School of Letters Department of Humanities Philosophy Course Ethics Major Major (Credit 1) Intended Year: Intended School:

Japanese Ethical Thoughts (Lecture VI)B Japanese Ethical Thoughts (Lecture VI)B Sub Title　 Associate Professor IIJIMA Yuuji

Numbering Code: LET-HUM3196J Course Code: 2025 FallTerm weekly Mon2 Ito Classroom E/J科目 (日本語, English)

Course Overview

This course examines human everyday “actions,” particularly from the perspective of “norms,” through philosophy and ethics. ‘Norms’ indicate what people ought to do and how things ought to be, operating within an order distinct from “natural laws,” which demonstrate causal necessity. In this sense, phenomena arising under the normative order have traditionally been considered fundamentally human phenomena, qualitatively distinct from natural phenomena governed by laws. The most familiar example of these normative, human phenomena is our own everyday “actions and behaviors.” The problem of “action” as a uniquely human phenomenon has traditionally been approached from the perspective of “free will” as opposed to “determinism,” which posits that everything is predetermined. However, from the perspective of this course, human “freedom” is grounded in the fact that humans are beings who act and behave under a normative order (rather than being merely natural entities). This course will focus on such “norms” and examine how they relate to the establishment and understanding of action.

Last updated

: 2025/9/29 (09:53)