Analysis

In this section, we shall consider what it means to think analytically.  But this, I mean breaking down a topic and then reconstructing it to provide a new perspectives on something.  I am especially interested in statements that have this form:  “If I think this…., then the implication is this…..”

Our goal in reflecting on the topics below will be to consider the relationship between our conceptions of Hell and human behavior.  My basic proposition is that the way we define the world will have important implications for how we should act.

Consider these issues:

      • What do we mean when we speak about the “human condition”?
      • What do we mean when we speak about “human nature”?  Is human nature the same thing as the human condition? (Not necessarily)
      • Does it matter whether there continue to be different conceptions of Hell in our society?
      • How is our conception of Hell related to our moral options?

15.  Tuesday, March 2

Today, I want to begin our discussion about the moral implications of our understanding of Hell by considering a topic that has come up frequently:  the human condition.  What do we mean by this abstract concept?

To facilitate this discussion, I am asking you to read two of the most vivid chapters from Fyodr Dostoevsky’s extraordinary novel, The Brother’s Karamazov.

As you read the chapters, ask yourself:  What is Ivan Karamazov’s “argument” about the human condition?  What do you make of his recommendations as expressed through the Grand Inquisitor?

      • An excerpt from Fyodr Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov Ivan Karamazov’s sobering thoughts on “Rebellion” and the poem of the Grand Inquisitor. Go to this link:  The Brothers Karamazov PRINT AND READ pp. 296-332. ***
      • “Chemical Attack in Syria” READ

To bring Dostoevsky up to date, consider these two readings about the science of Free Will:  Can we change the human condition by exercising our Free Will? Do we even have Free Will?

      • Robert Sapolsky says NO:  READ
      • Moshe Szyf and others say YES (or, perhaps, MAYBE): READ

         

*** No Notre Dame student should graduate without reading The Brothers Karamazov. The book will change the way you look at life.

16.  Thursday, March 4

We will review the “arguments” of the primary readings in the class thus far: Scranton, Dante, Wade, O’Connor, Sartre, and Eggers.

MID-TERM BREAK

Saturday, March 7 – Sunday, March 15

Notre Dame and America enter the Global Crisis created by Covid-19 (an Eleventh Image of Hell).  In person-courses are suspended.  We begin your education on a virtual basis, using this syllabus, GooGle DOCS, and zoom. 

Tuesday, March 17 and Thursday, March 19: No Classes

IMAGE SIX

UTILITARIANISM:  “HELL BY NUMBERS”

17. Tuesday, March 24 

Discussion:   Today, we will begin to discuss the moral implications of utilitarian judgments of human worth.

Peter Singer, “Taking Life: Humans,” PRINT AND READ (if you have any problems with this link, please let me know)
Harriet Johnson, “Unspeakable Conversations” PRINT AND READ
“Catholic Social Teaching and the Dignity of the Human Person” PRINT AND READ

What are the Coronavirus’s implications for our attitudes about the value of human life?

“Who lives and who dies?” READ

For this discussion, I recommend that you surf around for a very general understanding of the philosophical approach known as “utilitarianism.” You do not need to learn about the different types of 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)

 

18. Thursday, March 26

Via Zoom: The Second Great Debate!

Topic: “When it comes to human dignity, Singer is far more humane than the Roman Catholic Church”

–Relevant sections of the Vatican’s “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church”: PRINT AND READ

Important background information on the humane treatment of non-homo sapiens:  WATCH

Your second writing assignment is HERE

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POVERTY:  “POOR AS HELL”

ROMANS 15:1 “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.”

21.  Tuesday, March 31

Discussion: How should we describe American poverty? How can we explain it?  What will be the impact of Covid-19 on the American poor?

Photo Credit: Jezza Nuemann

Assignment:

Go to this page to find a collection of video links about what it means to be poor in America. WATCH

Also READ:

Dahleen Glanton, “Growing up with poverty and violence: A North Lawndale teen’s story” READ

“The Coronavirus will be a Disaster for the Poor”: READ

“Coronavirus and Poverty: A Mother Skips Meals So Her Children Can Eat”  READ

 

22.  Thursday, April 2

What are our obligations to the poor, if any?  Assuming we have obligations: 1) where do they come from? and 2) what should they be?  Is there anything we can learn from the poor?

Ask yourself:  What are the implications of the way we explain poverty? Do different explanations leave us with different obligations to the poor, or none at all?  Or is our obligation to help the poor absolute?

Michelle Singletary, “What do we as Society Owe the Poor?” READ

Peter Singer, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” READ

Roman Catholicism and the American poor:  What are the implications of this interview with one of the founders of “liberation theology,” Leonardo Boff:  PRINT AND READ

Now, please read the following quotations:

Jesus on the Poor:

Mark 12:41-44
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.  A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’

A politician’s view: Pete Buttigieg on our obligation to the poor:

“When I think about where most of Scripture points me, it is toward defending the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast, and those who are left behind by the way society works. And what we have now is this exaltation of wealth and power, almost for its own sake, that in my reading of Scripture couldn’t be more contrary to the message of Christianity. So I think it’s really important to carry a message (to the public), knitting together a lot of groups that have already been on this path for some time, but giving them more visibility in the public sphere.”

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s definition of “Equality of Opportunity.”
Equality of opportunity is a political ideal that is opposed to caste hierarchy but not to hierarchy per se. The background assumption is that a society contains a hierarchy of more and less desirable, superior and inferior positions. Or there may be several such hierarchies. In a caste society, the assignment of individuals to places in the social hierarchy is fixed by birth. The child acquires the social status of his or her parents at least if their union is socially sanctioned. Social mobility may be possible in a caste society, but the process whereby one is admitted to a different level of the hierarchy is open only to some individuals depending on their initial ascriptive social status. In contrast, when equality of opportunity prevails, the assignment of individuals to places in the social hierarchy is determined by some form of competitive process, and all members of society are eligible to compete on equal terms.

 

NOTE: Please leave your technology at home. This includes electronic devices of any kind, such as laptops, i-Pads, cell phones, Kindles, x-Boxes, clouds, video cameras, or other personal digital devices