Unit rationale, description and aim

This unit is concerned with questions of value, both moral and aesthetic. It examines the nature of morality and aesthetic beauty, and the implications for right human action and taste. Ideas around value are at the heart of debates in western ethics and aesthetics, about what really matters in life, and how humans should act in response. Students will study key ancient Greek texts by figures such as Plato and Aristotle that address the ultimate nature of morality and aesthetic value as a ‘'reaching toward’' the transcendent good and beautiful. These ideas frame discussions concerning what constitutes human virtue and natural beauty. Students will also engage with the works of Enlightenment philosophers, including Hume and Kant, who focus on the source of these assessments, whether through rational judgement, sentiment or intuition. More recent major works, including those by Mill, Sidgwick and Murdoch, will be examined with a view to their distinct interpretations and assessments of moral and aesthetic value. The unit aims to facilitate sophisticated student understanding of the issues involved in this field of philosophy and the positions on them taken by major western philosophers, as well as to further enhance students' skills in conceptual analysis and argumentative evaluation.    

2026 10

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  • Term Mode
  • Semester 2Campus Attendance

Prerequisites

WPHI201 Truth and Knowledge in Western Philosophy

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

Identify some of the central problems in western e...

Learning Outcome 01

Identify some of the central problems in western ethics and aesthetics and major positions and theories taken in response by some key philosophers in the tradition
Relevant Graduate Capabilities: GC1, GC4, GC7, GC9, GC11, GC12

Use clear English written and oral expression effe...

Learning Outcome 02

Use clear English written and oral expression effectively to develop coherent and consistent positions in relation to core issues into western ethics and aesthetics
Relevant Graduate Capabilities: GC1, GC6, GC7, GC11, GC12

Critically analyse debates in the history of weste...

Learning Outcome 03

Critically analyse debates in the history of western ethics and aesthetics
Relevant Graduate Capabilities: GC1, GC3, GC7, GC9, GC11, GC12

Apply skills in philosophical analysis

Learning Outcome 04

Apply skills in philosophical analysis
Relevant Graduate Capabilities: GC1, GC3, GC7, GC9, GC11

Content

Topics will include: 

  • Conceptions of the good: desire, happiness and transcendence;
  • Ethics and virtue
  • Ethical reasoning and the passions
  • Duty and obligation
  • Happiness and the maximisation of utility
  • Ethical intention and intuition
  • The concept of natural law
  • Conceptions of the beautiful and the sublime
  • Aesthetic experience through nature and art
  • Beauty and morality
  • ethics, aesthetics and religious insight

Assessment strategy and rationale

This unit has a strong emphasis on philosophical analysis in its assessment strategy. The assessments enable students to demonstrate their critical understanding of the key ethical and aesthetic concepts and theories covered in the unit (LO1) through critical analysis and evaluation of the set texts and leading secondary literature. The focus on written communication (LO2) and development of research skills (LO4) is designed to assess and assist the student to achieve the unit learning objectives. 

The first two assessment tasks are designed to assess and further develop critical analytical skills, the ability to differentiate argumentative strategies, as well as to offer points of critique that are well-grounded in the texts. Students are required to choose sections drawn from two assigned texts in order to analyse the commonalities and the points of divergence between them, thereby effectively opening a dialogue between them in which the reasons for divergences are analysed. The research essay task requires them to delve further and more deeply into the work of two thinkers explored in the unit, on the basis of further research. This task includes the requirement to critically analyse and evaluate the positions developed in the seminal texts under consideration concerning western theories of ethics and aesthetics.  

Overview of assessments

Assessment 1: Oral presentation with  writte...

Assessment 1: Oral presentation with  written  summary

Requires students to analyse and critique two divergent approaches encountered in the unit to a key theme or problem in Greek or Roman ethics or aesthetics.

Weighting

20%

Learning Outcomes LO1, LO2, LO3
Graduate Capabilities GC1, GC3, GC4, GC6, GC7, GC9, GC11, GC12

Assessment 2: Comparative written analysis task ...

Assessment 2: Comparative written analysis task

Requires students to analyse and critique two divergent approaches encountered in the unit to a key theme or problem in early modern ethics or aesthetics.

Weighting

30%

Learning Outcomes LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4
Graduate Capabilities GC1, GC3, GC4, GC6, GC7, GC9, GC11, GC12

Assessment 3: Research Essay Requires students t...

Assessment 3: Research Essay

Requires students to critically analyse and evaluate an important debate in western ethics or aesthetics, with reference to at least two of the key thinkers whose work was examined in the unit.

Weighting

50%

Learning Outcomes LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4
Graduate Capabilities GC1, GC3, GC4, GC6, GC7, GC9, GC11, GC12

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

Classes are run in an attendance mode for seminar groups of up to ten students. The focus of these seminars will be on critical engagement with the texts themselves and the leading secondary literature. On the basis of prior reading of the set text for each week, classes take the form of guided analyses of the key ideas presented, through the facilitation of questioning, debate, shared analysis and evaluative dialogue. 

It is through a broadly ‘Socratic’ approach to dialogue and discussion in these seminars that students will be enabled to extract and interpret key ideas raised in the seminal texts studied. They will learn to critically analyse and evaluate the philosophical theories presented in these texts, and they will also develop their skills in articulating positions of their own in response to these texts. Such analyses will cross-reference with ideas, texts and traditions encountered in other units of study within their course (e.g., within western literature, art and religion), as well as implications for contemporary thought and practices. This unit will facilitate the development of skills in textual interpretation, argument analysis and conceptual analysis skills that are in great demand in the professional workplace. 

Representative texts and references

Representative texts and references

Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle, 2 vol, ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1884. 

Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, 2 vols, eds David Fate Norton and Mary Norton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. 

Shaftesbury, Lord (Anthony Ashley Cooper), Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment, ed. Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 

Kant, Immanuel, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,. trans. Allen Wood. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. 

Mackie, John. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978. 

Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2017. 

Murdoch, Iris. Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. New York: Penguin, 1992. 

Plato. Plato: Complete Works, e.ds. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997. 

Sidgwick, Henry. The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn, ed. John Rawls. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981. 

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