Virtue Relig Social Ethics

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course explores the theoretical and practical dimensions of virtue ethics from philosophical and religious frameworks, drawing on both Western (e.g., Aristotelian) and Eastern (e.g., Confucian) perspectives. After a general introduction to ethics (i.e., metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics), we will wrestle with a deeper understanding of virtue and how such contributes to the good life and the flourishing of communities. With a theoretical foundation of ethics in place, we will subsequently explore some contemporary social problems and the virtuous solutions various religious traditions have proposed to ensure human and planetary flourishing. The social problems we wrestle with will be decided upon through class deliberation, but possible areas of exploration include state-sponsored violence such as policing and penal systems; the morality of capitalist economic and technocratic systems; social inequalities, especially those concerning race, gender, sexuality, and class; questions in bioethics such as abortion and euthanasia; and ecological problems such as climate change and animal abuse