To the first class meeting of
each week (normally Tuesday), each student will bring a brief, thoughtful Flip,
printed (in manuscript format) on one side of a single page. We will often use
these in class discussion, after which I will collect them to review. A
thoughtful, good-faith effort will receive a check, and a check every week earns an A for that segment of the
course. A check-minus indicates some
significant problem, such as imprecise citation, inadequate editing, or
uncareful reading, whereas a (rare) check-plus
suggests exceptional perceptivity about the reading, or skill in discovering
possible value in unfamiliar ideas.
I.
Identify an idea
(a claim, a practice, a background assumption, or an ideal) in the text that
strikes you as unfamiliar, and seems somehow mistaken (based on a
misdescription of things; unlikely to foster human thriving; or in some other
sense just plain wrong). Explain what you take it to mean. You need only
explain very briefly, perhaps in a
single sentence, your reasons for thinking it mistaken -- we can discuss that
in person.
II.
Give a full,
detailed citation of the particular text and commentary in which you find the
errant idea, one that will enable any reader to locate it and identify its
source in context directly.
III.
Now set aside
your strong intuition about the error, and construct a credible defense of the idea to which you object
in part I. The aim here is to explore, at least provisionally, an
interpretation of or wider perspective on the offending text, in light of which
it is at least worthy of serious consideration.
Example (note that this is not in manuscript format):
Flip #1, September 13, 2016
Somaphilus K. Estudiante
I. Mengzi argues that “Humans all have hearts
that are not unfeeling toward others,” suggesting that the capacity for empathy
is a defining feature of our humanity, and thus that we are all equipped by our
nature, with the proper education, to live compassionate lives in harmony with
others. But perhaps one person in a thousand, by one popular estimate, apparently
lacks the emotional capacity to understand or care how others feel. Perhaps
Mengzi is mistaken, at least with respect to sociopaths, about human nature and
the potential for harmonious society.
II. Mengzi argues for the essential similarity of
human sensibilities at 2A6, appearing in Joel J. Kupperman, Ed., Human Nature; A Reader (Hackett, 2012),
pp. 77-8.
III. Mengzi need not claim that everyone is equally empathetic by nature, and our
tendency to respond to others’ pain or need certainly comes in degrees. Indeed,
his developmental program for a harmonious community proposes to identify
precisely the degree of fellow-feeling we have and build on it, widening our
sphere of concern (as in the example of King Xuan in 1A3). It is difficult to
imagine a harmonious or effective human community that does not rely on a basic
emotional potential for benevolence, so if there really were sociopaths who had
zero sense of others’ feelings, and were unable to learn, perhaps he would be
correct to say they are not human in the relevant sense.
