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12Nov 2026
Aristotle’s Ethics (NE 2-3)
Virtue: Excellence, Moral (temperance, courage, et al,) or Intellectual (prudence, wisdom, understanding)
Virtue: Habit; Pleasures and Pains; trained by education over desires and emotions.
Virtue: A disposition of character regarding things up to us (choices) and our actions
Virtue: manifested in the doctrine of the mean or middle state between excess and deficiency, only with approximations to acting with right reason. (There is no virtuous thief or liar.) Virtues is the middle state and their opposites are extremes: Courage is between rashness and cowardice.
What makes virtues and good character our own? What makes vice our own? Voluntariness.
Up to us, not by force or coercion; with knowledge of particulars = voluntary
But what is full moral responsibility: add in: deliberation and decision. So what is Courage? What is temperance?
10 November 2026
J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. 2
Contextualizing
For St Augustine:
1. the two most important considerations are God and the human soul. For this he draws on Christian Scriptures (e.g., the two new laws of love of the New Testament) interpreted through the use of Platonism. God as the Creator and ultimate Good responsible for the universe of creatures created human beings’ souls with Will as the ultimate deciding tool by which humans carry out moral actions or immoral actions.
2. This leaves responsibility for evil done with individual human beings.
3. We are carried up to God through seeking out and achieving moral virtues. These cannot be lost by us so long as we (by Will and habitual efforts) direct our Love and actions toward what cannot be taken from us without our agreeing and willing to lose it, that is, to lose virtue and real love of God. If we direct our love by willing to embrace lower things (e.g. money, power, pleasures of the body, material things), we are choosing things which can be lost by us without our willing. Disease can take away pleasure and power without our willing. War and the stock market can take away our money without our willing. These transitory, changing, matters can be lost without our willing to lose them.
4. The weight of our Love should carry us upward to virtues of soul and to God who is the author of Good and who is Good & Truth Itself.
Kant
1. sees the nature of morality to lie inside our powers of reason.
2. We must use of Will in a way that reason teaches us to become intentionally willing beings guided by our essential nature as reasoning beings. Like Augustine concerning transitory things not in our control, so similarly for Kant we are not in control of what happens outside of us in the world.
3. What we control for Kant is our internal intentions. For him, what is moral concerns our willing and intending to do what is right.
4. Still, we do not control the outcome or consequences but only the forming of moral intentions. 5. To help realize morality internally then, Kant says reason is our key tool and the principle to keep us on a moral track is the Categorical Imperative in its four (4) forms.
J. S. Mill
Kant focused on key principles and formed a philosophy that uses a few of these principles in a way we can easily understand once it is explained to us, even if its details and entailments are complex and challenging to think about.
Mill similarly seeks out simple principles while acknowledging that moral matters have been debated for centuries in very complex ways.
He focuses on one key principle: The greatest happiness principle. (Remember the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid!)
1. What is happiness? Pleasure and the absence of pain. This is the principle of Utility or most usefulness. What is unhappiness? Pain and the absence of pleasure.
2. What is pleasure?
2.1. There are higher and lower pleasures.
2.1.1. Pleasures of the mind are greater. Examples.
2.1.2. Pleasures of the body are lesser.
(You are here in college setting aside present pleasures of the body in favor of pleasures of the mind in learning. Knowing is much more valuable and pleasing than pleasures of the body. Think about it. Also, which is preferred, ice cream or philosophy class?)
2.1.3. Who is to judge? (Remember Plato: who is to judge happiness?) The person who has experienced both pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind. Think about it not superficially but deeply.
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” How so?
The quality of pleasures counts. And the ability to appreciate that quality counts too.
3. 1. What we seek then is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain AND ALSO to do so not just for ourselves but for everyone.
3.2. Impartiality: This requires then that we do not act only selfishly but rather that we seek this for all in society.
3.3. This can require self-sacrifice of our own pleasures for the sake of the whole of society’s individuals.
It also involves the Golden Rule or second law of love from the New Testament.
3.4. We need to use our minds to calculate how to achieve the GGFGN: Greatest Good For Greatest Number.
3.5. We also need to formulate rules to guide us in right actions promoting the GGFGN. Hence, we need to form rules that guide us to act in accordance with the Primary Principle or Utility.
27 Oct Exams returned and discussed; St Augustine: What is the connection of Augustine with Plato
Book 1: Evil: Evodius: Why? ; Was to wrong go God to give free will?; What is it anyway? Nothing. Could it be learned? (Don’t thieves learn how to be good at their work?); What is sin? (what is freedom?); Goods eternal in rank order: God, truth, wisdom and justice; temporal: pleasure, power, wealth, honor, beauty; Will and Sin; Divine justice; in sum: who is the cause of sin? what is the importance of will? (a gift or a burden?) Pondus animae, pondus amoris (The weight of the soul; weight of love.); the morality of free will. Finally, for what reason did God give humans good will?
13 Oct
First: How to write a simple philosophy exam essay with an outline.
(1) State the thesis that your essay will defend and support, explaining briefly how important it is for the philosopher asserting it. (E.g., the best way to get to Chicago is the bus.)
(2) If the question has several parts, make a list of the parts to be explained and how they add up for the conclusion.
For example:
(2.1) amount of time
(2.2) reliability
(2.3) cost
(2.4) comfort
(3) Now explain how those parts lead to contributing to the broader conclusion expressed in your thesis set out above in (1).
Second: What is freedom? Plato, Rep. 9: The Tyrant : in politics and in soul; The Aristocratic person in politics and in soul. The three arguments: 575-580a (happiness); 580c-583a (most pleasant); 583b-588a (purest pleasures).
8 Oct
Republic 8
Cities and Soul
Aristocracy, wisdom, rationality, Tyranny
(i) Aristocracy to Tyranny
Aristocracy: virtue
The collapse of Aristocracy
Bad breeding and the rise of honor and property, then
Timocracy
Property, extremes of wealth and poverty, money is the measure, then
Oligarchy rule by the rich
2 distinct and separate cities, wealth over virtue, revolution, then
Democracy: equality, freedom
Equality, valueless, expertise lost, then
Tyranny, appetites unloosened
Tuesday 6 Oct. [Politics and AI: Links to Texts] (i) Rep. 7. The Image of the Cave; then (ii): what is required of the philosopher? how does one qualify? Why is mathematics, especially geometry important? What is dialectical reasoning and what are its starting points? (iii) Finally, what about corrupt philosophers? What are the temptations? Is it really possible to have in our imperfect world the perfect city state of Plato? (iv) How do we start a perfect state when we are still so imperfect? How do we instill the right habits in the children who live in an imperfect or corrupt state?
Thursday 1 Oct. Link to Texts; NPR, BBB Tax cuts; (i) complete Rep. 6 from 502c: The unchanging form of the Beautiful; The skills of the philosopher and the uselessness of the philosopher; the captain & navigator of the ship; the ease of corruption; 505c is the good pleasure? The Sun and the Good. Discussion of the question, What is knowledge? (Forms, universals and particulars)The Divided Line.
Tuesday 29 Sept: (i) ODS; (ii) CORRECTION Republic Book 5 472a to 480a and Book 6 beginning (483e) to 502c; (iii) “What is” Parmenides, Heraclitus, Knowledge, Science; (iv) Note sheets: Just note 5-6 points that seem to be important & provide 2 questions; (v) 489e-490 a truth; 490d bad; 499a.
Thursday 24 Sept: Republic 5 up to 472a. Women and Children in the Republic. (i) NYTimes; (ii) Note 422a; 434b; 449c-d. (iii) Stephanus pagination. (iv) “See me” means make an appointment to meet with me. (v) Quiz on Rep.4 (vi) What are the virtues that constitute Justice for Plato? (vii) What are the three “waves” in the remarks of Socrates in the Republic which crash hard into the shore of Greek Athenian culture?
Tuesday 22 Sept: SPECIAL: Discussion of the movie, The Matrix. At class we will discuss Rep. 3-4. Reading for this class is: (i) Republic Book 4, Student Notes Sheets; (ii) Preview Republic Book 5.
Thursday 17 Sept: Republic 2-3 on the city as a model of the soul. (i) return homeworks & discuss; (ii) “Any questions about Rep. 2-3 on the soul and the city or other matters?” (iii) possible quiz; (iv) AI; (vi) next reading Re. 4: more on the structure of the city. (Remember: The City is an analogous model for the soul. And it is the soul that we are most interested in.). Finally, (vii) This weekend find time to watch the movie, The Matrix. Best would be to do it with other students in the class so you can discuss it as you watch.
Tuesday 14 Sept: (i) Discussion of the politics of AI today; (ii) Review of Rep. book 1; (iii) Student homework questions on Rep. 2; (iv) Last practice quiz on Rep. 2; (v) break; (vi) review of answers to practice quiz; (vii) introduction of the new student home work sheet; (viii) preview for next class which fill focus on the creation of the city as a model for the human soul in Rep. 2-3.
Thursday 10 Sept: Republic Book 1: A simple chat with Socrates turns into a question about how to live your life. Read it once to do the Divisio Textus and then again to understand the discussion.
Tuesday 8 Sept: (i) Review on the character of Socrates in The Apology; (ii) Kennedy 20 Jan 1961: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” (iii) Declaration of Independence; (iv) US Constitution ; (v) Discussion of Plato’s Crito; (vi) Cultural perspectives: Socrates and modern American students; (vii) AI: “In Plato’s Crito, Socrates gives arguments as to why he should not try to escape the sentence of death. He sets out the side of the State that it raised him and he benefited from it, so he should not break the law and try to escape the verdict reached in the Apology. Socrates weighed the reasoning and decided he must stay and accept his sentence. Would modern Americans think about these matters in the same way as Socrates? Is the historical, social and political context today suggest a different approach?” (GROK, CHATGPT, GEMINI, CLAUDE, COPILOT, [other?])