POLI1034 · Complex Problems and Enduring Questions

Making the Modern Mind: Morality

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

This is an Enduring Question course and is open to FRESHMEN only.The seventeenth century and the scientific revolution with which it is famously associated has long been reputed as the birth of modernity a new way of thinking about human beings and our place in the world. But for all its innovativeness, the seventeenth century yet found itself compelled to grapple with a host of long-standing (indeed ancient) moral questions, including, among others, the nature of the human being, the nature of the sovereign good, and the relationship of method to morality. This course will examine the answers to these and other central moral questions given by three key contributors to the seventeenth-century scientific and mathematical revolution: Descartes, Pascal, and Leibniz. Focusing especially on Descartess Discourse on the Method and his Meditations, Pascals Penses, and Leibnizs metaphysical and moral writings, the course will survey the ways these pioneering thinkers treated such topics as love, faith, virtue, grace, justice, and happiness. Also, as a BC Enduring Questions course, this course is paired with MATH 1702, which will cover the mathematical writings and concepts of Descartes and Pascal and Leibniz (among others). Our hope is that by taking the two courses simultaneously, students will have an opportunity to think through the ways in which the mathematical and scientific developments of the seventeenth century are related to its philosophical and religious concepts, as well as the ways in which these developments and concepts continue to shape our thought today.