Courses Taught

Introduction to Philosophy

A  survey of topics such as the meaning of life, nature of mind, existence of God, value theory, normative ethics, and applied ethics.

Introduction to Ethics

A survey course that explores ethical theories, questions about moral knowledge, and various applied ethical issues including the death penalty and global poverty.

Contemporary Moral Issues

An applied ethics course on select contemporary topics including abortion, animal ethics, euthanasia, genetic enhancement, drug legalization, gun control, and interrogational torture.

Ethics in Business

A course that surveys topics including the ethics of bluffing, whistleblowing, sexual harassment, romance in the workplace, sweatshop labor, advertising, the moral limits of markets, and the social responsibility of corporations.

Additional Courses

Theory of Knowledge

A course that investigates the ethics of belief as well as skeptical problems concerning the external world, other minds, and the problem of induction. We discuss the value, source, structure, and nature of knowledge itself.

Metaphysics

This course investigates questions about the existence and nature of time, causation, persons, free will, material objects, abstract entities, and truth. We also discuss why there is something rather than nothing.

Philosophy of Science

This course investigates conceptual questions about science. What is the difference between science and pseudoscience? What are theories? What is the nature of scientific explanation, confirmation, and progress? Does science really justify belief in unobservable entities and processes? 

Philosophy of Religion

A course that surveys questions about the existence of God, the relationship between faith and reason, the nature and role of religious experience, the relationship between God and ethics, and whether it is rational to believe in miracles.

Meaning of Life

This course investigates whether or to what extent life is meaningful. Here, we examine views about the relationship between meaning, welfare, morality, death, and the afterlife.

Logic

This is an introductory course to symbolic logic. In it, we apply formal methods to understand how we should translate and deduce conclusions from information that is taken for granted. To this end, we explore two systems in detail: sentential and quantificational logic.

Metaethics

A course that surveys topics such as moral knowledge, the role of reason and emotion in moral motivation, egoism vs. altruism, naturalism vs. non-naturalism, error theory, expressivism, moral relativism, and the relationship between God and morality.

Environmental Ethics

A course that surveys many questions about the relationship between morality and the environment. Do ecosystems have rights? What morally significant effect does the environment have on moral character? Do we have a moral obligation to change our lifestyles in light of climate change?

Bioethics

A course that surveys topics such as abortion, genetic enhancement, cloning, euthanasia, organ transplants, experimentation on animals and humans, the neuroethics of mind alternation, and the ethics of withholding information on the part of medical professionals.