit 3: Happiness, that I cut for time.
- While you watch...
- Think about Haidt's conceptions of love, and how one knows the difference
- How ought you find happiness in life?
- Love?
- Career?
- Something else?
- How does the issue of attachment - a theme from Buddhism, to Stoicism, to Kierkegaard, play out in the movie between the two main characters? Does one have a better approach?
Objective
- Describe the major ideas of Albert Camus
Agenda
- The music is "Neapolitan Bridesmaid" by Tarkio, as it is the only song I know to accurately namedrop Camus with the following lyric: "Albert Camus said, Living is anguish but don't dare let those bastards carry you down."
- Camus
- The Absurd
- Unjust Universe
- Fleeting Happiness
- This can be a source of value and greater appreciation
- "Just remember, the sweet is never as sweet without the sour" - Vanilla Sky
- Meaning
- If we accept that life has no meaning and therefore no value, should we kill ourselves?
- Suicide is the "big problem" for philosophy
- Rebellion
- It is the struggle against the absurd that brings happiness
- Your actions might not change the outside world, but you can define meaning in your attempt to "fight the good fight."
- "If I lost this thorn from my side, I think I'd die." - Tarkio
- Myth of Sisyphus
- Camus concludes "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" as "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."
- An Example - Watch Scrubs S8E2: My Last Words
- Discussion
- How does George struggle with The Absurd? Does he find peace with it? If so, how?
- How do JD and Turks actions represent Rebellion?
Objective
- Evaluate the major ideas of Jean Paul Sartre
Agenda
- Warm-Up #22: Do you agree with Sarte's belief that we are fully responsible for our own actions? Why or why not?
- "Man Makes Himself" - Jean Paul Sartre
- Discuss Reading from Yesterday
- Camus, Absurdity, and Revolt
- Purpose Projects (if extra time)
- Tomorrow: Camus & Scrubs
