PSC 336 - Political Wisdom

Course Units: 1

Political life involves making decisions that may define the fate of entire communities. How do we best prepare to judge, decide, and act wisely? In the Crito, Socrates offers a defense of the laws in arguing against escaping his death sentence. Yet, segregation, slavery, Apartheid, the Holocaust, were all carried out through legal means. This class assesses the possibilities of phronēsis, or prudence, which Aristotle describes as the virtue of producing “right judgments about what is to be done” in concrete, unique, and unrepeatable circumstances to tackle wicked problems. CC: GCHF, GSPE, WAC