PHIL 20415 - Morality and Modernity, Spring 2008

Morality and Modernity Professor David Solomon, Ph.D. Mr. Peter Wicks Department of Philosophy University of Notre Dame Course Structure: Three 50-minute classes per week Prerequisites: None.

Jeremy Mulvey, Champ's Last Memo, 2003. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Course Description

This course explores the nature of modern morality through an examination of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor. We will read MacIntyre's groundbreaking account of emergence of modern morality, After Virtue, and compare his interpretation of the morality of modernity with that offered by Charles Taylor in The Ethics of Authenticity. We will also read works by Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, two thinkers whose ideas have powerfully shaped the moral culture of the modern world.

History of the Course

Professor Solomon first taught Morality and Modernity in 1995, and the course has been offered at Notre Dame in almost every subsequent year. Since 2006, Professor Solomon has co-taught the course with Peter Wicks, a Ph.D. student in the Philosophy Department. The materials here are based on the version of the course offered in the Spring of 2008.

This course was also cross-listed as HESB 30232.