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Religion, Philosophy, & Ethics

The study of Religion, Philosophy & Ethics at Trinity School assists students in developing literacy in cultural, philosophical, and religious worldviews, in addition to helping them formulate their own personal ethical positions and existential identities. Seminar-style classes allow for a safe and stimulating environment in which students are challenged to share their perspectives on the human condition.

Upper School students enroll into at least one Religion, Philosophy & Ethics seminar as a requirement for graduation. Taken in either the junior or senior year, these college-level courses offer students an opportunity to study world religions or ethics. Recent religion seminars have included Religious Phenomenology, Literature in Asian Religions, and Sin & Redemption. Some of these seminars approach religion as a lived experience, and others follow historical or comparative theological models. The department’s ethics seminars encourage a deep critical engagement with a host of socially relevant ethical issues from violence to bioethics.

The unifying mission of the department is to examine how individuals and groups construct and experience meaningful worldviews. Whether the topic is animal research, religious conversion, or mystical experience, students explore an array of questions and themes by entering into conversations with classic and contemporary texts. These conversations span traditional disciplinary boundaries and draw upon knowledge from other courses and disciplines.

An Upper School student will leave a Religion, Philosophy & Ethics Seminar with an exposure to at least two world religions and familiarity with a specific methodological approach. Students leave the department’s seminars with much more than an introduction to the disciplines of Religion and Philosophy. They leave with an interdisciplinary language for thinking about what it means to be a questioning person in a pluralistic world.

Graduation Requirement: 1 semester

  • CLASSICS IN TRANSLATION: PHILOSOPHY

    In this course, we will study several ancient answers to the question “What is a good life?” In particular, we will examine the answers of Aristotle and St. Augustine in depth, and we will also look at the ethical views of Epicurus, the Cyrenaics, and the Pyrrhonian skeptics. We will also study the surprising overlap between ancient Buddhism and the good life proposed by Epicurus and Pyrrho. These ancient systems asked questions that are still relevant to us: how important are altruism and justice in a good life? what is the place of pleasure in a good life? what role do the gods and religion play in a good life? We will study these ancient philosophers both from a historical point of view and with an eye to what they can still teach us today.
     
    This course fulfills the Upper School’s Religion, Philosophy, and Ethics requirement.

    This course can be taken in the fall or spring semester.
     
    Prerequisites: None. You do not need to know Latin or Greek to sign up.

    4 periods per cycle

    Grades 11 and 12

  • ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

    This course is an overview of the many issues that inform our current understanding of the environment and our place in it. It is broadly interdisciplinary; our readings present the ways in which the earth and environment is conceptualized within several major worldviews and philosophies.  In addition to the readings from the required texts, we will be looking at works by contemporary economists, social and natural scientists, activists, writers, and artists, with which we will explore the current material, political, and social dimensions of our relationship to the environment.  
    This course may be taken in the fall or spring

    4 periods per cycle

    Grades 11-12

  • PRACTICAL BIOETHICS

    This Religion, Philosophy & Ethics seminar will introduce students to Philosophical and Religious ethics with a focus on contemporary issues in bioethics.  The seminar will explore a range of ethical theories and apply these theories to environmental, animal, and medical ethical case studies. The goal of this seminar is to equip students with the intellectual and practical tools necessary to live the vita activa (active life).

    This course is offered in the fall and spring semesters.

    4 periods per cycle

    Grades 11 and 12

  • DREAMS: A SYMPOSIUM

    This Religion, Philosophy & Ethics seminar will explore various understandings of dreams and dreaming. The first half of the semester will examine a range of theoretical writings on the significance of dreams, including texts by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Melanie Klein, and Pavel Florensky. Equal time will be spent engaging scientific (e.g., neurological), psychological, and theological perspectives. The second half of the semester will focus on the interpretation of literary works and films in which dreams play a central role, including Ismail Kadare’s The Palace of Dreams, Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey, and the film Inception. In addition to regular readings, class discussions, writing assignments, and quests, students will keep a dream journal that will serve as the foundation for a creative final project.

    This course is offered in the fall and spring semesters.

    4 periods per cycle

    Grades 11 and 12

  • ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

    This Religion, Philosophy & Ethics seminar will examine the relationship between human beings, non-human beings, and the environment, as well as their independent and interdependent moral standings, through a consideration of foundational texts and case studies in environmental studies.   We will consider topics such as animal rights, population and consumption, climate change and energy policy, sustainability, and spiritual ecology.   In doing so, this seminar will introduce students to the basic components of moral and ethical reasoning and the important issues in contemporary environmental studies.  Through readings, class discussion, and written work, students will learn to use ethical reasoning to formulate, express, and defend their positions on environmental questions.

    This course is offered in the fall and spring semesters.

    4 periods per cycle

    Grades 11 and 12

  • THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER/Sp

    What, if anything, can be considered distinctly American philosophical thought? As students seek to answer this question, they explore the richness and diversity of the American intellectual tradition.  Beginning with the works of Jonathan Edwards, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, they study the earliest giants of this heritage alongside the American Enlightenment thinkers Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.  Significant attention is given to what revivalists call classical American philosophy, the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and Columbia’s own John Dewey (Faculty 1905-1930, Emeritus 1939).   Concluding this journey, students survey 20th-century American moral philosophy by reviewing works on W.E.B. Du Bois, C. Wright Mills (Faculty 1945-1962), Reinhold Niebuhr (Faulty, Union Theological Seminary, 1928-60), John Rawls, and another Columbia giant Lionel Trilling (Columbia College 1925, PhD 1938, Faculty 1927–74.)  These thinkers, scholars, and cultural critics were engaged public intellectuals, significant figures of the last century who have often been referred to as respondents to pragmatism. Students analyze the impact their work had in the tradition of American philosophical discourse.

  • SOPHOMORE SYMPOSIUM

    The objective of this symposium is to encourage sophomores to reflect upon their self-identities, our identity as a pluralistic school, and our individual and collective relationships to a larger sense of society and world. Primary texts, case studies, and group discussions will be used to promote a multidisciplinary discussion across the grade-level and division. This symposium hopes to set the groundwork for a lifetime of philosophical reflection and inquiry.

    This is a required year-long course. 

    Pass/Fail

    2 periods per cycle

    Grade 10

  • RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES

    This course will be an exploration of the religious experience in the United States, and the role that religion has played in shaping our culture and society.  It will focus on religious pluralism and diversity and the specific complexities of the American approach to religion, in which we maintain a secular society and government and a freedom of religious expression.  It will be interdisciplinary in that it will incorporate historical perspectives and methodology, and materials and methodologies from Religious Studies.  There will be three units: Religious Pluralism, Community and Identity, and Religion in the Public Sphere.
    This course may be taken in the fall or spring

    4 periods per cycle

    Grades 11-12


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Located on the Upper West Side of New York City, Trinity School is a college preparatory, coeducational independent school for grades K-12. Since 1709, Trinity has provided a world-class education to its students with rigorous academics and outstanding programs in athletics, the arts, peer leadership, and global travel.