Ethics Level 1: How Should We Act?

Should you keep a promise when breaking it would help more people? Is a kind lie still a lie? What is a fair way to share? Everyone answers questions like these every day, usually without stopping to think. This course is about stopping to think. It doesn't tell you what to believe. It shows the reasons people give, and the main ways thinkers have reasoned about right and wrong for more than two thousand years - looking at results, keeping to duties and rights, and asking what a good person would do - so that you can weigh them yourself. Short lessons start with what makes a question a moral one and why reasons matter more than feelings alone. Then come everyday questions about promises, honesty, fairness and harm; then the three big ways of reasoning, each with its strengths and its puzzles, from the runaway trolley to the middle way; and last, what to do when good values pull in different directions, and when people disagree. It follows Logic Level 1, but you can start here. You need only a notebook and the people around you.