Comparative Ethics: Major Proposal

Title: Comparative Ethics

Description: This major begins with the question: How do different intellectual traditions – Western and otherwise, develop a system of ethics? How have such concepts as justice, mercy, and virtue been refined in their own tradition over time? How have ethics shaped the way in which war is carried out? And how have such traditions of thought interacted and conflicted with each other throughout history? This major will explore the development of these various traditions of thought and the impact they have on their own culture and in international relations. Through close study of the traditions of thought of several different regions and the religion(s) and cultures that they interact with, I intend to discover what commonalities and differences emerge in the discussion of ethics. Several international study abroad programs will be utilized to analyze a culture from within and gain its unique perspective on the West and its thought. The major will combine the study of philosophy, religion, sociology, and political science.

Rationale: The beginning of the St. Olaf Mission Statement states that the college is “rooted in the Christian Gospel.” Such a statement implies that there are certain accepted ethical norms from which this college, and indeed society, operate. As a student and a citizen, it’s my responsibility to understand such norms and how they developed. St. Olaf also professes, “ incorporating a global perspective.” It would be irresponsible to know the origins and manifestations of my culture’s norms without seeking to understand those of other world regions. From there, the final task is clear: a study of the interaction of such traditions of thought to discern whether any ethical norms are universally applicable, particularly in areas of international relations. In a time of regional animosity, with significant portions of the Arab world manifesting antagonism to the West, specifically the US, it’s imperative to compare these two traditions of thought and ethics. Only with a common understanding of each culture’s intellectual heritage and its present manifestation will a tenable peace be possible between regions. A global perspective will only come about once I've studied the ethics of other world regions, and the global impact they have on international relations. The basic approach will be to study an individual system of thought, discern how its ethical paradigm(s) emerged and how they were refined throughout time. From there, study will shift into setting the intellectual traditions into conversation with each other about ethical issues of life and death, moral responsibility, and the influence of religion and other cultural factors.

Proposed Courses:

Systems of Ethics

ID GL247: Cultural Identity and Technology: An uneasy alliance?

Through this course I intend to gain a comprehensive understanding of the way in which traditional identities are threatened by new forces, and how Middle Eastern and Asian systems of thought react to the foreign ideas and norms inherent in globalization.

Religion GL251: Religions of India

This course, combined with a one-month residence in India, will give a comprehensive account of the development of several dominant and lesser religions (Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Sikhism) and their influence upon the ethics of the region.

Sociology GL255: Korean Society

This course will provide an alternative perspective in assessing an ethical system by investigating the social conditions under which this society operates, rendering a more concrete understanding of what social forces serve as the foundation to a particular ethical system.

Philosophy 252: Ethics and the Good Life

This course will solidify all the previous learning I’ve done of Western ethics. Through the specific study of rights, the good life, virtue and utility, I will gain a concrete understanding of the nature of the primary Western ethical systems (Aristotelian, Kantian, utilitarian, existentialist, and egoistic) so that I may compare them more precisely with others.

Ethical Systems in Conversation

Philosophy 251: Asian Philosophy (registered as a special offering, taken as an independent study)

This course aims to complement the Korean Society course, and provide the ethical apparatus atop the social conditions I had previously studied. Taking the courses in sequence, I will be able to understand what social forces influence the development of ethical systems and in what way. The Confucian segment of the course will provide considerable resonance with my Korean society course. In addition, the course will provide a comprehensive look at the major philosophical traditions of India and China. Combined with my time in both India and China I will be able to understand these ethical systems in their relation to the region’s way of life. The course also compares the traditions to each other and to the West, showing me the comparative techniques that I need in assessing interacting ethical systems.

Religion 217: Christian and Islamic Ethics: Conflicts and Cross-Pollination (registered as a special offering, taken as an independent study)

This course will give me much of the academic apparatus to compare ethical systems, making specific comparisons between two heavily influential religious ethical systems on specific issues of morality, sexuality, and war. In addition, I will spend time learning the Arab Christian perspective. All normative theories will be studied within their modern context in the Arab world as much as possible. The course will also give concrete ways to set ethical systems in conversation.

Great Conversation 310: Ethical Issues and Normative Perspectives: The Great Conversation Continued

This course provides a comparison of traditional Western ethics and those that have recently entered into the conversation. The class would provide an examination of these ethical systems as they relate to political morality, economic justice, and matters of war, issues of particular relevance to my major.

Application of Ethical Systems to International Conflict

Political Science 247: Political Ethics and Public Policy

From this course I will gain a perspective on the method of applying ethical paradigms to pertinent social issues, including the doctrine of war. I also hope to explore the possibility of a career in some form of public policy, such as a think tank.

Political Science 405: International Politics of the Middle East

Taking this class while abroad in Egypt, I gained a concrete understanding of how the ethic of Islam can be translated to the public life and its force as a supranational ideology in destabilizing Arab states. I also learned how such concepts as consultation and mutual obligation can be foundational to the construction of civil society and ultimately democracy.

Political Science 399: Ethnic Conflict

This course will finalize my application of international ethical systems to contemporary international conflict. I will study how ethnicity informs one’s ethical outlook, especially as it shapes his or her reaction to others. I will study what effect, if any, one’s ethnicity has on the ethical boundaries of conflict with another ethnic group. I am curious to discover how much of the nation is informed by an ethnicity’s religion, and how religious ethics translate into public life.

Supplemental Courses: Great Conversation 113, 115, 116, 217, 218, Religion 207, Interdisciplinary 238, Philosophy 118, Political Science 121.

Preparation for the Major:

I’ve always preferred looking at the big picture. Going through high school, I enjoyed the courses of study, but went through them somewhat mechanically. Each class filled a separate compartment in my dresser drawer of knowledge, to be pulled out when needed, which is just what Napoleon claimed for his brain. But the classes that stimulated me most were the ones that made clear the deep interconnectivity between that subject and world events. My work in economics gave me a framework from which to evaluate NAFTA, and literature started tapping into experiences beyond my own. This interconnectivity only intensified in college. I once heard that one of the best parts of a liberal arts education is how the different classes feed off of each other, and more and more I’m finding that to be entirely valid. My study of brain states in psychology informs my discussion of the idea of the self in philosophy, my Russian history class informs the Great Conversation, which in turn ties into most of my other classes. I’ve had the joy of being able to study Marx from a historical and international relations perspective as well as within the context of a great ideological conversation. Such deep interconnectivity has allowed me to extrapolate and look at issues within a bigger context. You can’t really understand Marx until you read Hegel. In the same way, you can’t know a culture until you’ve lived there and learned what some of its greatest minds had to say. A thorough understanding of the Bhagavad Gita requires a trip to India.

As my time in the Great Conversation program passed, I fell more and more in love with the course of study, and how past works directly influenced modern works, which in turn informed the way our society is structured. In traveling abroad more frequently, to Italy, Spain, and the UK in my time at Olaf, I became increasingly interested in exploring if such a dialogue would be applicable for other regions of the world. I want to discover the dialogue of India over the centuries, how people in the Arab world came to think the way they do, and the refinement of Japanese thought. As much as possible, I want to study how humans perceive themselves intellectually, and how regional dialogues of thought feed into a great conversation on a global level. I want to discover how differing perceptions of what constitutes the good life inform current international conflict.

Initial Proposal for a Senior Project:

My initial proposal for a senior project would be a thesis paper functioning as a meta-analysis of the intellectual traditions I have encountered in my course of study. Such an analysis would include origins and general ethical tenets, focusing on a subset of each tradition. I propose inclusion of two Western ethical systems: Kantian as exemplified by himself and John Rawls, as well as rule utilitarians; I will also include two non-Western ethical systems: the dharma yuddha subset of Hinduism and the modernist Islamic thinkers. The analysis would culminate in a discussion of each subset’s account of war. I will discuss justifiable pretexts for entering war, goals of war, treatment of prisoners and noncombatants in war, discrimination, proportionality, and to a lesser extent nuclear weapons and terrorism. I will analyze the four traditions and set them into conversation using just war terminology. Such an analysis would serve as a dialogue between the different traditions, finding tension, agreement, and striking departures from the just war paradigm. I will spend the first semester of my senior year in Egypt compiling and analyzing all of my research, and write the paper as my final project. After completion, I foresee a general public presentation of my results.