Last Monday, I defended GE courses in principle. However, I didn’t say anything about which GEs should be required or how they should be conducted. One person commented that ethics and logic should both be required as GEs. I disagree with the former, and agree with the latter.
Let’s address logic first. Logic teaches us to think clearly, and discern what truly follows from what, preventing us from being deceived by fallacious arguments. This has a direct political implication. Someone adequately trained in logic, we hope, would be less likely to be influenced by persuasive speeches or radicalism. I believe that a properly executed logic course can actually make this difference in a person. Furthermore, it might clear up and inform Great Books Colloquium discussions and increase the value of those courses.
I entirely agree that it is nonsensical to ask students to form arguments in essays and conduct philosophical inquiry, while they have no training in logic and thus very little means for creating good arguments or for understanding the implications of the philosophy they read.
So why not ethics? I think that there are other courses in the GE curriculum at Pepperdine that encourage or assume certain ethical principles and might be said to “teach them,” if not in a purely theoretical or philosophical way. For instance, the Social Action and Justice Colloquium (SAAJ) seems to be a course for generally ethical people interested in benefiting their community and discussing important ethical issues, while perhaps not entering into the purely theoretical zone.
Another example is Great Books, which requires students to read Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” in the first course. I suppose I am prejudiced, but this seems adequate to understand and consider some ethical issues in a philosophical light without becoming an ethicist. If one completes the Great Books course, then one should become familiar with even more ethical theories.
I also think that there would be a problem asking people without a philosophical temperament to join an ethics course. It may lessen the intensity of the course for philosophy majors who are genuinely interested in the subject. I can see people making too many intuitive ethical judgments and ignoring the actual principles, despite still being good and ethical people.
Finally, I do not think that taking an ethics course will have as powerful an effect in making a person an ethical person as a logic course would in making one a logical person. Ethics, as studied in philosophy, seems more theoretical, and less likely to impact the actions of a person or change their preconceived ethical attitudes and opinions.
Essentially, enough of what is ethical, as far as GEs are concerned, is considered in Pepperdine’s various courses (ie, Great Books, SAAJ, Faith and Reason). This is not the case for logic. A logic course seems to have a greater potential utility in creating a logical person, than an ethics course does an ethical person. Or that what is added in an ethics course to what is already available in many other GE fulfilling courses, might not be significant enough to bring about that change.
