HUEN 1010 001

Introduction to the Humanities

Spring 2010: Enduring Considerations in Human Deliberation

TR 9:30 – 10:45

This survey will consider several of the most important kinds of issues we face as we decide how to live our lives. We must decide how to understand and assess, for example, the reasons we and other human beings are selfish, noble, pleasure-seeking, loving, religious, morally upright, or prone to excuse ourselves from strict moral demands. The works selected for our study are chosen with the following characteristics in mind: they are challenging, probing, of differing points of view, and of different genres (history, tragedy, comedy, film, novel, philosophy, theology, essay, and opera). If they don’t make you think, don’t blame them!

I.                   On Selfishness and the Causes of Cruelty: 2 weeks

a.       Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, Book V, Chapter 4: Rebellion

b.      Thucydides, Corcyrean Revolution, III. 70-86 . . .  or a reading on the Holocaust

c.       Hobbes, On Man and On the State of Nature, De Cive, Chapters I and V  

II.                On Nobility: 2 weeks

a.       Livy, Early History of Rome, I.56-2.15 (pp. 96-122)

b.      Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

III.             On Pleasure, Love, and Moral Limits: 2 weeks

a.      Big Night, Directed by Campell Scott and Stanley Tucci, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115678/

b.      Mozart, Don Giovanni

c.    Plato, Symposium, Speeches on love by Aristophanes and Socrates

IV.             On Religion and Moral Duties: 4 weeks

a.       The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount

b.      Sophocles, Antigone

c.       Aristophanes, Birds

V.                On Politics, War, and Moral Limits: 2 weeks

a.       Thucydides, Melian Debate, V. 84-115

b.      Machiavelli, Prince, Chapters 15-18

VI.             On Scientific Reasoning and Religious Belief: 3 weeks

a.       Sigmund Freud, Future of an Illusion

b.      Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

c.       Pascal, Pensées (selections)

This course is a seminar, and regular class participation is required. In addition to this regular preparation, grades will be based on five short papers of 2-4 pages in length, ten short written homework assignments of about a paragraph, and one formal speech. There will be no exams unless it should appear they are needed as a further incentive to encourage study.