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Lessons

Primary sources, open to every school.

  • Stoicism · Module 1

    What is up to us

    3 readings · Epictetus and Cicero

    The Stoics sorted everything into what is up to us and what is not, and put almost everything people worry about in the second pile. What is left is your own judgement, and they thought that was enough.

  • Utilitarianism · Module 1

    Counting happiness

    3 readings · Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill

    Utilitarians judge every act, rule and system by one test: does it leave the world with more happiness and less suffering than the alternatives? Everyone affected counts, and each counts once.

  • Virtue Ethics · Module 1

    Practical wisdom and the settled state

    3 readings · Aristotle and G. E. M. Anscombe

    Aristotle thought you become good the way you become a builder, by doing the work until it is part of you. What the work produces is practical wisdom, and nobody can exercise it on your behalf.

Short readings by motion