Introduction to Philosophy — Season 1, Episode 2: On Deontology
Documentary, Talk • 75 min • 1 season, 1 episodes
Episode synopsis
In lecture two, we turn to deontological ethics, which emphasizes moral principles and rules for action rather than character traits. We consider a range of approaches—from Abelard’s focus on intentions and Aquinas’s natural law grounded in human flourishing, to ethical intuitionism with its plural moral principles, and Haidt’s five-dimensional moral foundations theory. The lecture builds to Kant’s landmark categorical imperative, challenging us to act only on maxims we could will as universal laws and to treat humanity always as an end, never merely as a means.
About Introduction to Philosophy
In Introduction to Philosophy, a nine-hour course, Dr. Bonevac guides us through the major traditions of Western philosophy in eight engaging lectures on ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. We explore three key ethical frameworks—virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism—before tackling fundamental questions about reality, from realism to idealism. The course then examines theories of knowledge, weighing skepticism’s doubt, rationalism’s innate ideas, and empiricism’s reliance on experience. Finally, we consider how these philosophical traditions continue to shape debates about morality, reality, and human understanding today.