Most Interesting Syllabus I Saw Today

11 February 2007 at 7:01 pm Peter G. Klein 3 comments

| Peter Klein |

Steven Pinker, who is very smart, and Alan Dershowitz, who is, um, well, on TV a lot, are teaching a Harvard course cross listed as Psychology 1002, “Morality and Taboo,” and Harvard Law School 47212A, “Thinking About Taboo Subjects.”

Among the general issues we will cover are the following: Psychological and legal aspects of morality, the moral sense, dangerous ideas, offensive ideas, and related topics. Can it ever be immoral to consider, research or evaluate taboo ideas, such as ones about torture; revenge; innate group differences; the environment; colonialism; debunking religious, cultural, scientific and other “truths;” infanticide; misuses of the Holocaust and other disasters; overuses of charges of anti-Semitism, racism, sexism; or the legalization of distasteful but victimless practices? When is it rational, or moral, to choose to be ignorant?

Check out the complete reading list. My old favorite Defending the Undefendable by Walter Block makes the cut!

HT to an anonymous Harvard student.

Entry filed under: - Klein -, Ephemera.

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3 Comments Add your own

1. livingplanet | 13 February 2007 at 2:57 pm

well, they have until may 2 to get an ANTHROPOLOGIST to discuss taboo, which informed the legal and psychological aspects. hello, the term in itself is a social construct…looks like an enforced reading of what dershowitz and pinker have written…
2. Dick Langlois | 14 February 2007 at 11:01 am

I’m actually doing a one-credit course for honors students (in a variety of majors) that is a much much milder version of the Harvard course. The idea is to get them to think and talk more clearly about what they believe — and, of course, to introduce them to perspectives they might not otherwise encounter.

http://web.uconn.edu/langlois/INTD298/INTD298syl.html
3. dilys | 16 February 2007 at 9:01 am

In topics drawn from General Bloggery Today, I would love to find an economist knowledgeable about the Buddhist idea of Right Livelihood who would discuss Defending the Undefendable with Woods’ The Church and the Market!