Draft 1: PHILOSOPHY-- BLESSING OR CURSE?

This topic submitted by Jeremy Happach and Jim (jhappach@hotmail.com) at 2:44 pm on 2/9/01. Additions were last made on Tuesday, May 28, 2002. Section: Myers.

For our project, we intend to look at the nature of philosophy and how it affects human behavior. Most specifically, we will look to see if philosophical thinkings have influenced humans to behave against their evolutionary instincts. For example, has a widely accepted philosophical ideal (i.e. Christianity) influenced human behaviors that decrease our chances of Darwinian success (i.e. monogamy)? In examining the effects of deep philosophical thinking we aim to find out if philosophy is a blessing or a curse (on human evolution).

We will start our study within the course, and examine how humans evolved into philosophical thinkers. For this we will use Ten Theories of Human Nature and outside sources. We will then do research looking at how influential philosophical ideals actually are on human behavior. One possibility is a student survey. Next, we will examine whether these influenced behaviors are beneficial or harmful on the evolutionary fate of the human race. We understand that this part of the project will be highly theoretical, but we plan to extrapolate on ideas from the course. Mainly, we will look at Moral Animal by Robert Wright and examine his ideas on monogamy, sibling rivalry, social order, and more. We will also do outside research on philosophy and its societal effects.

This project is pretty loose right now, so we would love SUGGESTIONS/IDEAS if you would post them. How can we make this a little more specific?

Sources will be included with second draft. Sorry about the late poat--we've been having group problems and are just now getting organized.

Jeremy and Jim

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