PHIL 163.001 – Practical Ethics
Instructor: Alexander Jech. This course meets TR 8:00 – 9:15 a.m. in PH 328.
Topic: The Ethics and Philosophy of Work
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to philosophical and ethical modes of reflection upon the nature of “work.” The philosophical core of the course will be provided by the divergent perspectives of Aristotle, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx on the nature of work and its relationship to human happiness and its role within human community. In addition to studying these classic authors, we will examine several particular kinds of work, such as agriculture, manual labor, and business, seeing how the perspectives of Aristotle, Smith, and Marx illuminate these, and vice versa. Two papers will be required.