Monday: Political Power
What is power? What justifies the government in the first place? Do citizens have a duty to obey the law because it’s the law? Highlights:

• The Leviathan simulation: Students participate and compete in a political simulation to understand the public goods justification of the state.

• Logic: Students will learn the basics of propositional logic and argument diagramming.

Tuesday: Markets and Morality
How do markets work? What (if anything) justifies the market system? What is the point of regulating corporations? Are there some things that shouldn’t be for sale? Highlights:

• The Corporatopia game: Students will participate in a market simulation game - negotiate business deals, produce market failures, and lobby the government!

• The Great Debate: Students will collaborate in teams to debate the moral limits of markets.

• Logic: Students will learn about logical validity and how to apply argument inference rules.

Wednesday: Field Trip (TBA)

Thursday: Health and Distributive Justice
How should healthcare be distributed? What does a just distribution of wealth look like? Highlights:

• Logic: Students will learn advanced inference rules and argument reconstruction techniques.

Friday: Ethics of Migration and Philosopher’s Conference
Students will have a chance to bring together their newly-developed critical thinking skills to construct and debate their own position on one of the topics we have discussed throughout the week.

09:30 - 10:00 Case Study: What are markets, and how do they work?
10:00 - 10:30 Activity - Trading Game: How might markets promote human welfare?
10:30 - 11:00 Logic: Daily logic lesson
11:00 - 11:30 Lesson and Discussion: Consequentialist arguments for markets
11:30 - 12:00 Activity - Corporatopia: Students participate in a market simulation game - negotiate business deals, produce market failures, and lobby the government to learn when, and how, markets fail.
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch Break
13:00 - 14:00 Activity - Corporatopia (Continued)
14:00 - 14:30 Lesson: Markets and other values; are there some things which shouldn’t be for sale?
14:30 - 16:00 Activity - Ethics Bowl: Construct, defend, and debate a position on the moral limits of markets!

By the end of this program, students will be able to:

• Identify the parts of an argument. Students will learn what an argument is, the parts of an argument, and most importantly, what makes a well-reasoned argument.

• Reconstruct an argument from a text. Students will learn how to identify the premises and conclusion of an argument from many texts, and how to reconstruct the argument in its logical form.

• Evaluate the strength of an argument. Building upon their argument reconstruction skills, students will learn to critically evaluate an argument by analyzing its logical structure and the truth of its premises.

• Develop convincing objections and replies. Students will learn to clearly and concisely communicate why an argument fails or succeeds, based on their critical analysis. They will apply this to form well-reasoned opinions on philosophical issues.

Program Content

• Lessons and lectures

• Learning activities (case studies, simulations, debates, discussions)

Program Materials

• Philosophy For Youth folder

• Philosophy For Youth pen

• Name tag

• Handouts and readings

Opportunity to make new connections and learn about university programs and admissions!

Field Trip

Details TBA.