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GER7 Criteria

The course must take a critical view of important and influential approaches to philosophical, religious, or social thought. Not only must the course deal with matters of enduring concern to human life, such as meaning, value, justice, freedom and truth, but it must also aim at cultivating reasoned analysis and judgment in students who take it.

Nothing in the criteria below rules out taking seriously skepticism, relativism, subjectivism, or nihilism in philosophical, religious, or social thought. The criteria exclude courses that take for granted or merely assume the basic norms or values addressed.

For a course to satisfy GER 7, it must satisfy three distinct necessary conditions. Any course which lacked one of these would not be acceptable. Moreover, these three conditions are jointly sufficient, that is, any course which met all three conditions would be acceptable.

Basic Norms or Values:

The content of the course must address some fundamental questions about what is good, worthwhile, valuable, desirable, holy, sacred, right, just, true, beautiful, and the like in philosophical, religious, or social thought. This criterion excludes courses which address only questions of policy or specific applications. However, a course which addressed both basic questions and specific applications could satisfy this criterion.

Questions of Justification of Norms and Values:

The course must address questions about how to identify and justify philosophical, religious, or social norms and values. "To justify" need mean no more than being able to show that the preponderance of the relevant reasons support one norm or value in comparison to others in a given context. This criterion excludes purely descriptive or factual courses.

Student Acquisition of Critical Skills:

The course must involve some systematic way to engage students in active critical analysis of evaluative and/or ethical theories, concepts, and methods of reasoning and deliberation in philosophical, religious, or social thought. This criterion excludes courses which are not designed to ensure that students participate actively in the critical analysis of the values or norms addressed.