JPI 703
Virtue and Human Action
This course studies the place of virtue, deliberation, choice, character, friendship, ends and purposes, and other elements in moral action. It examines the active and the theoretical life and discusses various forms of goodness and badness in moral conduct. Half of the course deals with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the rest with Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Mill’s Utilitarianism, Simon’s A General Theory of Authority, and selected passages from Thomas Aquinas. The aim of the course is to provide a range of categories that are essential to moral thinking.
