Course

Course Summary
Credit Type:
Course
ACE ID:
SAYA-0011
Organization's ID:
PHIL103
Organization:
Saylor Academy
Location:
Online
Length:
Self-paced (104 hours)
Dates Offered:
Credit Recommendation & Competencies
Level Credits (SH) Subject
Lower-Division Baccalaureate 3 Political Theory, Ethics, or Philosophy
Description

Objective:

The course objective is to survey the development and application of moral reasoning skills to contemporary social and political issues. Topics include philosophical investigations of justice, the value of human life, the moral standing of the free market, fundamental human rights, and the conditions for a moral community.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Explain how the major areas of moral and political philosophy differ from and relate to one another
  • Use ethical, moral, and political terminology correctly and consistently
  • Analyze how moral and political dilemmas are handled differently by each set of theoretical principles
  • Analyze the consequences of various moral principles, and interpret how these principles relate to concepts of justice
  • Discuss the relationship between morality and politics
  • Identify and describe the origins of western democratic politics and constitutional government
  • Identify and describe the major areas of moral and political theory
  • Understand the views and arguments of major philosophical figures and their location in these broader contexts
  • Apply critical thinking and reasoning skills to ethical issues in a variety of professional contexts
  • Identify and describe several major theories of justice and morality, including utilitarianism, libertarianism, social contract theory, deontology, natural law, and the ethics/politics of virtue
  • Analyze a range of difficult and controversial moral and political issues, including murder, the income tax, corporate cost-benefit analysis, lying, affirmative action, and same-sex marriage

General Topics:

  • Meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics
  • Consequentialist ethics
  • Utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stewart Mill
  • The individual and the state
  • Plato's Crito and The Republic
  • Libertarianism, individual freedom, Milton Friedman, and Robert Nozick
  • Individual rights, property rights, the state, and John Locke
  • Markets
  • Surrogate motherhood and the case of Baby M
  • Reproductive rights
  • Right to life
  • Deontology, groundwork for the metaphysics of morals, and Immanuel Kant
  • Social contract theory and Thomas Hobbes
  • A Theory of Justice and John Rawls
  • Distributive, retributive, and restorative justice
  • Income inequality, race, and affirmative action
  • Aristotle's The Politics
  • Virtue and justice
  • Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
  • Community, loyalty, and patriotism
  • Marriage equality and same-sex marriage
  • Cultural relativism
  • Existentialism, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean-Paul Sartre
  • The relationship between morality and the law
Instruction & Assessment

Instructional Strategies:

  • Audio Visual Materials
  • Case Studies
  • Computer Based Training
  • Discussion
  • Lectures

Methods of Assessment:

  • Examinations

Minimum Passing Score:

70%
Supplemental Materials