ES 560 ETHICAL STUDIES PRINCIPLES and PRACTICES of

ES 560 ETHICAL STUDIES
PRINCIPLES and PRACTICES of MORAL LEADERSHIP
Fall 2014 - Thursdays, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Dr. Robert M. Franklin Email: [email protected] Office: RARB 544
Office hours: Thursdays 2-4pm (by appointment)
Tel: (404) 727-4176
Asst: Richard M. Landers Email: [email protected] Tel: (404)727-6341
“This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists…The saving of
our world from pending doom will come not from the action of a conforming majority, but
from the ‘creative maladjustment’ of a transformed minority.” Martin Luther King, Jr.,
“Strength to Love”
Course Description
This course is intended to be a foundational class for the Laney Legacy Program in Moral
Leadership open to students throughout the university and offered annually. Through
lectures, seminar discussions, guest presentations and student presentations, we will
attempt to understand how some people are able through their modes of being and acting
to elevate and transform others and produce desired outcomes. Each student will be
responsible for reading all assignments, attending class, two brief reflection papers, one of
which will be presented in class, and a final research paper.
Moral leaders are women and men who act with integrity for the common good. We will
focus on the virtues and traits, actions and contexts, and the outcomes associated with
people whom we consider to be moral leaders. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malala
Yousafzai, Pope Francis, Nelson Mandela, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa,
Cesar Chavez, James T. Laney and many others invite us to reflect on who moral leaders are
and how they come into being, what moral leaders do habitually and skillfully, and the
outcomes they intend, enable and achieve. The course will entail practical moral inquiry into
a special kind of leadership, and offer an opportunity to understand and cultivate one's
motivations, aptitudes and capacities for providing moral leadership.
We are responding to the question, ‘how do people become what Dr. King called
"transformed nonconformists"?’
Required Readings: (books have been ordered by Emory bookstore and are available
online)
Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing, Joseph Badaracco, Jr.
Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader, Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith
The Voice of Hope: Conversations with Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, Alan Clements
Lives of Moral Leadership, Robert Coles
Ethical Leadership: The Quest for Character, Civility and Community, Walter Earl Fluker
Six Theories of Justice: Perspectives from Philosophical and Theological Ethics, Karen
Lebacqz
Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times, Eyal
Press
Course Requirements:
1. Class attendance, 20%
2. A reflection paper on a selected leader's qualities. What impresses you and why? What is
the source of these qualities? Which institutions, people and relationships forged these
virtues and skills? (7-9) pages. 20%
3. A reflection paper (7-9 pages) or case of moral leadership from fiction, film, or other
literary sources (I encourage including relevant images). What are the issues and why is this
moral agent noteworthy? Are there advantages to utilizing ‘alternative texts’ to illustrate
and highlight moral leadership? How do audio-video or printed images compare and
contrast with traditional printed texts? 20%
4. A final paper (15-20 pages) on moral leadership. Based on your life experience, course
readings, and presentations what is your distinctive perspective on moral leadership? Your
careful, systematic and deep analysis is more important than description and narration. 40%
Suggested Readings:
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Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Books on friendship and happiness as a
public virtue.
James T. Laney, The Education of the Heart: Selected Speeches of James T.
Laney
James MacGregor Burns, “The Mysteries of Leadership,” in Transforming
Leadership.
New Testament: Matthew 5-7; I Timothy 3:1-13
Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis.
Wangari Maathai, Unbowed: A Memoir.
Ronald A. Heifetz, On Becoming a Leader.
Daniel H. Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the World
(2005, Riverside Books)
Nicolai Machiavelli, The Prince
Stanley Hauerwas, “Clerical Character: Reflecting on Ministerial Morality.”
Peter Berger, "On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor," (1970).
Steven Tipton, Public Pulpits: Methodists and Mainline Churches in the
Moral Argument of Public Life, University of Chicago Press, 2007.
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Elizabeth Kish and J. Peter Euben, Debating Moral Education: Rethinking the
Role of the Modern University.
Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and
Politics
Elizabeth Bounds, “Chaos or Community,” in Coming Together, Coming
Apart: Religion, Modernity and Community
Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men.”
Tim C. Jackson, “Forgiveness as an Eternal Work of Love,” in The Priority of
Love: Christian Charity and Social Justice.
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society.
Robert Bellah, “To Kill and Survive or To Die and Become: The Active Life
and the Contemplative Life as Ways of Being Adult.” Daedalus, Vol. 105, No.
2, Spring, 1976.
William James, “The Easy Going and the Strenuous Life.”
Robert M. Franklin, Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice
in African American Moral Thought.
Robert M. Franklin, Crisis in the Village: Restoring Hope in African American
Communities.
Emilie Townes, “Ethics as an Act of Doing the Work Our Souls Must Have,”
in Womanist Ethics: A Reader.
Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, “Solidarity: Love of Neighbor in the Twenty First
Century,” in Mujerista Theology.
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s
Development.
Emmanuel Lartey, In Living Colour: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral
Care and Counseling.
Bernard M. Bass and Ronald E. Riggio, Transformational Leadership, (2005)
Owen and David Cherrington, Moral Leadership and Ethical Decision
Making.
Brian J. Mahan , Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics
of Ambition.
Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium.
Martha C. Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities: The Human Development
Approach.
Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.
Gary R. Gunderson, Boundary Leaders: Leadership Skills for People of Faith.
Len Oakes, Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious
Personalities.
Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, (2003)
Devon W. Carbado and EDonald Weise, eds., Time on Two Crosses: The
Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin
Class Meetings:
1.
August 28:
Introductions and expectations of the course. Readings for next week:
Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith, “Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming
a Leader
PART ONE: “WHOM AND WHAT ARE MORAL LEADERS?”
2.
September 4: Principles and practices.
Readings for next week: Bennis and Goldsmith
3.
September 11: View film “13 Days” and the Moral Leadership in Crisis
Readings: Robert Coles, “Lives of Moral Leadership”
4.
September 18: Readings: “Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the
Right Thing”
PART TWO: “WHAT MORAL LEADERS DO”
5.
September 25: Readings: “Beautiful Souls”
6.
October 2: Readings: “The Voice of Hope” Aung San Suu Kyi
7.
October 9: Special guest presentation by Eyal Press, author of “Beautiful Souls”.
8. October 16: “Six Theories of Justice”, Karen Lebacqz
9.
October 23: “Ethical Leadership”, Walter Fluker
PART THREE: “THE OUTCOMES MORAL LEADERS ENABLE”
10.
October 30 Film in class: “To Kill a Mockingbird”
11. November 6: Student Class Presentations
***NO CLASS November 13
12. November 20:
***THANKSGIVING November 27
13. December 4: FINAL CLASS
PAPERS DUE: December 12 before 5pm. No assignments will be reviewed after December
15th.