Purpose of the Course

The class essentially centers around three topics:

1. What is the nature of the life of excellence?
2. What is the ultimate worth of the goals you seek?
3. How do you rightly obtain your life goals?

Although these questions are simply stated, they prove to be most difficult to clarify. The objective of the course is for you to establish some good answers to these questions in light of a critical analysis of several important theories of ethics, including, among others, the ethics of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Sartre. Additionally, the ethics of utilitarianism, duty, religion, decision theory, naturalism, self-realization, and existentialism are studied in their own right.