2012-2013 Academic Year Calendar - Marianopolis

General Education: Humanitiesas: health benefits and concerns;general effects of video games onreal-life behaviour; addiction andsocial isolation; virtual communitiesand economies; promotion ofviolence; in-game sexuality;censorship and rating systems;gender, race and other stereotypes;in-game propaganda and advertising;on-line gambling; piracy and hackerculture; cheating; video games as art;and educational applications.Family, Ethics and SocietyHow are seemingly natural andpersonal relationships between lovers,spouses, parents and children shapedby political, cultural, and economicfactors? What role does the publicsphere have in influencing or controllingthe structure of families andthe interaction of family members?Students explore these questionsthrough a historical perspectiveand current ethical debates.Wars: Just and UnjustThis course seeks to examine themoral and ethical issues involvedin the decision by one (or more)independent states to use forceagainst another sovereign state.In particular, it seeks: 1) To assesswhether armed intervention in theinternal affairs of a sovereign stateis ever justified. If it is, under whatconditions can it be justified? 2) Toexamine the moral implications of thedecision to go to war as well as theethical issues of the manner in whichthe war is conducted. 3) To investigatethe relationship between the existingmoral values and the justification forwar and acceptable behaviour inwartime against the backdrop of thebroad sweep of history from theNapoleonic Wars to the present.Ethical Issues in Human SexualityContemporary life is animated by abewildering array of sexuality issues.Ethical controversies as diverse assexism in language, pornography andsadomasochism have changed sexualpolitics forever. This course exploresthese and other issues in the attemptto achieve some clarity concerningtheir ethical dimensions.45