While most Honors Discovery courses are small, this large course is designed as a common experience for a larger group of up to 50 Honors students.

Humanities 401 takes as its topic: Power and Responsibility. What do we mean by “power” and “responsibility”? What kinds of power are there and what kinds of responsibilities come with them? Who should have power, and who should not, and why? What powers and responsibilities are inherent in community membership? Or in leadership? What is our power and our responsibility when our community becomes misguided? Or when it hurts its own people? Does a person have the responsibility to maximize their own power? Or should an individual limit their power to help others? We will be exploring such questions with help from writings such as Plato and the Bible, to modern psychological experiments and historical events. The course addresses themes such as religious, political, and economic concepts of power and responsibility; philosophies and psychologies of social power; and the power of race and gender in our culture.