Syllabus. Exam Schedule.
To start:
Stephen Hicks, “What Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us All About Life.”
Published in The Wall Street Journal (2016).
Topic One
Is life meaningful or meaningless?
The Meaning of Life—Selected Quotations from Psalms, Shakespeare, Brooke, Marvell, Thoreau, and others.
Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942).
Optional: Stephen Hicks, “Would Immortality Be Worth It?” (1992).
Topic Two
Humans and gods: Who behaved better or worse—Arachne or Athena?
Optional: Stephen Hicks, “Arachne and Athena: Moral Philosophy Begins” [podcast].
Topic Three
Is war inevitable?
William James, “The Moral Equivalent of War” (1906).
Optional: Stephen Hicks, “War, Socialism, and William James“ [podcast].
Topic Four
Is torture justifiable?
Michael Levin, “On Torture” (1982).
Topic Five
What is individualism, and is it good or bad? What is the optimal amount of conflict and cooperation?
Ayn Rand, Anthem. A video version is here.
Questions on Individualism. [Word document]
Topic Six
Slavery
Anti-Slavery in the Americas: A Primer.
Historical slavery: overview and statistics.
Transatlantic Slave Trade: Video: Three Centuries in Three Minutes. Chart: Where the Slaves Went. Slavery heat map 2018.
Optional : Slavery mini-course at Waterfall site. Stephen Hicks, “The Stain of Slavery,” Open College, 2019.
Topic Seven
Affirmative Action.
United States Supreme Court, excerpts from University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
Scores: Allan Bakke, General Admittees, Special Admittees.
Optional: Charles Ogletree, “The Case for Affirmative Action” (2015).
Optional: Thomas Sowell, excerpts from “Affirmative Action: A Worldwide Disaster” (2004).
Topic Eight
Should all drugs be legal?
William Bennett and Milton Friedman, Open Letters on the War on Drugs, from The Wall Street Journal (1989).
Study Questions on the Bennett-Friedman exchange on the Drug War.
Optional journalism: Colorado legalization results. Nicholas Kristof, “How to Win a War on Drugs,” The New York Times. Jeff Hunt, “Marijuana devastated Colorado, don’t legalize it nationally,” USA Today. Christopher Ingraham, “Following marijuana legalization, teen drug use is down in Colorado,” The Washington Post. Portugal’s decriminalization results (graphic).
Other Topics
Egoism, Predation, or Altruism?
Stephen Hicks, “What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” [article pdf]. Social Science Research Network.
Plato, The Republic: excerpt from Book 2 on “The Myth of Gyges.” (Study questions on Gyges.)
Mother Teresa, excerpt “On Prayer,” from No Greater Love (1987). (Study questions on Teresa.)
Aaron Smith, “The Suffering of Moral Saints” (2018).
Karen Rinaldi, “Motherhood Isn’t Sacrifice, It’s Selfishness,” The New York Times. [Article]
Wealth and Poverty
Peter Singer, “The Duty to Give to the World’s Poor” (1979). [Article]
Garrett Hardin, “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor” (1974). [Article]
Optional journalism: Kevin Williamson, “Big White Ghetto” (2020).
Health Care Decision-making
Tom Beauchamp, “Manufacture and Regulation of Laetrile”.
Stephen Hicks video lecture:
1. Context and defining the issue.
2. The argument for legalizing Laetrile.
3. The argument for banning Laetrile.
4. Comparing the arguments for and against Laetrile.
* View the entire video-lecture at YouTube (65 minutes total).
Summary 1: Identifying the issue and parties involved and Summary 2: Flowchart of the pro and con arguments.
Gerald Dworkin, Paternalism, S.E.P., 2017.
Free Speech and Censorship
Journalism: Eugene Volokh, “The Three Rules of Hate Speech and the First Amendment”
Plato, Excerpt from Book 10 of The Republic on censoring art.
Galileo Galilei, “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” (1615).
John Stuart Mill, Chapter 2 of On Liberty (1859).
Important Philosophies and Philosophers of Ethics
Many possibilities, but here’s a starting list to consider:
Deontology: Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785).
Fascism: Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile, The Doctrine of Fascism (1932).
Fideism: Søren Kierkegaard, “A Panegyric Upon Abraham,” from Fear and Trembling (1843).
Islamism: Osama bin Laden, “Letter to the Americans” (2002).
Nietzscheanism: Friedrich Nietzsche, Preface and First Essay of On the Genealogy of Morals (1887).
Objectivism: Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics” (1961).
Pragmatism: William James, “The Will to Believe” (1896).
Relativism: Ruth Benedict, excerpts from Patterns of Culture (1934) on moral relativism.
Stoicism: Epictetus, Enchiridion (c. 135 C.E.).
Utilitarianism: John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863).
What is selfishness, and is it good or bad?
Ayn Rand, Book One of The Fountainhead.
Plato, “The Myth of Gyges”.
Mother Teresa, excerpt “On Prayer” from No Greater Love (1987).
[Optional: Less Wrong, Why Men Wear Pink.]
Freedom and Self-Ownership
Robert Nozick, “The Tale of the Slave,” from Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). [HTML]
Robert Lawson, “Economic Freedom.” CEE. [Article]
 
Individualism and Collectivism
Stanley Milgram, “Conformity,” excerpt from Obedience to Authority (1974).
Jason D. Hill, Becoming Cosmopolitan.
Journalism: “Individualism a stronger predictor of well-being than wealth, says new study” (Science Daily). “Autonomy as a human need.” “When Altruism Becomes Pathological” (EveryJoe).
 
Slavery: Historical slavery: overview and statistics. TedEd, The Atlantic Slave Trade [Video]. Transatlantic Slave Trade: Where the slaves went. Contemporary slavery. Frederick Douglass biographical sketch. Global Slavery Index. Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, “My Great-Grandfather–Nigerian Slave Trader.” The New Yorker. July 15, 2018. Mary Mazzio, “I am Jane Doe” (2017 documentary).
Racism
Raj Bhopal, “The beautiful skull and Blumenbach’s errors: the birth of the scientific concept of race.” BMJ. 2007 Dec 22; 335(7633): 1308–1309. doi: 10.1136/bmj.39413.463958.80.
Ayn Rand, “Racism,” Forbes magazine. [Article]
John McWhorter, “Racist Police Violence Reconsidered.” Quillette, 2020.
Rav Avora, ““The fallacy of white privilege — and how it’s corroding society” The New York Post, July 2020.
Affirmative Action or Reversing Discrimination?
Charles Ogletree, “The Case for Affirmative Action.” (2015)
Thomas Sowell, “Affirmative Action: A Worldwide Disaster” (2004).
Scott Carpenter, “Against Murderism.”
United States Supreme Court, Excerpts from University of California Regents v. Bakke 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
Colloquium: “Being a Black Academic in America,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 18, 2019.
Reparations?
Coleman Hughes, “My Testimony on Reparations,” Delivered at a United States House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Bill H.R. 40 on June 21, 2019. Published in Quillette, June 20, 2019.
Tessa Stuart, “Ta-Nehisi Coates Dismantles Mitch McConnell’s Remarks on Reparations.” Rolling Stone, June 19, 2019.
Ryan P. Smith, “How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative.” Smithsonian, March 6, 2018.
R. Kevin Hill, “Libertarians and Reparations for Slavery.”
Courage
Integrity
Quentin Tarantino on casting Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds.
Howard Roark and the Manhattan Bank project, in Ayn Rand, Book 1 of The Fountainhead.
Envy
Gordon Marino, The Upside of Envy, The New York Times, “The Stone,” 5/4/18.
Why Is Independence Difficult?
Solomon Asch, Conformity Experiments.
Stanley Milgram, excerpt from Obedience to Authority (1974).
Ayn Rand, Book 1 of The Fountainhead.
Nathaniel Branden, “Self-Esteem in the Information Age” (1997).
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Toleration
John Locke, excerpts from A Letter concerning Toleration (1689).
Martin Luther, excerpts from The Jews and Their Lies (1543).
Love and Sex
Sex with robots: Journalism: “The Scarlett Johansson Doll Is Dangerous”.
Stephen Hicks, “Sex with Robots. The Ethics.” [Article]
Immanuel Kant, “Duties towards the Body in Respect of Sexual Impulse” [1775-1780].
Is Government Welfare Good or Bad?
Charles Murray, from Losing Ground: American Social Policy (1984).
Bryan Caplan, “12 Reasons to Oppose the Welfare State.”
Gil Costello, “Homeless in Seattle,” First Things (2018).
Happiness
Daniel Kahneman, “The riddle of experience vs. memory,” TED2010.
Climate Change for Non-scientists
Al Gore, “Nobel Lecture.”
Andrew Bernstein, “The Truth About Climate Change.”
Richard Lindzen, http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/05/01/mit-climate-scientist-dr-richard-lindzen-believing-co2-controls-the-climate-is-pretty-close-to-believing-in-magic/
Education
Amy Chua, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Best.” [Article]
Lisa VanDamme, “Response to Chua” [Video]
Racism
Raj Bhopal, “The beautiful skull and Blumenbach’s errors: the birth of the scientific concept of race.” BMJ. 2007 Dec 22; 335(7633): 1308–1309. doi: 10.1136/bmj.39413.463958.80.
Scott Carpenter, http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/21/against-murderism/
Jaana Woiceshyn, “Why is there racism in business?”
Malcolm X interview on CBC (1965).
 
Crime
Journalism: “Black police officer confronts BLM.” History profession and crime/race hypotheses.
Which extremist group is worst: KKK or Antifa?
 
Human Nature, Sex, and Gender
Alex Fradera, “Sex differences in human brain structure are already apparent at one month of age,” British Psychological Society, 2018.
James Damore, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” [pdf].
Susan Wojcicki, “Read YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki’s Response to the Controversial Google Anti-Diversity Memo.”
The Google Memo: Four Scientists Respond.
Dana Varinsky, “A Google employee was fired after blaming biology for tech’s gender gap — but the science shows he’s wrong.”
Scott Alexander, “Contra Grant on Exaggerated Differences.” Adam Grant’s original article is linked to, and his reply is posted at the end of Alexander’s piece.
Valentin Bolotnyy, “Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators.” Harvard University, Department of Economics paper.
Women’s Rights and Men’s Rights
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Speech to Women’s Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C.” (1868) [HTML].
Cathy Young, Rape Culture?
Marilyn Frye, “Oppression,” from The Politics of Reality.
(1983).
Jennifer Wriggens, [pdf] University of Maine Law Review.
Sarah Skwire, “Look for the Union Label, not the Gender Role,” EconLib.
Journalistic: Are Men’s Rights Being Slighted? Why are Sweden’s rape statistics so high? Is there a wage gap caused by sexism?
Lara Stemple, Ilan H. Meyer, “Sexual Victimization by Women Is More Common Than Previously Known,” Scientific American, October 10, 2017.
Claire Berlinksi, “The Warlock Hunt,” The American Interest (2017).
Military Ethics
William James, “The Moral Equivalent of War” (1906).
Jean Bethke Elshtain, “Identity, the State and Sacrifice” (1991).
Collateral damage: Eye in the Sky (2015 movie)
War crimes and political optics: Breaker Morant (1980 movie)
Immigration
Data and charts: Cato Institute, 2019.
Michael Huemer, “Is There a Right to Immigrate?” Social Philosophy and Policy 36:3 (2010).
The Economist, “America is friendlier to foreigners than headlines suggest”, December 11, 2018.
Alex Nowrasteh, “The 14 Most Common Arguments against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong,” May 2, 2018.
Government funding and Art
Four articles from the 1989 debate sparked by federal funding for works by Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano:
Jesse Helms, “Amendment 420: The NEA Should Not Fund Obscenity” [pdf].
Robert Hughes, “A Loony Parody of Cultural Democracy” [pdf].
Robert Samuelson, “Highbrow Pork Barrel” [pdf].
Steven Durland, “Censorship, Multiculturalism, and Symbols” [pdf].
All four articles in one file [pdf]
Individuals
Was Columbus a good man?
Was Che Guevara a good man?
Was Abraham a good man?
Was Mother Teresa a good woman?
The story of Noah: genocide or moral lesson?
Self-esteem
Nathaniel Branden, Self-esteem as a Spiritual Discipline.
Zero-Sum Ethics
Lifeboat Scenarios and Trolley Problems.
Genocide
Who Killed Most?
Ilya Somin, “Who Was the Biggest Mass Murderer in History?” FEE.
Torture
Thomas Aquinas, “Whether it is lawful to kill sinners?” and “Whether heretics ought to be tolerated?” From Summa Theologica (1265-1274).
Augustine, on “Righteous Persecution” (c. 397-418 CE). HTML version
Cesare Bonesana, “Torture” (1764).
Michael Levin, “On Torture” (1982).
Equality
Kurt Vonnegut, “Harrison Bergeron” (1961).
Peter Boghossian and Purdue University students, “Equality of Outcome vs. Equality of Opportunity | Purdue University.”
Bradley Thomson, “Equality and the American Dream”
The Humane Treatment of Animals
Reason, 2018.
Was Abraham an Attempted-Murderer or a Hero?
Is and Ought: Is there a Natural Law?
F. H. Buckley, “Why I Am Not a Natural Lawyer.”
Douglas B. Rasmussen, “Natural Law, Positive Law, and Liberty.”
Other Materials
Heterodox Academy, Open Mind.
Debate Evaluation Rubric.