We now move beyond the issue of description to explore the topic of explanation. For social scientists, this means focusing on causation. For example, if we pose the following question, “How do we account for the fact that ‘Hell happens…?” we are automatically compelled to consider possible causes. Since one or more causes are conceivable options, we have to make a choice about better or worse explanations. This bring up a second issue. How do issues of cause and effect become muddied as a result of different understandings of a topic like Hell? If I believe Hell means one thing and you believe it means something quite different, we may identify different causes. As we move along in this seminar, we will see that these issues have important implications for our actions.
IMAGE FOUR: TYRANTS, KILLERS, AND MADMEN: “THE DEVIL’S DEEDS”
Alternate Title: Are we “killers”?
13. Thursday, February 23
Discussion: In this section, we discuss explanations of Hell that focus on the role of individual human beings.
Robert Todd Carroll, “Satan,” in the The Skeptic’s Dictionary: PRINT AND READ
Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin, pp. 56-84 PRINT AND READ
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, pp. 36-55 PRINT AND READ
“Narcissistic Personality Disorder”: PRINT AND READ
Background information about various “devils”: National Public Radio interview with Riccardo Orizio about Talk about the Devil: LISTEN
IMAGE FIVE: STALIN’S TERROR: “A SELF-IMPOSED
13. Tuesday, February 28
Film: TBA
“Interrogation”: READ HERE
I will show you this shocking but immensely revealing film about the Stalinist terror in Poland in the Nanovic Institute. At class time, we will meet in the Institute to watch the first half of the film; then we will meet for dinner in the Institute to see the rest of the film in the evening. We will begin at 6:00.
14. Thursday, March 2
Yevgenia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind (Read the first half of the book)
15. Tuesday, March 7
On this date, we will meet again in the Rare Books Room of Hesburgh Library. Natasha Lyandres, director of Special Collections, will show us the absolutely wonderful Ginzburg family archive
16. Thursday, March 9
Yevgenia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind (Finish the book)
MID-TERM BREAK: MARCH 12 – MARCH 19
IMAGE SIX: TECHNOLOGY”R”US: “A HELL OF YOUR OWN MAKING”
17. Tuesday, March 21
We begin discussing of one of the most prophetic works of modern times. In fact, it is so prophetic that it captures much of our world today:
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World. Read chapters 1-5.
Disneyland ”R” Us: READ AND PRINT
Facebook “R” US: READ AND PRINT
18. Thursday, March 23
Finish discussion of Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.
Are there elements of Huxley’s argument in “Loving Donation” and “baby design”? Or is this just an example of the positive uses to which modern technology can be put? I would be grateful for your suggestions about other examples of technological innovation that allow us to raise these questions?
“Loving Donation”: BROWSE THROUGH ALL OF THE PAGES ON THIS SITE
Let’s Design Better Babies: PRINT AND READ
“Mary had a little lamb” RECITE
18. Tuesday, March 28
Discussion: What are the moral implications of the way we define what matters most in the world? Today, we will begin to discuss the moral implications of utilitarian judgments of human worth. There is a serious kernel of utilitarianism throughout Brave New World.
Peter Singer, “Taking Life: Humans,” from Practical Ethics (HAND-OUT)
Harriet Johnson, “Unspeakable Conversations” PRINT AND READ
“Catholic Social Teaching and the Dignity of the Human Person” PRINT AND READ
Abdulaziz Sachedinar, “Reflections on Human Personhood: an Islamic Perspective” PRINT AND READ
For this discussion, I recommend that you surf around a bit to acquire a very general understanding of the philosophical approach known as “utilitarianism.
As you read Singer’s work, consider an alternative perspective on human worth that is reflected in the passage from Jacques Maritain below. Maritain was one of the greatest Catholic philosophers of the twentieth century and the intellectual father of Vatican II:
“Let us think of the human being, not in an abstract and general way, but in the most concrete possible, the most personal fashion. Let us think of this certain old man we have known for years in the country—this old farmer with his wrinkled face, his keen eyes which have beheld so many harvests and so many earthly horizons, his long habits of patience and suffering, courage, poverty and noble labor, a man perhaps like those parents of a great living American statesman whose photographs appeared some months ago in a particularly moving copy of a weekly magazine. Or let us of think of this certain boy or this girl who are our relatives or our friends, whose everyday life we well know, and whose loved appearance, whose soft or husky voice is enough to rejoice our hearts . . . . We perceive intuitively, in an indescribable not inescapable flash, that nothing in the world is more precious than one single human being.”
—Jacques Maritain, “The Immortality of Man” (1941)
19. Thursday, March 30
The Second Great Debate!
Topic: “When it comes to human dignity, Singer is far more humane than the Roman Catholic Church
OMG: Please leave your technology at home. This includes electronic devices of any kind, such as laptops, i-Pads, i-Pads2, I-Phones 12, FBI trap-and-trace tools, Kindles, video cameras, or other personal digital devices.