(Class 13) 19 November (Last MU class meeting): Principles of Ethics

MU students: final course papers are due 11:59 pm 8 December 2020.

Text Link and Alternate Text Link

Part 1 : Aristotle and the Classical Rationalist Islamic Tradition on the Principles of Ethics

KUL-6 : Nojan Komeyli & Simon Derudder (second round). Handout of absolutely not more than 6 pp. + 2 pp bibliography due Tuesday 5 pm US Central Time/ midnight Leuven. Thursday at class: 8-10 min. oral presentation followed by discussion.

Required : (i) Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1.1-2, 1.13; 2.1-2; 3.2-5; 6.1-2. 6.12-13; 10.7-8 (ca. 28 pp.) available at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.183486/page/n61/mode/2up; (ii) Druart 1997, “Al-Farabi, Ethics, and First Intelligibles”; (iii) Avicenna, On the Science of Ethics, tr. McGinnis.

Students unfamiliar with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics may find these introductory undergraduate lectures of some value: NE-1, NE-2-4, NE-5, NE-7,10.

Recommended: (i) Kraut 2018, Aristotle’s Ethics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; (ii) Druart 1995, “Al-Farabi on the Practical and Speculative Aspects of Ethics”; (iii) Ibn Rushd / Averroes, Averroes on Plato’s Republic, tr. R. Lerner, Ithaca & London: Cornell U Press, 1974.

Part 2 : Aquinas on the Principles of Ethics

KUL-7 : Ryan Thomas Beaupre & Yutong Li / Zehao Lyu. Handout of absolutely not more than 6 pp. + 2 pp bibliography due Tuesday 5 pm US Central Time/ midnight Leuven. Thursday at class: 8-10 min. oral presentation followed by discussion.

Required: Aquinas’s Commentary on the 2nd Book of the Sentences, d. 24, q. 2   &   d. 39, q. 3 (for these Latin texts, see the Texts links) and  two articles from the Summa Theologiae, I, q.79, a.12   &   II-II, q. 47, a. 6.

Recommended: TBA