LIBS 314 - Being Human

3 Credit(s)
3 Lecture Hour(s)
0 Lab Hour(s)

This course represents a “workshop” or “think tank” style exploration that considers a spectrum of definitions of human being, challenging each for its strengths and weaknesses for promoting the full morally-rich human life, designated by the ancients as “human flourishing”. Passages from ancient Greek, Roman, existentialist, and postmodern Jewish philosophy, Christian, Hebrew, Muslim and Buddhist scriptures, and modern rationalist/scientific definitions will be considered and compared, with the objective of determining which definitions have the potential to be most morally edifying. The course will address such questions as whether gender and race are essential or secondary qualities of human beings, and how ideologies of individualism and communalism affect human modes of being-in-the-world.