Janus: Paradoxes of Responsibility and Freedom

Moral life entails a struggle to reconcile responsibility and freedom. Complicating that struggle is the Janus-like nature of these two words. Both embody opposing, contradictory meanings, which are then compounded when paired in opposition to each other. Any virtue contains the seed of a corresponding vice, and it is sometimes hard to know which is which. How can we know the difference between holding people accountable and scapegoating them? Or the difference between liberty and license or self-confidence and narcissism. The upshot of this is that moral life is inescapably paradoxical. This course provides a framework for identifying moral paradoxes, along with some hints about how to convert bad paradoxes into good (or at least manageable) ones. Jokes, puns, and the adventures of Captain Horatio Hornblower will guide this project and help us talk with, rather than past, one another.