Admission requirements
None.
Description
General education courses are absolutely essential to the first-year curricula of liberal arts and sciences programs. Liberal arts and sciences colleges are meant to cultivate well-rounded human beings, and this involves more than just teaching students how to perform certain tasks. It also involves letting them struggle with perennial problems, and not just contemporary global challenges.
The history of philosophy is really the history of the various arts and sciences. Long before we started distinguishing the various disciplines from each other (or trying to bring them back together, as we do at LUC), philosophy was the area of inquiry that addressed all of their questions. It is for this reason that someone like Aristotle could be such a foundational and influential thinker on topics ranging from ethics, aesthetics, and logic to physics, politics, and biology. A single course cannot hope to cover all of that, so we will focus on ethical issues—not only those having to do with why we think some behaviors are right and others wrong, but also with how we go about building a character and living a good life. But ethical issues do not arise in a philosophical vacuum, isolated from deeper epistemological and metaphysical questions. How can we know what is right and wrong in a particular situation unless we know a little something about what it is to know anything at all (or whether knowledge is even possible)? And given that our ethical views sit downstream from our metaphysical commitments (e.g. the religious beliefs that sit at the foundation of cultures tend to impact our respective notions of the good life), scrutinizing them is crucial for understanding the development of our moral intuitions. Thus, alongside its ethical emphasis, this course will serve as an introduction to several core philosophical issues, with the aim of making students better critical thinkers as they go on to consider the many ethical problems surrounding contemporary global challenges in their other courses.
There are, of course, numerous philosophical approaches and, depending on their academic background and interests, the various expert instructors of this course are responsible for determining the particular readings and topics to be covered in their own sections (assessments and other course policies remain consistent across all sections). Some instructors will adopt a more historical approach to the development of ethical theories and applications (perhaps tying this development to important events in world, European, and even Dutch history), while others might opt for a more thematic organization of the schedule from meeting to meeting (comparing modern ethical theories in the abstract before considering how to apply them in practice). There is even room for instructors (who have the appropriate education and training) to incorporate a more comparative, or multi-cultural, approach to ethical issues. (Please note that the regularly offered LUC course “Philosophies of the World” also provides students the opportunity to explore a variety of “non-Western” philosophies, and other occasional courses focus on specific “non-Western” philosophical traditions.) In all cases, this course will conclude with some discussion of the relevance of philosophical thinking for a pressing problem specific to the world today. For example, depending on each instructor’s experience and scholarly pursuits, students can expect to encounter ethical problems related to rapidly advancing technology, the increasingly perilous climate situation, the expansion of authoritarian tendencies, or any number of social injustices.
Course Objectives
This course aims to investigate a range of fundamental philosophical ideas and texts, with an emphasis on ethics. Students will be expected to compare, contrast, and critically discuss/write about the main issues and arguments, and apply some of them to specific contemporary issues.
Students who successfully complete the course will have a good understanding of:
details relevant to the course theme and the historical context of the texts, ideas, issues, and events studied;
practical/ethical problems related to certain developments in the world today.
Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:
formulate their own rational position (“independent learning”) on the topics covered in this course;
critically reflect on (“reflecting”) and distinguish between key types of philosophical argumentation;
exhibit the analytic skills (“analyzing”) necessary to comprehend the relevance of the past to their understanding of the present, while becoming more familiar with their own assumptions and values.
exhibit a set of reading, writing (“written communication”), and discussion (“oral communication”) skills that allow them to engage texts and other people in an informed and conscientious manner.
Timetable
Timetables for courses offered at Leiden University College in 2025-2026 will be published on this page of the e-Prospectus.
Mode of instruction
Although the various instructors will each adopt the pedagogical style that makes them most comfortable (e.g. some instructors like a more “slides and lecture” approach and others prefer something more conversational), each ordinary meeting of the course is likely to include group discussion of significant primary texts (with reading to be completed prior to each meeting). Each class will begin with the instructor introducing the key issues and readings for that day and offering an interpretation of the works being discussed. Students should join in the discussion at the appropriate time, asking questions, making suggestions, or making comparisons with other texts we have read. For each meeting, it is a good idea for each student to mark out a short passage (1-3 sentences) from the day’s reading that especially stood out. That way, each student will always have something to ask about or comment on.
Assessment Method
Participation and attentiveness in class discussions, 19%
Short written reflections (1200-1600 words total, split throughout the block), 16%
One “mid-term” essay (1000 words, due around week 4 or 5), 25%
One final short answer exercise (during reading week), 40%
Reading list
Readings will be available online. Check individual Brightspace pages before the course begins for information specific to each class/instructor.
Registration
Courses offered at Leiden University College (LUC) are usually only open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Leiden University students who participate in one of the university’s Honours tracks or programmes may register for one LUC course, if availability permits. Registration is coordinated by the Education Coordinator, course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
Dr. Adam Buben, a.j.buben@luc.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
-