Written from Puerto Rico today, as a tropical storm bears down on us: Come join my online course on moral reasoning! It starts next week. It goes a month. Study and participate at your own pace and on your own time. We don’t just cover the basic philosophy of morality and moral reasoning and why be moral and so on. We also cover what the sciences have discovered about all this. Which is more than you might think! Register now.

And don’t forget to order the required course text (in print or digital), Personality, Identity, and Character (eds. Darcia Narvaez and Daniel Lapsley). I recommend saving money: you can just rent that book on kindle, or 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?

As I wrote for this course last year, a course that is now tied for my second favorite (I offer it roughly once a year):

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 encouraging the same in others. Register now. It’s a one-month, online, do-at-your-own-pace course in which you can participate as much or as little as you want. 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, for anyone who wants to take that additional step.

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.

By registering you will also support my continued work and teaching.

So get in on this and let’s learn and discuss the fundamentals of moral thought for the godless!