Human Flourishing: Ethics in Work and Everyday Life
January 24, 2025–June 10, 2025
What is a good life and how can we live it? How can we find happiness, fulfillment, and flourishing? Throughout history, great thinkers have considered these questions under the umbrella of ethics. In this seminar, we will delve into the three foundational schools of thought—utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics—and explore their relevance to everyday life, including work, friendships, and loving relationships. Come ready to ask tough questions, engage in meaningful discussions, and challenge yourself and others. Along the way, connect with like-minded individuals as we seek to answer one of life’s most essential questions: “What good shall I do this day?”
The seminars will take place over dinner from 6 p.m. till 7:30 p.m. at IESE’s New York campus (165 W. 57th Street). Please register here for all sessions, or below for individual sessions, with a $10 registration fee per session to help defray the cost of dinner.
Schedule
Tuesday, January 14 | Deontology: ‘I’m unhappy. That’s OK, my will is good.’
Is my primary ethical obligation to ensure that my will is good? Am I sometimes faced with a choice between acting ethically and seeking my own happiness? Does morality then sometimes require sacrificing something of my own happiness? Join the Morningside Institute for a conversation with philosopher Dan Addison exploring Kant’s accounts of the principle of morality and of what the moral worth of an action consists in.
Reading: Section 1 of The Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, 4:393–4:405.
Tuesday, February 11 | Utilitarianism: Happiness, Pleasure, and Morality
Do we do all that we do because we’re seeking happiness? Does this happiness consist in maximizing our pleasure? Should we distinguish qualitatively between “higher” and “lower” pleasures? If so, what justifies this distinction? Join the Morningside Institute for a conversation with philosopher Dan Addison exploring John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, with some remarks on Alasdair MacIntyre’s critique of the view.
Reading: Mill, Utilitarianism, §§ 1-2. After Virtue, ch. 6, pp. 62–5.
Tuesday, March 18 | Virtue Ethics: Do Humans have Purposes?
As human beings, are we born with a potential nature, an essence or purpose? Does our happiness consist in realizing this nature? What’s the relation between happiness so conceived and the virtues? How are virtues acquired? What role does reason play in the life of virtue? What role pleasure? Join the Morningside Institute for a conversation with philosopher Dan Addison exploring some key chapters of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, ch. 1, 7–8, 13; Book 2.
Tuesday, April 8 | Virtue and Work
Modern life often requires us to acknowledge different norms and adopt different attitudes in different spheres of life, e.g. the workplace, church, family life, and the political sphere. What are the causes and the costs of this “compartmentalization” of life, both for ourselves and our societies? How might we go about reintegrating these spheres in our societies, and in ourselves so as to enjoy a unified human life? Join the Morningside Institute for a conversation with philosopher Dan Addison exploring Alasdair MacIntyre’s paper, “Politics, Philosophy, and the Common Good,” along with a very short passage from After Virtue.
Readings: “Politics, Philosophy, and the Common Good,” and After Virtue, pp. 33.3–34.2.
Optional Reading: After Virtue ch. 15, pp. 204–25; MacIntyre, “What Has Not Happened in Moral Philosophy.”
Tuesday, May 20 | Virtue and Friendship
On what basis do we form different relationships, e.g. our business relationships? Are they based on pleasure, utility, the mutual recognition of virtue, or perhaps some of one and some of the other? Are they a form of friendship? Should they be? Are relationships based merely on mutual advantage less stable that those based on virtue? Should we remain friends, or associates, with those who act unjustly or immorally? What role do friends play in one’s happiness? Join the Morningside Institute for a conversation with philosopher Dan Addison exploring Aristotle’s account of friendship.
Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 8, ch. 1–7, Book 9, ch. 1, 4–5.
Tuesday, June 10 | Virtue and Romance
Virtue ethicists argue that human beings have a certain potential nature that ethical life aims to realize. They argue that this concept of a human telos allows the classical and Christian traditions to justify their demanding ethical precepts: by ordering your activities and desires in such-and-such ways – starving these desires, channeling these others into these specific activities and institutions (e.g. marriage), and nurturing those ones – you’ll actualize your potential. Join the Morningside Institute for a conversation with philosopher Dan Addison exploring Alasdair MacIntyre’s presentation of this view, and Erik Varden’s concrete working out of the idea with regard to sexual desire in particular.
Reading: After Virtue, 51-5, and Erik Varden, Chastity, selections to be determined.