Quest for Meaning: Values, Ethics, and the Modern Experience
Overview
About
01: Values and Modernity
The Axial Period is discussed: It was a time of spiritual awakening from 800 to 300 BCE that still is felt in the modern age and seems to be recurring. Pluralism and uncertainty are two challenges to modernity. They and others lie behind many of our current moral confusions and disagreements.
02: An Ancient Quest, A Modern Challenge
This lecture explains the nature of the ancient quest for wisdom and meaning in life that is threatened by the modern era. It uses as an example one of the greatest thinkers of the ancient Axial Period, the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who said that by expelling final causes or purposes from nature, modern science has sundered fact from value and scientific inquiry from practical inquiry about the good.
03: Pluralism, Religion, and Alien Cultures
Turn to aspects of the Western world's confrontation with pluralism and uncertainty. Developments at the end of the Middle Ages conspired to undermine many beliefs and certainties of the medieval world and shattered its religious unity. Explore confrontations with cultural and religious pluralism, the religious disputes and wars that consumed Europe after the Reformation, and the reaction to the discovery of alien peoples and cultures in the new world. It also considers the growing interest in Eastern civilizations, such as China and India.
04: Are Values Subjective?
Are there objective values, or are all judgments about good and evil, right and wrong, merely subjective expressions of personal feelings or attitudes? This lecture considers two opposing ideas that have led many to subjectivist views about values: positivism and Existentialism. One emphasized science as the source of all knowledge, the other emphasized personal experience. We focus on two influential philosophers of the 20th century, Bertrand Russell, the British logician and philosopher, and Jean-Paul Sartre, the French Existentialist.
05: From Experience to Worth
In this lecture we consider the case for objectivity. Reference will be made to modern thinkers not yet discussed and to some ancient figures to suggest a distinction between four dimensions of human value: the experiential dimension, the dimension of purposive activity, the dimension of meaning and excellence in forms of life, and the dimension of nonrelative worth transcending particular points of view.
06: Hume and the Challenge of Relativism
In this lecture we consider the "project of modernity," the ethical project undertaken by modern philosophers from the 17th century on who address the problem of relativism within the conditions of modernity. We consider how this project was carried out by modern philosophers. We start with the sentimentalist option, beginning with 18th-century Scottish philosopher, David Hume. His views are compared to those of Adam Smith, one of the founding figures of modern economic theory, and to two Chinese thinkers of the original Axial Period, Confucius and Mencius.
07: Cultural Diversity, Human Nature, and the Social Sciences
Follow debates about sentiments in ethics and value theory from Hume's time into the 20th century. These debates lead to a discussion of social sciences to current debates about cultural and ethical relativism. Early on, anthropology alerted people to the amazing diversity of human cultures. A concern in 20th century social sciences raises the topics of human uniformities and cultural universals. We discuss relativism and modern appeals to human nature and common moral sentiments, like those of Hume, Adam Smith, and Mencius.
08: Kant’s Appeal to Reason
In this lecture we turn to the appeal to reason. Another major figure of modern philosophy and the 18th-century Enlightenment is Immanuel Kant. In his "Critique of Pure Reason" (1781), Kant demonstrated the limitations of theoretical reason in science. Science is successful within its own domain, he argued, but only because it stays within the limits of possible experience.
09: Bentham, Mill, and the Appeal to Utility
This lecture is devoted to utilitarianism, the third option of the project of modernity. We discuss the central principles of utilitarianism, the principle of utility, or of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Through a discussion of Jeremy Bentham, founder of utilitarianism, and John Stuart Mill, its greatest 19th-century representative, we deal with its central issues: defining and measuring happiness, pleasure and pain, alleged conflicts between utility and justice, theories of punishment, and issues of social reform.
10: Social-Contract Theories (Part I)
In this lecture and the next we turn to the fourth alternative of the project of modernity, the appeal to a social contract. Two ideas of contemporary social contract theories are considered. The first were posited by Thomas Hobbes and are often called Hobbesian theories; the second, "ideal theories," stem from John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Emmanuel Kant. We also begin discussing ideal social contract theories—to be continued into the next lecture—using John Rawls's theory of justice.
11: Social-Contract Theories (Part II)
This lecture considers the criticisms of Rawls's contractarian theory of justice as a barometer of the ideological and value debates of our times. Rawls's controversial second principle of justice is discussed. The lecture considers communitarian and social-conservative critics of Rawls, including Michael Sandel and Alasdair MacIntyre, who object to the individualism of Rawls's theory and its failure to address virtue, personal identity, and the needs for community.
12: Some Critiques of the Modern Project
In this lecture we consider contemporary thinkers who believe the project of modernity has failed. Some argue for a return to ancient and medieval ways of thinking about values and ethics that emphasize traditional virtues and notions of the good life. Postmodern critics are inclined to embrace relativism and agree with traditionalists, but do not think we can go back to premodern ideas. We must go forward to a new postmodern age.
13: Retrieving the Quest for Wisdom
In this lecture we focus on the "quest" for wisdom and meaning by beginning to explore how the ancient quest for wisdom and meaning in life can be revived, given the intellectual challenges of the modern era. The goal is to find convergences between ancient and modern wisdom and apply them to a host of contemporary moral problems.
14: Wisdom, Ancient and Modern
This lecture considers traditional moral commandments of the religious and wisdom traditions of East and West, modern notions of human rights, ethical theories discussed in previous lectures, as well as their exceptions. Two versions of the Golden Rule, forms of which go back to the Axial Period, are distinguished and their merits considered. We take another look at Kant's "Categorical Imperative" in light of earlier discussions of exceptions.
15: Dilemmas of Might and Right
This lecture considers ethical dilemmas of force and nonviolence, guilt and innocence, war and peace. We begin with examples of two extreme positions: pacifism and its opposite. The utilitarian principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number is considered. General ethical questions of guilt and innocence, and conflicts of interest lead to a discussion of heroism, lifeboat situations, and other dilemmas.
16: Public and Private Morality (Part I)
In this lecture and the next, we discuss contentious moral and social issues that result from life in pluralist societies, where people have different values and views about how to live. We consider the merits of John Stuart Mill's "Harm Principle" in light of contemporary examples of public harm, offensive behavior, censorship and pornography, free speech, and other topics of law and morals frequently debated in modern free societies.
17: Public and Private Morality (Part II)
In this lecture we discuss principles needed to define public morality in modern free and pluralist societies. We consider an alternative "public morality principle" that might provide shared beliefs. We discuss teaching values and moral education in schools, paternalism, liberty, and privacy in public morality, and the limits of government interference in the private lives of individuals.
18: Plato on the State, the Soul, and Democracy
In this lecture, we look at modern political problems through Plato's criticisms of democracy. For Plato, the condition of the state ("polis") and the condition of the soul ("psyche") are related. Flawed states rot the souls of those who live in them, and he feared democracy was flawed in this regard. His alternative, authoritarian rule by philosopher-kings, rulers who love wisdom, may seem worse to us moderns, but if we love democracy and wish it were better, we do well to heed his criticisms.
19: Democracy and Its Discontents
Can the search for wisdom and the common good, the goal of Plato's philosopher-rulers, be carried on amid the discordant voices of today's pluralist culture? In this lecture, we consider various responses to this question, and we consider reforms that try to combine the ancient quest for political wisdom of Plato's philosopher-rulers with the necessities of modern democratic politics.
20: The Parable of the Retreat
This lecture explores deep philosophical motivations behind the quest by introducing a modern "parable of the retreat"—a story about a gathering at a remote Himalayan monastery that brings together people who represent different cultures, religions, and ways of life. The quest for meaning and attempts to retrieve it under conditions of modernity are discussed in terms of "aspiration"—the idea of the spirit expanding beyond its limited perspective to find truth.
21: Searches in the Realm of Aspiration
The lecture begins by talking about searches, with examples to introduce a special notion of "searches in the realm of aspiration." Mythical images are used, like the search for the Holy Grail. Such searches are called quests in the myths and legends of humankind. But searches in the realm of aspiration are exemplified in other than mythical ways, for example, in the scientists' search for the final truth about nature.
22: Love and Glory, the Same Old Story
This lecture turns to the notion of objective worth. We consider two dimensions of it: worthiness for glory and worthiness for love, which are related to two aspects of the self. Glory is related to the outer or public self, of roles, projects, achievements, and accomplishments. Love relates to the inner self of conscious experience—what poet Gerard Manley Hopkins calls our "inscape." These two dimensions are also explored in an example using Johann Sebastian Bach and some mysterious crystals capable of producing beautiful polyphonic music like Bach's.
23: The Mosaic of Value
How could anyone know what has objective worth—what is truly worthy of glory and love? How should we aspire to know whether anything is truly worthy of glory or love? We consider the relations between the two—glory and love—by exploring the Faust legend and other examples that can be traced to deep questions about the meaning and worth of life.
24: Meaning and Belief in a Pluralist Age
Two trends—a plurality of religions and the pervasive secularization of everyday life—tend to undermine the sense of sacredness, which historians of religion tell us is essential to religious ways of viewing the world. There is a tendency in religions for the highest value and highest reality to converge, providing clues for finding objective truth in religion and how it relates to objective worth, to ethics, to the sacred, and to searches in the realm of aspiration, or quests. The lecture concludes with reflections on religious belief in a potential new Axial Period.