Course 8 of 18
How Should We Act?
Turn from what is true to what should be done.
What this course covers
How Should We Act? works through turn from what is true to what should be done. across 5 lessons. Each opens with a short teaching passage, then tests whether the idea actually landed — and explains every answer rather than just marking it.
The lessons are sequenced, not a menu. Three Ways to Decide comes first because consequences, duties, and character is what the rest of the course assumes; by the end you reach Justice as Fairness.
How it starts
When facing a hard choice, philosophers offer three lenses. Consequentialists judge an act by its results: did it do the most good? Deontologists judge it by duty: did you follow the right rule, whatever the outcome? Virtue ethicists ask about character: what would a good, wise person do? Each captures something the others can miss.
“We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.”
Who you will be reading
John Stuart Mill, Aristotle are the thinkers this course leans on. Each has a profile with their full set of passages in thinkr's library.