This assignment instructs students to look at the website, Philosopher (originally Political Philosop-her), created and maintained by Meena Krishnamurthy at politicalphilosopher.net. The site, as Prof. Krishnamurthy says, “showcases work by philosophers from underrepresented groups in philosophy.” [hotlink for this quote: https://meenakrishnamurthy.net/]
This activity asks students to evaluate the argument against Buddhism’s stance on desire presented in a poem by Molly Peacocke.
This essay assignment asks students to connect ideas they’ve learned from studying the Dhammapada to Aung San Suu Kyi’s essay “Freedom from Fear.”
This lesson has two main purposes. The first is to illustrate to students how one could apply the Kantian argument that one should not treat others merely as means. This is done by introducing them to an open letter written by the early feminist and abolitionist writer and activist Angelina Grimké in 1838 in which she explicitly argues that men have treated women as mere means. The second is to draw attention, in a way meaningful for students, to the fact that when we think about right and wrong, we often fail to consider others in really problematic ways that later seem obviously mistaken.
This lesson focuses on a fragment of text from the late Pythagorean philosopher Theano (probably of Sparta, c. 4th-3rd century bce) on different kinds of value and their role in moral education. Theano approaches this topic through the lens of everyday moral advice.[1]
On a first reading – and a second and third – Analects does not always seem to Western readers like a philosophical work. In place of crisp definitions, arguments, and replies to criticisms, one finds anecdotes, snippets of conversations, and descriptions of what might seem trivialities – like how Confucius liked to straighten his mat! Many therefore find Analects dull, puzzling, strange, cryptic, frustrating or – worse – as a pseudo-philosophical text empty of any genuine moral insight. Such attitudes are encouraged by a history of racist and distorting stereotypes of aged sages spouting cryptic lines of ‘Oriental wisdom’.
Daoism is the philosophy of the Way (dao), but an immediate problem is that, as the famous opening lines of the Daodejing tells us, dao ‘cannot be spoken of’. Although the early Daoists offer us different arguments about why dao is ineffable, they agree that it is not amenable to literal propositional description. But this does not mean that we are left empty-handed, for we can draw upon other ways of speaking…
This lesson focuses on a fragment of text from the Pythagorean philosopher Phintys (probably of Sparta, c. 4 th -3 rd century BCE) on gender-specific virtues. This text can be fruitfully compared with other texts on the same topic.
Can a morally great / virtuous person choose the right thing to do in every situation all by herself, or does she need to follow moral rules as guides?
In Mengzi 1A7, Mengzi attempts to train a king who is skeptical that he can be a benevolent ruler.