Come join my online course on moral reasoning! It starts next month. It lasts a month. Study and participate at your own pace and on your own time.
We don’t just cover the philosophy of morality and moral reasoning, and why be moral and how to get better at moral decision making. We also cover what the sciences have discovered about all this. Which is more than you might think!
You can register now. And spread the word. Let anyone know you think might be interested. Especially let your local or national clubs or organizations know (any nonprofit), because there is a discount you or they might be able tap (see end paragraph).
The only required course text you need to order is Personality, Identity, and Character (eds. Darcia Narvaez and Daniel Lapsley). To save money on that I highly recommend just renting it on kindle for the month (unless you want to buy the kindle edition or a used print copy). All other materials will be provided at no extra cost.
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Why take this course?
This will be a survey of contemporary moral theory and the scientific study of morality, with an aim to improving your own moral decision-making, and how to encourage the same in others.
Lots of people just lurk, do the readings, and read the ensuing discussions, and that’s totally fine. But there will also be challenging assignment questions each week that will help you grasp and benefit from the readings and discussions and get better at thinking these things through, for anyone who wants to take that additional step.
This course is useful even for engaging, answering, or arguing with Christians and other theists, and when promoting atheism and humanism generally, since it is commonly the case that you will do better knowing more about how to defend and explain why atheists are moral, and where our moral values come from, and how we develop them and why. Because that centrally comes up a lot.
Subjects covered in this course will include:
- What the words “morals” and “morality” can variously mean and how to make use of that knowledge in public discourse.
- What we must mean when we argue others should share or adopt or agree with a moral opinion and how we can more effectively argue they should.
- How we can use science and philosophy to determine what our moral values are or should be, and how to reason from values to best actions.
- And what brain science and sociology tell us about the cognitive errors that impair sound moral decision-making and how to overcome them or control or compensate for them.
This course is important, because unlike religious moral systems, atheist moral systems are evidence- and science-based, incorporate logic and reason in an informed way, and attend to the factual realities of human life and emotion. So we should take that fact seriously, and get up to speed on the science and philosophy required to morally reason well.
Completing this course will help improve your ability to become a better, more thoughtful and aware person, and provide you with information and techniques to help bring others to the same state of being.
Registering also supports my continued work and teaching.
So get in on this and let’s learn and discuss the fundamentals of moral thought for the godless in a serious, troll-free environment!
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Discount possibility: There is also a special discount this year. If you are on the staff or an active member of any nonprofit organization (even a religious one!), you can receive a coupon code for $10 off the registration. All I need is an email from an officer of the organization (also CC’ing you) confirming you are an active member and would like to receive the discount. I’ll then send you the discount code to use during registration.
So let everyone you know who is working for or participating in a nonprofit org about this discount!
This course can be very useful for anyone doing PR and outreach. It can also be useful for theists who want to better understand how atheists think about morality.
