L 383– 1 & 2:  Humanities I -- Evil and Good

Fall 2006: 

Russ  Kleinbach, Ph.D.

Phone:  O: 951-2606  &  H: 848-2308 -- KleinbachR@PhilaU.edu        

        Office Hours =  Tues: 9:30-10:30 & 1:00-2:00, & Wed: 9:30-10:30, and by appointment

Office:  Room  308  Ravenhill Mansion

Prerequisites:  At least sophomore status

Texts:          Bulk Pack of Readings.  [May be purchased in College Store]

                    Richard Wright, Uncle Tom’s Children.  New York:  Harper & Row, 1936/1992, paper.

Course Description:  A study of evil and good in society, religion, philosophy, art and literature, with attention to actual issues of evil and good in human social, economic and political life. Concepts of evil and good in both Western and non-Western cultures will be surveyed.  The course will also provide an introduction to ethical reasoning.  (3 credit hours)

Course Objectives:  By the end of the semester, students should be able to;

      1.   Define basic ethical terms and concepts,

      2.   Identify and explain ethical problems,

      3.   Formulate multiple possible solutions to ethical problems,

      4.   Identify goals, means, and ends involved in possible solutions,

      5.   List reasons for accepting or rejecting a proposed solution,

      6.   Compare and contrast Western with non-Western values and paradigms,

      7.   Identify value assumptions embedded in ideological positions, including your own,

      8.   Understand the importance of developing a sense of personal worth and moral agency.

Organization:  The course will be structured around the assigned reading, lectures by the instructor, student written work and class discussions.  We will read and study the assigned material and post on Blackboard or bring to class written and footnoted comments and questions on issues and categories on which we wish to elaborate, expound, raise questions and/or disagree.  Thus a good deal of responsibility for what happens in the class periods rests with the students.  We will spend much of our class time in discussion; examining  the assumptions, concepts and conclusions of the reading, and we will evaluate the reading in terms of issues which it addresses and the world view which it presupposes and/or projects.  We will try to probe the presuppositions and implications of what we read, and in so doing we will also probe the presuppositions from which we read. 

NB**: Students are expected to take notes on class discussions, films and speakers as well as on the textbook and lectures.

     **NB = nota bene (note well)

Etiquette request:  I request that students not chew gum or wear hats in class, unless for religious reasons.

Requirements:

(a)     Class attendance and contribution to class discussion, including written and footnoted comments & questions for each class that will be posted on Blackboard (before the reading assignments are discussed in class) & brought to class. (20% of grade)

(b)     First exam (15% of grade)

(c)     Second exam will be cumulative: (20% of grade)

(d)     Final exam will be cumulative:  (20% of grade)

(e)     Essay: Explanation and Analysis of (a) one’s own conceptual paradigm of evil and good, and  (b) the process one goes through when making evil/good judgments (25% of grade)

Exams must be taken and the paper turned in the days they are scheduled, except in cases of prior arrangement or personal emergency.  An unexcused make-up exam or late paper may be penalized 1/2 letter grade each day it is postponed.  Late exams will be made up at the convenience of the instructor!

In class discussion, papers, and exams students should (a) demonstrate knowledge of the data of the subject, i.e., the available information, theories, problems and questions related to the subject,
(b) demonstrate the student’s ability to be theoretical, i.e., to address the subjects in terms of the related abstract propositions and theories, (c) demonstrate the student’s ability to discuss the subject critically and reflectively, and (d) demonstrate the student’s ability to organize material coherently with a good balance of specificity, generalization and opinion.   

Contribution to class meetings will be evaluated in terms of the following: 

(a) The student’s critical evaluation and questioning of, and responses to the readings and comments of other students and the instructor,

(b) The student’s contribution to the learning of fellow students and the instructor; this includes listening to and responding to others in such a way that all involved are encouraged to listen, to learn and to express our questions and views during class, and

(c) The student’s demonstrated knowledge of the material.

(d)  Quality of student’s questions & comments posted on Blackboard.

    Attending class w/o active participation is the same as coming to take an exam and not writing anything except your name.

Communication skills:  It is policy that in all disciplines, and at all course levels, in the School of Liberal Arts, instructors incorporate into their courses the opportunity for students to develop their ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing.  In particular, essay exams or some form of written assignment (i.e., short analytic papers or a research paper) should be included in all courses offered in the School.  In this course these requirements will be met through the extended class discussions, the essay, and essay examinations.

Exams will be short answer and essay questions, and will cover material in the readings, films, material contributed to the class by the students and the instructor.

Essay:  Explanation and Analysis of (a) one’s own conceptual paradigm of evil and good, and
(b) the process one goes through when making evil/good judgments.  The essay should include your assumptions, principles, laws, norms and/or revelations upon which you base your judgments, and the reasoning, feeling, meditative, dialogical or other process(es) you use or experience in confronting questions of evil and good. The paper should be 6-8 pages in length.  The usual criteria that apply to written work apply to these papers, i.e., they should be clear, shows signs of some logical development, be free of logical contradictions, have a consistent theme, be readable and intelligible, and they should not be burdened by mechanical errors.  Papers should have introductory and summary paragraphs.  Be careful to use plural pronouns with plural nouns and singular pronouns with singular nouns.  Papers that do not complete the assignment or do not receive a grade of “C” or better will be rewritten.  Papers should be typed, preferably on a word processor, follow good essay form, have page numbers and be properly footnoted.  Students should always keep a copy of the paper. Please, no plastic covers or blank pages.  [See detailed assignment sheet]

“Properly footnoted” means that whenever you use a resource to gain information or ideas which are not general knowledge, you must provide documentation in order to give credit to the authors of the information and to allow anyone reading your paper to either check your research or read more of the work from which you are drawing.  Footnotes are required when items of information or ideas are drawn from a source, when material is paraphrased, and when material is quoted directly.  For information concerning proper documentation see any textbook on college writing or your expository writing text.   Incomplete documentation is called plagiarism.  Plagiarism is theft, and partially or totally stolen papers will not be accepted.

Academic integrity and honesty is expected in all forms of course work.  Any dishonesty or cheating may result in the student failing the assignment, the course and/or being brought before the Student Conduct Committee, which could lead to dismissal form the College.  The primary forms of academic dishonesty to be avoided are (a) plagiarism:  taking the ideas or words of another without giving due credit to the source, and (b) cheating:  giving or taking information during an examination.

Digital resources for this course.  The syllabus, assignments, readings, study notes for many readings, grades, special announcements and other materials for the course will be posted on Blackboard.  Students will be expected to post questions and/or comments on the BB discussion board for every class period for which there is assigned reading for discussion.

Spring 2006:  Tuesday / Thursday              

Tentative Schedule and Reading Assignments

(I): Readings are found in the first section of your bulk pack.

(II): Readings are found in the second section of your bulk pack.

Richard Wright: found in Uncle Tom’s Children:  Book from Campus Store

Ethics can be defined as a collective attempt through the use of reason, objective evidence, and experience to make sense of our social and individual experience in such a way as
(a) to determine the principles and rules which ought to govern human conduct,
(b) to determine the values worth pursuing in life, and (c) to determine the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and the goodness and badness of motives and ends of such actions.

- Older  Cultures -

Class:                                      

1    Mon   Aug      28    Introduction, brief history of ethics, Ethics definitions, & Sample Glossary 

2    Wed   Aug      30    (II)  Wicca   (II): West African Traditional Religions, pp. 1-13 & 152-166.

3    Wed   Sept     06     (I): Book of the Eskimos, pp. 161-182 & 229-239

4    Mon   Sept     11    (II): “Native American” definitions, 

                                      (II): “Chief Seattle . . . to the President.”  (II): “The Navaho,” pp. 1-6        

                                      • Step 1 of Essay Assignment      Due ! ! !

- Eastern and Mid-Eastern Cosmologies -

5    Wed   Sept     13 (I): “Confucius, The First Teacher,” pp. 38-48, 

                                    (I): “The Idealistic Wing of Confucianism: Mencius,” pp. 68-79,

6    Mon   Sept     18  (II): 1pg of The Tao of Physics,   (I): “Buddhism in India,” pp. 79-81,

                                    (II): “What Karma Explains,” pp. 354-357,  (II):  “Kural [Hindu Scripture],”  

7    Wed   Sept     20 First Exam -

8    Mon   Sept     25  (II): “Jewish & Christian [Old Testament] Scripture,”  (II): “Lilith,”  

                                    (II): “Legends of the Jews,” (II): Evidence of the Warrior-woman Myth

                                    (I): “Toward a New Theology of Sexuality,”

9    Wed   Sept     27  (II): “Christian Scripture,” (II): Situation Ethics, pp. 26-33 & 57-64. 

                                    (I): “Religious Absolutism,” pp. 15-25        

10  Wed.  Oct      04    (II): “The Role of Women in Islamic Societies,” • “Women and Gender; Democracy, Women’s Rights and Sharia Law,” • “Nigeria: We Cannot Be Distracted,”  • “Sharia is law of the land for the first time in Pakistan’s northwest,”  • “Muslim women launch international ‘gender jihad’,” • “India, Rulings for Women, by Women,”  • “Turkey fails to protect women . . . ,”  • “Seven arrested in Pakistan for ‘honor crime of rape,” and  • “Man cuts feet off ‘promiscuous wife.” 
• Film: Islam in America [297. I 75m  1992]

Western Ethics, Art & Literature

11  Mon     Oct     09    (II): “Euthyphro,” (I): “Kantian Ethics,” pp. 65-74

12  Wed     Oct     11    (I): “Rule Utilitarianism,” pp. 30-34,   (II): “Kohlberg's Stages . . .”

                                     • Step 2 & 3 of Essay Assignment      Due ! ! !

13  Mon     Oct     16    (I): In a Different Voice, by Carol Gilligan, pp. 72-73 & 98-105
  •  Film: Democracy in a Different Voice

                                      • Step 4 of Essay Assignment      Due ! ! !

- Contemporary Issues -

14  Wed     Oct     18    (II): • “First Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,”  • “United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948),”  • “Freedom of Choice Act [proposed],”  • “Equal Rights Amendment [proposed],”  • “Gay Bill of Rights [proposed],”  • “Access to Abortion Pared at State Level,”  • “Abortion talking points”  • Summary of Provisions of “Convention on Rights of the Child,” [1989]   • Articles on Convention on Rights of the Child.

15  Mon     Oct     23    (II): • "Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women,"
• “Agency calls for global halt to violence against girls,”  • “Taking aim at exploitation & enslavement of women,”  • “World violence against women a great unspoken pandemic,”  • “Abduction and rape of young girls for marriage common in rural Ethiopia,”  • “Kyrgyzstan: Focus on poverty as stimulus to sex trade in the south,”  • “U.S. withdraws support from women’s plan,”  • “Female genital mutilation,”  • "Excerpt from: Warrior Marks: Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women,”  • “Genital mutilation lessons in Africa,”  • “Alternative rite of passage tries to end female circumcision,”  • “Uganda: Female mutilation on the decline,”  • “Kenya bans female genital mutilation,”  • “Changing Tribal Traditions: Women Flee Circumcision, Forced Marriages.”     • Film: “Road to Change”

16  Wed     Oct     25    “Kidnapping for marriage (ala kachuu) in a Kyrgyz village.”

                                    • Film:  “Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan”

17  Mon     Oct     30    - Second Exam – [will be cumulative] 

18  Wed     Nov    01    BOOK: by Richard Wright, “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow,” 

                                    • Slides: “Images of Good and Evil in Art”

19  Mon     Nov    06    Richard Wright, “Big Boy Leaves Home” & “Down By The Riverside”

20  Wed     Nov    08    Richard Wright, “Bright and Morning Star,” “Long Black Song,” and “Fire & Cloud.”

                                    • Step 6 of Essay Assignment      Due ! ! !

21  Mon     Nov    13    (I) “Buddhist Economics”  (II)  Capitalism and Freedom, pp. 7-21,

22  Wed     Nov     15  (II)  Structural Violence:  "Violence, Nonviolence and the Struggle for Justice,"  • “Misconceptions about Rights to food.”  • “Why Socialism.”  [1949]  • "Pay Equity / Comparable Worth,"

23  Mon     Nov    20    (II)  “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally,”  • “Together We Stand Stronger,”  • “From Mondragon to Ohio: Building Employee Ownership.” • “Cooperatives v. Capitalist Corporations,”

24  Wed     Nov    22    (II) “CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prison,”  • “US occupiers kill prisoners,”   • “The US has used torture for decades,”    • “Communism, Terrorism & WMD,”  • “It is essential to talk to the terrorists.”
                                                                                               

25  Mon     Nov    27    •  Film: “The Torture Question”

                                    •  Step 7 of Essay Assignment      Due ! !

26  Wed     Nov    29    (II)  Sentencing Project,  • Prison Population Rate Per 100,000, 
• Amnesty International Facts on Death Penalty,  • Clearing of Illinois Death Row is Greeted by Cheers Overseas,  • Amnesty finds killers of whites are more likely to face death,  • A tide of doubt is rising about the death penalty,  • Ex-Death Row Inmate Hears Hoped-for Words: We Found Killer  

                                    Film: Deciding Who Dies  [364.66  D  294d  1997]                                     

27  Mon.    Dec    04    (I) John Cobb: “Ecology, Ethics, and Theology,” pp. 162-176. 

                                    (I) Peter Singer: “All Animals are Equal,” pp. 215-228
 

28  Wed     Dec    06    (II)  “Our Agony Over Animals,” pp. 29-37,  •  “Bonobos Are From Venus,”  •  “Why elephants are running berserk,”  •  “Tracking a killer of rhinos,” • “Alternatives for Animal Testing,”  • List of Cruelty Free Companies.  

        Finals Week:                  Exam [will be cumulative]