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From Socrates to Sartre:How Should We Live?

Lee Braver

Every chapter in the course, with links to the moment it begins in the video and in the transcript. For topics across all courses, see the Topic Index.

Intro Are You a Good Person?

Are You a Good Person?
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Why Defining Goodness Is So Hard
▶︎ 0:57 transcript ↗︎
When Societies Got Morality Wrong
▶︎ 1:42 transcript ↗︎
Aristotle's Archery Metaphor for Ethics
▶︎ 2:21 transcript ↗︎
Socrates: Applying Reason to Morality
▶︎ 2:38 transcript ↗︎
What an Ethical Theory Must Look Like
▶︎ 3:32 transcript ↗︎
Three Great Ethical Theories Explained
▶︎ 3:41 transcript ↗︎
Why Study Them in Reverse Order?
▶︎ 4:45 transcript ↗︎
Each Philosopher Critiques the Last
▶︎ 5:36 transcript ↗︎
Sartre Says Reason Can't Solve Ethics
▶︎ 6:04 transcript ↗︎
Full Course Roadmap
▶︎ 6:46 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 1 Socrates Made Athens Question Everything

Where Western Ethics Began
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Questioning Experts in the Marketplace
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Dismantling Answers and Drawing Crowds
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Plato's Three Phases of Dialogues
▶︎ 3:58 transcript ↗︎
The Euthyphro: Setting and Characters
▶︎ 5:35 transcript ↗︎
Religious Crimes in Ancient Athens
▶︎ 7:45 transcript ↗︎
A Life-or-Death Discussion of Piety
▶︎ 9:03 transcript ↗︎
Prosecuting One's Own Father
▶︎ 11:05 transcript ↗︎
Why Knowledge Is Essential for Virtue
▶︎ 12:19 transcript ↗︎
Socratic Irony and the Inquiry Itself
▶︎ 14:23 transcript ↗︎
Definition #1: An Example of Piety
▶︎ 16:05 transcript ↗︎
Why an Example Is Not a Definition
▶︎ 17:28 transcript ↗︎
Myths About the Gods and True Piety
▶︎ 19:24 transcript ↗︎
What Is a Socratic Form?
▶︎ 24:56 transcript ↗︎
First Requirement: Universality
▶︎ 26:38 transcript ↗︎
Second Requirement: Action-Guiding
▶︎ 30:42 transcript ↗︎
Third Requirement: Capturing the Essence
▶︎ 32:04 transcript ↗︎
The Rules That Shaped All of Ethics
▶︎ 33:22 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 2 Is Good Just What the Gods Want?

Definition #2: Piety as What the Gods Love
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Learning Without Finding the Answer
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When Gods Disagree: The Contradiction Problem
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Definition #3: What All Gods Love
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The Birth of Critical Thinking
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The Famous Dilemma: Two Kinds of Value
▶︎ 15:06 transcript ↗︎
The Dollar Bill vs. The Apple
▶︎ 16:53 transcript ↗︎
Is Goodness Created or Discovered?
▶︎ 21:12 transcript ↗︎
The Island With Two Cars
▶︎ 22:27 transcript ↗︎
If God Creates Ethics, Ethics Is Arbitrary
▶︎ 26:35 transcript ↗︎
Why Socrates Needs Ethics to Be Objective
▶︎ 30:58 transcript ↗︎
Helpless Without Objective Morality
▶︎ 35:10 transcript ↗︎
Philosophy Requires Objective Truth
▶︎ 39:51 transcript ↗︎
How Each Definition Fails Differently
▶︎ 42:34 transcript ↗︎
Definition #4: And Its Collapse
▶︎ 45:19 transcript ↗︎
The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living
▶︎ 47:47 transcript ↗︎
The Supreme Irony: Searching IS the Answer
▶︎ 49:56 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 3 Are Humans Just Pleasure Seekers?

Meet the First Ethicist in the Course
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Utilitarianism and Its Origins
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The Complaint: No One Has Answered Socrates
▶︎ 2:42 transcript ↗︎
Can One Rule Apply to Everyone Ever?
▶︎ 5:50 transcript ↗︎
Ethics as an Empirical Science
▶︎ 7:31 transcript ↗︎
Grounding Morality in Human Nature
▶︎ 9:30 transcript ↗︎
The Theory of Life: Why We Act at All
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The Chain of Goals: Why Do You Do Anything?
▶︎ 12:25 transcript ↗︎
Instrumental Goods vs. Intrinsic Goods
▶︎ 17:44 transcript ↗︎
The Source of All Value in the Universe
▶︎ 22:06 transcript ↗︎
Happiness as the Only Intrinsic Good
▶︎ 26:16 transcript ↗︎
The Greatest Happiness Principle Explained
▶︎ 27:56 transcript ↗︎
Does This Pass Socrates' Three Tests?
▶︎ 30:17 transcript ↗︎
What About Things We Hate Doing?
▶︎ 32:23 transcript ↗︎
Why Things Are Good or Bad: Not Just Which
▶︎ 34:35 transcript ↗︎
Defining Happiness as Pleasure
▶︎ 37:15 transcript ↗︎
The Pig Objection and Higher Pleasures
▶︎ 38:16 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 4 Can You Measure Happiness?

What Makes an Action Right or Wrong?
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The Greatest Happiness Principle
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Why Consequences Are All That Matter
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No Absolute Rules, Only Degrees of Happiness
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Do the Ends Justify the Means?
▶︎ 6:05 transcript ↗︎
Every Theory Has a Fatal Flaw
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When Nothing Is Off Limits: The Slavery Problem
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Radical Equality: Race, Gender, and Species
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The Dark Side of Counting Everyone's Pleasure
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Equality as a Double-Edged Sword
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Speed Limits, Deaths, and Your Commute
▶︎ 18:10 transcript ↗︎
We Are All Making Utilitarian Bargains
▶︎ 20:58 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 5 Kant: Right and Wrong Aren't Just Opinions

Introduction to Kantian Ethics
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Why Relativism Isn't Really Ethics
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Contingency, Necessity, and Universality
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Why Ethics Must Be Absolute
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The Colorado-Kansas Border Thought Experiment
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Reason as the Faculty of Universal Laws
▶︎ 13:55 transcript ↗︎
Moral Agency and the Capacity to Reason
▶︎ 15:18 transcript ↗︎
Would Ethics Apply to Aliens?
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Ethics as A Priori and Derived from Logic
▶︎ 21:42 transcript ↗︎
The Case Against Consequentialism
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Why Happiness Isn't the Point of Ethics
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Bad Happiness and Deserving to Be Happy
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Deontology: Duty vs. Prudence
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Can Cinnamon Smell Make You More Moral?
▶︎ 36:54 transcript ↗︎
Reason vs. Inclinations: A Moral Crossroads
▶︎ 41:29 transcript ↗︎
The Capacity for Duty Over Happiness
▶︎ 46:04 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 6 Kant's One Rule for Right and Wrong

Empirical vs A Priori Ethics
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Reason vs Inclinations: The Will at a Crossroads
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What Is an Imperative?
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Hypothetical Imperatives Explained
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The Categorical Imperative: Just Do X
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Why Only the Categorical Imperative Is Moral
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Deriving the Universal Law from Pure Form
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The Lying Promise: A Famous Example
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Not Consequentialism: It's an X-Ray
▶︎ 18:50 transcript ↗︎
Judge Roy Bean and the Thief's Contradiction
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The Hidden Contradiction in Immoral Actions
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The Second Formulation: What Has True Value?
▶︎ 29:26 transcript ↗︎
Treating People as Ends, Never Merely as Means
▶︎ 33:20 transcript ↗︎
Batman as a Kantian: Why He Won't Kill
▶︎ 38:27 transcript ↗︎
Rigidity vs Flexibility: Strengths and Weaknesses
▶︎ 41:46 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 7 Aristotle on Living Your Best Life

The Greatest Philosopher-Scientist
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Why Empirical Observation Matters for Ethics
▶︎ 2:15 transcript ↗︎
Everything Alive Acts Toward a Goal
▶︎ 3:16 transcript ↗︎
The Chain of Goods and the Highest Good
▶︎ 6:19 transcript ↗︎
Everyone Wants Happiness, But What Is It?
▶︎ 9:54 transcript ↗︎
Eudaimonia: Flourishing, Not Just Feeling Good
▶︎ 14:08 transcript ↗︎
What Flourishing Looks Like Across Species
▶︎ 17:03 transcript ↗︎
Why Pleasure and Virtue Alone Aren't Enough
▶︎ 19:57 transcript ↗︎
The Good Life Means Doing Good and Loving It
▶︎ 23:32 transcript ↗︎
Finding Your Distinctive Activity
▶︎ 26:18 transcript ↗︎
The Function Argument: Ergon Plus Arete
▶︎ 28:40 transcript ↗︎
What Is the Human Ergon?
▶︎ 31:15 transcript ↗︎
Three Candidates: Growth, Senses, and Reason
▶︎ 34:20 transcript ↗︎
Mapping the Mind Through Behavior
▶︎ 39:50 transcript ↗︎
Three Parts of the Mind
▶︎ 43:18 transcript ↗︎
Which Parts of the Mind Matter for Ethics?
▶︎ 46:27 transcript ↗︎
Virtues of Character vs. Virtues of Thought
▶︎ 48:28 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 8 Your Character Is Your Destiny

Ethics of Consequences vs. Motivation
▶︎ 0:00 transcript ↗︎
A Faulty Moral Psychology
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Character Ethics and the Scale of a Lifetime
▶︎ 1:45 transcript ↗︎
How Rarely We Actually Make Decisions
▶︎ 3:16 transcript ↗︎
Habits, Character, and the Inertia of Life
▶︎ 4:54 transcript ↗︎
Right Character Over Right Rules
▶︎ 8:09 transcript ↗︎
Childhood Upbringing and Forming Character
▶︎ 9:33 transcript ↗︎
Why Socrates Failed to Change Euthyphro
▶︎ 12:26 transcript ↗︎
Knowledge Is Not Virtue: The Smoking Example
▶︎ 15:36 transcript ↗︎
Training the Appetitive Soul Through Habit
▶︎ 16:48 transcript ↗︎
Fried Chicken vs. Kale: Inner Harmony
▶︎ 18:20 transcript ↗︎
Dangerous Harmony? Aristotle vs. Kant
▶︎ 21:34 transcript ↗︎
Prudence and Ethics Are Inseparable
▶︎ 24:58 transcript ↗︎
The Golden Mean: Between Cowardice and Recklessness
▶︎ 26:13 transcript ↗︎
Why Universal Rules Always Fall Short
▶︎ 30:52 transcript ↗︎
Phronesis: The Art of Practical Judgment
▶︎ 35:21 transcript ↗︎
Michael Phelps and the Relative Mean
▶︎ 39:32 transcript ↗︎
The Golden Mean as a Qualified Answer
▶︎ 42:33 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 9 Sartre's Terrifying Gift of Freedom

The Rise of Existentialism After WWII
▶︎ 0:00 transcript ↗︎
Existence Precedes Essence: The Core Idea
▶︎ 1:01 transcript ↗︎
The Knife Analogy: How Artifacts Get Purpose
▶︎ 2:11 transcript ↗︎
Judging Things by Their Function
▶︎ 4:26 transcript ↗︎
If God Made Us, We Have a Purpose
▶︎ 5:34 transcript ↗︎
No God Means No Human Essence
▶︎ 7:14 transcript ↗︎
After Darwin: Life Has No Built-In Goal
▶︎ 8:48 transcript ↗︎
Rejecting the Foundation of All Prior Ethics
▶︎ 9:44 transcript ↗︎
Socratic Aporia as the Real Answer
▶︎ 11:42 transcript ↗︎
The Universe Has No Values
▶︎ 13:21 transcript ↗︎
Why We Secretly Love Moral Rules
▶︎ 15:35 transcript ↗︎
Condemned to Be Free
▶︎ 18:29 transcript ↗︎
Bad Faith: Hiding Behind Rules
▶︎ 20:02 transcript ↗︎
The French Resistance and Nuremberg Trials
▶︎ 21:30 transcript ↗︎
Abraham and Isaac: Freedom Even Before God
▶︎ 23:18 transcript ↗︎
Radical Responsibility With No Escape
▶︎ 27:20 transcript ↗︎
When You Realize Society Is Made Up
▶︎ 29:50 transcript ↗︎
Acting Without Answers: True Maturity
▶︎ 31:42 transcript ↗︎
Dismantling Socrates' Three Requirements
▶︎ 33:18 transcript ↗︎

Recap How Should You Live? The Great Answers

Course Overview: Five Philosophers
▶︎ 0:00 transcript ↗︎
Socrates: Applying Reason to Human Behavior
▶︎ 0:05 transcript ↗︎
Three Requirements for Ethical Theory
▶︎ 2:08 transcript ↗︎
Mill, Kant, and Aristotle Answer Socrates
▶︎ 3:39 transcript ↗︎
Mill's Greatest Happiness Principle
▶︎ 4:35 transcript ↗︎
Kant's Categorical Imperative and A Priori Ethics
▶︎ 5:44 transcript ↗︎
Aristotle's Virtue Ethics and the Golden Mean
▶︎ 7:15 transcript ↗︎
Sartre's Radical Rejection of Moral Systems
▶︎ 8:46 transcript ↗︎
Did Every Ethicist Betray Socrates' Mission?
▶︎ 11:01 transcript ↗︎
Think for Yourself: Course Conclusion
▶︎ 11:32 transcript ↗︎