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Philosophy Through the Year offers and lively and welcoming space in which to learn about philosophy – and start to ask and explore philosophical questions with others. In each instalment, we will look at one set of big philosophical issues – the problem sand questions that have been puzzling people for well over two thousand years. Tutors will give short introductions to some of the most important ideas and arguments in each topic, and provide short philosophical texts for participants to read, think about, and discuss together.
Good and Bad
Philosophers have always wanted to have something to say about the questions that matter the most to people, and especially the question: ‘how should I live?’ In this second part of the course, we examine some of the most influential accounts of ‘the good life’, and ask what they have to teach us today. What does it mean to live life well? Is success the same as goodness? What is the relationship between goodness and happiness? Which is the better guide to moral truth –reason, emotion, or ‘intuition’? Should we expect to find agreement on moral questions, or are these things all ‘subjective’? We look at these questions and more, with the help of some of the most profound and provocative philosophical writing from centuries past as well as contemporary thinkers.
In this first session, we look at some of the most basic ideas in our ethical language. What do we mean when we describe something as ‘good’? Is this the same as saying that it is ‘right’ to do something? Is everything that is bad also wrong? We also explore a puzzle about how it could be possible for us to change our understanding of the good, when (it could be argued), the good is a background condition of all our thinking about value.
Questions for reflection:
1. Do you think that we could try to understand the idea of a ‘good’ life by thinking about the purpose of life? If so, how do the two things relate?
2. What about goodness and beauty? Is perceiving something as morally good at all like recognising something as beautiful, do you think?
3. Is it possible for people to undergo a fundamental change in their mode of evaluation? If so, how?
For further reading
Wittgenstein, ‘Lecture on ethics’ (extract), from The Wittgenstein Reader;
Thomas Nagel, ‘Right and Wrong’, extract from What Does it All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy
Simone Weil, ‘Reflections on the concept of value’ from Late Philosophical Writings
Philosophers have often been interested in questions like:‘ do we have a good reason to do what is right?’ or ‘why be moral?’. These questions ask us to think about the connection between moral life, motivation and rationality: how are the reasons that motivate ‘moral’ behaviour or decisions similar, or related to, the reasons that motivate other areas of life or practice? For example, how does the reason that we have to tell the truth in a court of law differ from the reason we have to cross the road safely? Is it in some sense ‘in my interests’ to be good? Since Socrates insisted that ‘it is better to suffer evil than to do it’, philosophers have struggled to articulate the nature of moral motivation. In this session we will explore a few important ideas from fairly recent philosophy (Stephen Darwall), in dialogue with older responses to this ancient question.
For further reading
Stephen Darwall, ‘Precis: The Second-Person Standpoint’ in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (available online here)
Plato, Gorgias, (especially the conversation with Polus, 463-476, available online here)
Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics (conclusion: The mutual relations of the three methods, available online here or here).
One interesting place to begin exploring the nature of our ethical lives is by considering moral emotions: emotions that are sometimes understood as being an expression of moral judgements, or which are only properly characterised with reference to ethical ideas. Many philosophers, from Hume to Darwall, have insisted on the importance of emotions within ethical life. Resentment is perhaps the most obvious place to begin. Recent moral philosophers (notably Stephen Darwall) have explored the way that resentment is best understood as a form of inter-personal ‘address’; it is the emotion through which we express ethical demands to each other. We will explore this, and other, very different understandings of resentment, alongside the broader question of the role of ‘feeling’ in ethics.
Readings
David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (appendix 1, available here).
Martha Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness (extracts).
Peter Strawson, ‘Freedom and Resentment’(available online here).
Stephen Darwall, ‘Justice and Retaliation’ from Honor, History and Relationship: Essays in Second-Personal Ethics II.
We cannot get far in our reflection on the nature of ethical life without hitting the question of how the former relates to what we loosely call ‘human nature’, and our biology. The realisation that humans are descended from earlier hominins, and ultimately share a common ancestor with other primates (it is approx. 5 million years since the chimp-human common ancestor),has had huge implications for moral philosophy. However, there are radically different assessments of what these implications are! We will explore one set of issues, that concern what are known as ‘evolutionary debunking’ arguments. These suggest that the claim that aspects of moral life (e.g. the capacity for moral judgement, or moral feelings) are the result of evolution undermines moral realism (i.e. that moral judgements ‘track’ reality in some important way). But these kinds of claims tend to rely on certain assumptions about moral life, many of which are controversial for reasons not connected to evolution.
For further reading
Mary Midgely, The Ethical Primate (chapter12)
Guy Kahane, ‘Evolutionary Debunking Arguments’ in Nous
Peter Singer, ‘Ethics and Sociobiology’ in Zygon
We continue to think about the connection between moral duty and natural life, through consideration of the nature of love. Intuitively, for many people influenced by Christianity, it can seem as though morality and love must be deeply connected, given that Jesus summed up ‘the law’ in terms of the command to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’. But equally, it has seemed to many philosophers as though there must be a tension between love and morality: morality seems to involve an impartial commitment to our duties, in contrast to the deeply partial connections that love involves.
Readings
Eleonore Stump, ‘Love by all accounts’
Tony Miligan, ‘Mortal longings’
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Week 1 & 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
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Stuart is the Theology Lead at LJC. He graduated with a degree in Literature and Theology from the University of Hull in 2000. From 2003-9 he studied Philosophical Theology part-time at the University of Nottingham, whilst continuing to work in the third sector with vulnerably-housed or homeless people, and young asylum seekers (as well as pulling pints in a pub). He was Lecturer at York St John University for almost a decade, before moving to London Jesuit Centre in 2021. He now lives in South East London, and spends as much time as he can in the woods.
