Description

MOV product: and the Science of Human Nature pairs central texts from Western philosophical tradition (including works by Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Hobbes, Kant, Mill, Rawls, and Nozick) with recent findings in cognitive science and related fields. The course is structured around three intertwined sets of topics: Happiness and Flourishing; Morality and Justice; and Political Legitimacy and Social Structures.Lecture 1 IntroductionLecture 2 The Ring of Gyges: Morality and HypocrisyLecture 3 Parts of the Soul ILecture 4 Parts of the Soul IILecture 5 The Well-Ordered Soul: Happiness and HarmonyLecture 6 The Disordered Soul: Themis and PTSDLecture 7 Flourishing and AttachmentLecture 8 Flourishing and DetachmentLecture 9 Virtue and Habit ILecture 10 Virtue and Habit IILecture 11 Weakness of the Will and ProcrastinationLecture 12 Utilitarianism and its CritiquesLecture 13 DeontologyLecture 14 The Trolley ProblemLecture 15 Empirically-informed ResponsesLecture 16 Philosophical PuzzlesLecture 17 Punishment ILecture 18 Punishment IILecture 19 Contract & Commonwealth: Thomas HobbesLecture 20 The Prisoner’s DilemmaLecture 21 EqualityLecture 22 Equality IILecture 23 Social StructuresLecture 24 CensorshipLecture 25 Tying up Loose EndsLecture 26 Concluding LectureAbout Professor Tamar GendlerTamar Szabó Gendler is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Yale University and Chair of the Department of Philosophy. She received her BA in Humanities and Mathematics & Philosophy from Yale in 1987 and her PhD in Philosophy from Harvard in 1996. After a decade teaching first at Syracuse University and then at Cornell, she returned to to Yale as a professor in 2006. Her professional philosophical work lies at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, and she is the author of Thought Experiments (2000) and Intuition, Imagination and Philosophical Methodology (2010), and editor or co-editor of Conceivability and Possibility (2002), Perceptual Experience (2006) and The Elements of Philosophy (2008). She has been honored with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the American Council for Learned Societies, and the Mellon Foundation.