- Online
- $140
In this course we survey and discuss the idea of “The Good” in Western Philosophy.
The idea of "The Good" (or "Goodness Itself") was at the centre of much of Ancient Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus. It continued to be central in Medieval Philosophy from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas, and in Early Modern Philosophy in the thought of rationalists such as Descartes, Leibniz and Kant.
But beginning with Spinoza and continuing with David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and J.S. Mill, talk of "The Good" was increasingly either rejected as metaphysical nonsense, or subsumed under the categories of personal preference, agreeableness, or pleasure.
In contemporary philosophy, there have been attempts to rehabilitate the centrality of the idea of "The Good," especially in G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica (1903) and Iris Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good (1970).
Dr. ANDERS KRAAL, PhD, is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at UBC. He has published papers in various areas of philosophy, including logic, philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy. He is the author of the recent monograph, The Problem of God in David Hume (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
Course outline
Week 1: Plato and “The Good”
Week 2: “The Good” in Ancient-Medieval Philosophy
Week 3: “The Good” Contested in Early Modern Philosophy
Week 4: G.E. Moore and “The Good”
Week 5: Iris Murdoch and “The Good”