Semester.ly

Johns Hopkins University | AS.191.356

Beyond Good & Evil: Spinoza'S Compositional Ethics

3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

(-1)

What does it mean to live in a world often characterized as “post-truth” or “post-moral”? The postmodern turn is often characterized by a rejection of moralism. Such criticisms often argue that that which has often been called ‘morality’ is only one way in which to valuate the better and the worse—and one which impoverishes life since its works by ‘judging life’ utilizing criteria which claim to stand outside and above the life thus judged. However if this is only one way in which to evaluate, the question which is raised is: what other frameworks for valuation could there be? This course will investigate what may be meant by the critique and explore other frameworks for valuation primarily through the immanent processual ethics proposed in Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics. Through reading Spinoza’s ethical framework in conversation with various considerations from fields such as the scientific, mathematical, literary, cinematic, and painterly, we will explore a possible alternative framework of normative evaluation, populated by considerations such as: power of action, capacity for affecting and being affected, what a body can do.

No Course Evaluations found