The Deviant Philosopher > Ethics

Ethics

Lesson: Moral Emotions

by Amy Olberding (University of Oklahoma)

In Mengzi 1A7, Mengzi attempts to train a king who is skeptical that he can be a benevolent ruler.

Lesson: Criminal Parents

by Seth Robertson (Harvard University)

What should a person do if her parents commit a crime? Should she immediately turn them into the authorities?

Unit: Psychological Obstacles to Acting Ethically

by Trevor Hedberg (The Ohio State University)

Most undergraduate students want to be morally good people, and most ethics instructors want to help them be morally good people. Part of accomplishing this task is teaching students how to engage in moral reasoning and examine difficult moral questions, which is what most ethics courses emphasize. Yet no matter how familiar one is with controversial moral issues or the complexities of contemporary ethical theorizing, this knowledge alone is not enough to overcome the myriad of psychological tendencies that can cause people to act unethically even when these people have good intentions. This unit reviews those psychological tendencies, highlights how they pose challenges to behaving ethically, and considers the ways that they can be overcome.

Unit: Care of the Dead

by Amy Olberding (University of Oklahoma)

The early Chinese philosophers argued heatedly about how to care for the dead. In this unit, three of the most distinctive views of the period are presented. These can be treated together but also easily break apart for smaller lessons or units with other materials.

Unit: Chinese Philosophy of Human Rights

by Stephen C. Angle (Wesleyan University)

This unit is a six-class arc introducing 20th- and 21st-century Chinese perspectives on human rights.

Primer: Care Ethics

by Kelly Epley (University of Oklahoma)

Care ethicists do ethical theory with special attention to human connection and relationships of care. These relationships have ethical dimensions that other ethical traditions tend not to address, are poorly placed to speak to, or both. Care ethics is, thus, (at least) an important supplement to traditional ethical theories, offering us tools to analyze the ethical dimensions of particular kinds of caring relationships and practices. A focus on human relatedness and caring can also be a starting point for the development of comprehensive care ethical theories comparable in scope to such traditional alternatives as consequentialism, deontology, or virtue theory.