Philosophy of Work: Labor and the Good Life

The oldest goal of philosophy is to understand how to live a good life. Work, considered as a source of income, an identity, a place to find community, and a way of creating the necessary stuff of life and civilization, surely must be part of a good life. Good or bad, it's already a major part of our lives. Most Americans work for 40 hours-a-week, 2000 hours-a-year, for something like 40 years, totaling at least 80,000 hours! As Stanford students, you have an incredible range of choices about how to use this time to live well. This choice is exciting but can also be stressful, even overwhelming. In this course we read and discuss texts that explore the role of work in a good life. Where do the social norms and legal rules that say we have to work come from? Should we have to work? What if in the future we don't have to work, as a result of technological advances like artificial intelligence? Alongside philosophical texts from ancient and modern times, we'll read history, economics, contemporary journalism, activist writings and poetry. All of it, however, will be geared toward giving you as students tools, skills, and concepts to think through the major choices about work that you'll face as you build your own good lives.