Week 10 · Readings & resources

Week 10 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Philosophy Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 10 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 93–122 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more depth, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (18–23 min total)

① From what is to what ought

Chapter 10, Section “Ask two kinds of question: what is, and what ought to be” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Descriptive and normative questions, the is-ought problem, and cultural relativism” · Remember: a premise about what people do or believe needs a bridge premise before it can support a claim about what is right.

The Is-Ought Problem - Philosophy Explained — Reason Against — a four-minute explainer that paraphrases Hume's observation, separates descriptive statements, such as how water behaves, from normative ones, such as what people ought to do, and then shows that an argument moving from a fact to a "should" needs an added premise in between, using a red car and a person who needs food. This builds on Week 2's work with standard form and validity: try writing its food example as numbered premises with the added premise marked. Two cautions: its middle example treats a personal liking as if it settled what is good, and its closing claim that no one has ever shown morality to be objective is the narrator's own verdict, which the course does not key. (video, 4 min) (captions: automatic)
A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 3, Part 1, Section 1 — Hume Texts Online — Hume's own section on whether moral distinctions come from reason, with numbered paragraphs. Read only the last numbered paragraph, T 3.1.1.27, where Hume notices writers sliding from is and is not to ought and ought not; the earlier paragraphs on reason and the passions go beyond this week. The wording is Hume's eighteenth-century English, so read it slowly and put the point in your own words, as Chapter 10 does. (reading, 10–15 min)
Can morality be both Objective and Relative? — Philosophy Vibe — a two-minute clip in which one speaker suggests that a few basic values, such as protecting life and reducing suffering, hold everywhere, while the practices that serve them differ from culture to culture, with arranged marriage as the example of a practice two cultures judge differently. Compare it with the relativist's reply to the reformer objection in Chapter 10, and with the two dinner tables that honor the host in different ways. The clip states its own view; the course keys no verdict on whether morality is relative. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)

② God's commands and the Euthyphro dilemma

Chapter 10, Section “Answer the Euthyphro dilemma: right because commanded, or commanded because right?” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Divine command theory and the Euthyphro dilemma” · Remember: the dilemma asks how goodness and God's commands are related, and it says nothing about whether God exists.

The Euthyphro Dilemma (Problem for Divine Command Theory) — Philosophy Vibe — a five-minute animated dialogue that defines divine command theory, credits the dilemma to Plato's dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro, and walks both horns: if acts are good because God commands them, morality looks arbitrary; if God commands them because they are good, morality seems to stand above God. It ends with both horns as a problem and never gives the reply from God's good nature, so add that reply from Chapter 10. Use this example while completing the Week-10 module overview. (video, 5 min) (captions: automatic)
Euthyphro, translated by Benjamin Jowett — Wikisource — the free public-domain text of the whole dialogue, on a page of its own, so you can start reading at once; the short notes set beside the text are the edition's summaries, not part of the dialogue. Watch Socrates test each definition of piety that Euthyphro offers, the method you met in Week 1, and find the moment he asks whether the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious. The English words are Jowett's, not Plato's, and the course quotes none of them. (reading, 25–35 min)

③ Self-interest and the ring of Gyges

Chapter 10, Section “Put on the ring of Gyges: why be moral?” · Session 2, Segment 3, “Psychological egoism, ethical egoism, and the ring of Gyges” · Remember: psychological egoism describes what people do, ethical egoism says what they ought to do, and Glaucon's ring asks why be moral at all.

What is Psychological Egoism? Psychological Egoism Definition, Explanation, and Objections — Thinking Deeply with Ben — a seven-minute talk that calls psychological egoism a descriptive view, gives a volunteer at an animal shelter as the egoist's example of a hidden selfish motive, and then sets out its objections, among them that pleasure in helping comes from a prior desire for the thing itself, that the word "want" is used in two senses, and that the theory reasons in a circle. The first two match Chapter 10's point about whose desire versus what it is for. It quotes several philosophers; apart from Bentham's opening sentence, which the course quotes in Week 11, those lines are not ones the course has checked, and it ends on the speaker's own verdict, which the course does not key. (video, 7 min) (captions: automatic)
Psychological Egoism vs Ethical Egoism vs Rational Egoism - Do Any Make Logical Sense? — Thinking Deeply with Ben — a nine-minute comparison that separates psychological egoism, a claim about what people do, from ethical egoism, a claim about what they ought to do, and adds rational egoism, a claim about what is rational, which goes beyond this week. Its point that ethical egoism allows following rules and giving up a pleasure now for a larger good later is close to Chapter 10's enlightened self-interest. It credits ethical egoism's origin to a particular book and year that the course does not pin, and its closing claims that there is no objective morality and that egoism fails are the speaker's own verdicts. (video, 9 min) (captions: automatic)
Why You're Not as Moral as You Think - The Ring of Gyges — Epistemic Mind — a three-minute retelling of the shepherd who finds a ring of invisibility, correctly credited to Glaucon in the Republic, followed by a psychology experiment in which people who could flip a coin to share tasks fairly often ignored the coin and still rated themselves as fair. Its opening claim that your picture of yourself as moral is entirely false is a verdict the course does not key; treat the experiment as one piece of evidence on a descriptive question. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
Egoism, section 1: Psychological Egoism — online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference entry) — read section 1, on the case for psychological egoism and the objection that we must want things other than our own welfare in order to gain welfare from them, and then section 2, on ethical egoism and the argument that cooperation pays; skip section 3 on rational egoism and the later replies to objections. (reading, 10–15 min)
What Is Altruism? — Greater Good Science Center — the Greater Good Science Center's short overview of research on helping others, including toddlers who help without being asked and the good feeling that giving can bring. Read it as evidence on a descriptive question, whether people ever act for others' sake, which is the question psychological egoism answers. Notice that the page's own conclusion, that people have tendencies both ways, is itself a descriptive claim; it does not tell you how you ought to act. (reading, 8–12 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

The Republic, Book II — The Internet Classics Archive — the public-domain Jowett translation of Book II. Read from the opening, where Glaucon asks Socrates which kind of good justice is and argues that people value it only as a compromise, through the story of Gyges and Glaucon's picture of a perfectly unjust person who seems just. Stop when Socrates begins his reply. The words are Jowett's, and the course quotes none of them. (reading, 10–15 min)

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