Course Description:

This is an introductory course on crucial critical thinking skills in logic. It covers the basics of arguments,
argument evaluation, categorical logic, argument forms, informal fallacies, inductive reasoning (with some
relevant fallacies), and their applications in scientific reasoning.

Cirriculum Category:  Foundations

Attribute: Math, General Knowledge Strand (G-Strand)

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
• Critically analyze argument structure, identify argument type, and evaluate argument reasoning;
• Understand the purpose and uses of categorical logic and propositional logic for deductive reasoning,
and be able to symbolize statements (and hence arguments);
• Understand and be able to use various tests to evaluate various arguments;
• Recognize various informal fallacies;
• Use and evaluate various inductive arguments;
• Use the above knowledge to analyze and evaluate arguments in science.

Course Objectives:

This course consists of three units:

I. Basics of critical thinking and logic:
Students will learn arguments and their parts, different types of claims, argument evaluation system
(validity/soundness, inductive strength/cogency), and the counterexample test of validity

II. More on argument evaluation:
Students will learn categorical logic and propositional logic. For the former, they will learn categorical
statements, categorical syllogisms, and the Venn diagram test; for the latter, they will learn to
translate claims into propositional logic, identify various argument forms, and use truth tables.

III. Informal fallacies, inductive reasoning and applications in science:
Students will learn various informal fallacies, three types of induction (analogical, causal, and statistical),
fallacies related to inductive reasoning, Mill’s methods, scientific method, scientific verification
and falsification, abduction, and bad science.

Course Description:

Formal logic is a way to structure and evaluate the arguments we are all apt to make. In this course, you will develop the tools necessary to argue with angry uncles at the dinner table, and seemingly cryptic ways to write basic English sentences. Beyond learning techniques employed by philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, and computer programmers, skills developed here sharpen your ability to reason in your academic studies and later life.

This course is not a survey of various ideas in formal logic. In order to succeed in the later portions of the term, you must master earlier concepts. It will be difficult to catch oneself up if you are missing fundamental skills.

GenEd Category: Foundation

Course Attribute: Math, General Knowledge Strand (G-Strand)

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the semester, students will be able to…
•  define key logical concepts such as validity, invalidity, soundness, and consequence
•  translate from first order logic (FOL) into English, and from English into FOL
•  evaluate sets of sentences in FOL for tautological necessity, tautological equivalence, and tautological consequence by means of truth tables
•  construct proofs in a natural deduction system for FOL
•  prove invalidity and inconsistency by constructing countermodels

Course Objectives:

Students will develop argumentative abilities by studying FOL, study the application of symbolic logic and FOL to arguments, read from a diverse set of perspectives on logic, and sharpen analytical abilities through practice and study.
 

Catalog Description:
This course examines fundamental questions about the ethical organization of society and social life. These questions include: What is the basis of the state? What is the nature of social justice? What are our obligations to others around the world? We will aim to develop clear thinking about issues that are of great importance to the contemporary world and that each of us will face as a citizen of a modern democratic state.

Curriculum Category: Building Connections (BC)

Attribute(s): Diversity and Equity, Writing

Learning Outcomes:
REQUIRED GenEd learning outcomes:

Students will demonstrate the ability to utilize multiple perspectives and make meaningful connections across disciplines and social positions, think conceptually and critically, and solve problems. (BC)

Students will demonstrate knowledge of how historical and contemporary populations* have experienced inequality, considering diversity, power, and equity through disciplinary perspectives to reflect upon how various communities experience privilege and/or oppression/marginalization and theorize how to create a more equitable society. (Diversity & Equity Attribute)
*populations including, but not limited to: people from racial/ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQIA+ people, disabled people, people from marginalized communities and societies, socioeconomically disadvantaged communities and/or people from colonized societies.

Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development. (Writing)

OPTIONAL:

Students will demonstrate competency in analyzing a philosophical text, critical thinking, and writing a sound philosophy paper.

Course Objectives:

Utilize prior knowledge and experience to reflect on morality, the basis of political authority, social justice, and the institutions and social processes that impact social justice.

Understand the diversity of contending ideas and arguments that support opposing positions on justice and political morality.

Appreciate the centrality of social science to reasoning in political philosophy.

Understand and critically evaluate the social scientific models that underlie normative theorizing in political philosophy.

Clarify basic moral and political concepts and the philosophical theses that use them.

Clarify and analyze philosophical arguments that support conceptions of justice and political morality.

Assess critically the validity and soundness of the diverse arguments and ideas they study.

Draft and revise rigorously structured papers that lay out ideas and arguments and critically asses them.

Clarify, analyze, and critically assess arguments regarding institutions and social processes that impact economically disadvantaged individuals and groups.

Clarify, analyze, and critically assess arguments regarding group oppression, gender and racial injustice, and institutions and social processes that may facilitate, enact, or contribute to injustice.

Discuss diverse ideas and arguments about social processes, social justice and political authority.

Collaborate with other students to develop a critical analysis of some aspect of social justice or political morality.

Signature Assignment(s):

The course will have 3 signature assignments.

Signature Assignments 1 and 2

The first two signature assignments are 2 page papers on main questions for the course.

Diversity and Equity Attribute

• These assignments focus on issues of socioeconomic justice and race/gender justice. 
• In the first signature assignment, students explain and critically analyze Marxist, egalitarian, and/or libertarian conceptions of justice.
• In the second signature assignment, students explain and critically analyze Iris Marion Young’s conception of group oppression or Tommie Shelby’s analysis of race, racism, and the significance of racism for social justice.

Writing Attribute:

• Writing as an iterative process will be emphasized for these assignments.  Students will engage in reflective writing on socio-economic justice and race/gender justice to draw on prior knowledge and experience.  Students will compose drafts of their ideas, exchange these with members of their writing group, and revise their papers in light of this feedback.

Building Connections:

• In these assignments, students will identify and apply the tools and methodologies of the social scientist by explaining and critically assessing the models of society underlying the normative perspective of the theorists they consider.  And, students will identify and apply the tools of the philosopher by clarifying ideas and critically assessing the normative conception developed by the theorists.  Students will build connections between these disciplinary perspectives (social science and philosophy) by reconciling conceptions of social justice and political morality with defensible models of how society works.

Signature Assignment 3

Writing Attribute

• The third signature assignment will be a formal written assignment that draws on course content (readings/lectures) and builds on earlier writing assignments, discussions, and presentations.
• As the course proceeds, students will have written 4 shorter papers and collaborated on one group presentation.  Each of these assignments will have focused on one of the major questions for the course.
• In the 3^rd signature assignment students will develop one of these earlier assignments (short paper or group presentation) into a longer project, giving special attention to clarifying the ideas in their thesis and responding to possible objections to their line of reasoning.
• The assignment will proceed in stages.
• First, students will reflect on their earlier assignments and engage in prewriting, to generate an outline for the paper.
• Second, one this outline has been approved, by the instructing team, students will develop a draft of their paper.
• Third, in light of appropriate feedback from the instructing team, students will compose a final draft that conforms to the genre conventions of academic philosophy.

Diversity and Equity Attribute

• While the 3^rd signature assignment, need not directly address group oppression or racial/gender injustice, it MAY do so – and in many cases will do so – depending on which earlier assignment in the course a student chooses to develop for their 3^rd signature assignment.

Building Connections Attribute:

• As with signature assignments 1 and 2, students will identify and apply the tools and methodologies of the social scientist by explaining and critically assessing the models of society underlying the normative perspective of the theorists they consider.  And, students will identify and apply the tools of the philosopher by clarifying ideas and critically assessing the normative conception developed by the theorists.  Students will build connections between these disciplinary perspectives (social science and philosophy) by reconciling conceptions of social justice and political morality with defensible models of how society works. 

Catalog Description: We will study the ethics and the economics of such phenomena as market competition, institutions of private and public property, trade restrictions, globalization, and corporate welfare. How do people create wealth? How do societies enable people to create wealth? Are some ways more ethical than others? Why do some societies grow rich while neighboring societies remain poor? People have various ways of creating wealth. Which are ethical and which are not?  Why?

Curriculum Category: Building Connections (BC)

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes:

REQUIRED GenEd learning outcomes:

Students will demonstrate competency in analyzing a philosophical text, critical thinking, and writing a sound philosophy paper. (Philosophy program outcome)

Students will demonstrate the ability to utilize multiple perspectives and make meaningful connections across disciplines and social positions, think conceptually and critically, and solve problems. (BC)

Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development. (Writing)

REQUIRED Philosophy program learning outcomes (must include one):

• Outcome 1: Write a sound philosophy paper. Write a clear, logical, and mechanically sound philosophy paper.
• Outcome 2: Analyze a philosophical text.
• Outcome 3: Demonstrate critical thinking. 

OPTIONAL:

Utilize prior knowledge and experience to reflect on what wealth is, its normative significance, the individual and social processes that create wealth, and the institutions that facilitate the creation of wealth.

Reflect on writing as tool for utilizing and creating knowledge, on writing skills, and on writing goals and areas for writing improvement.

Describe the history, measurement, causes, and consequences of wealth creation.

Relate economic, social, and political institutions to wealth creation.

Compare centralized and decentralized actions, practices, and institutions relevant to wealth creation in terms of ethics, knowledge, incentives, efficiency, and opportunity costs.

Evaluate social policies and institutions using major ethical theories.

Consider the perspective of economically marginalized groups in critically evaluating arguments regarding institutions that impact the creation of wealth.

Discuss, evaluate, and construct ethical and economic arguments regarding social institutions and actions that impact the creation of wealth.

Collaborate with other students to recommend policies for controversial markets based on incentives, consequences, and moral rights and moral duties.

Draft and revise a substantial paper that reconciles ethical and economic values in critically evaluating aspects of a capitalist political economic order and/or proposals for reforming this order.

Draft and revise essays that conform to the genre conventions of academic philosophy.

Signature Assignment(s):
In the first part of course students will have written 3 shorter papers on aspects of capitalist economic order:  on property, on markets, and the hierarchical firm.   The normative focus in this part of the course will be economic values of efficiency and preference satisfaction.

In the second part of the course students will completed 2 shorter papers (and one presentation) that critically evaluate proposals for reforming some aspect of a capitalist economic order.  The normative focus in this part of the course will be ethical values of rights, liberty, justice, and virtue.

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the ethics of artificial intelligence and automated information systems. The recent development of “transformer” models, including large language models like ChatGPT, has brought to the fore urgent questions about how we must understand, classify, and react to “artificially intelligent” systems. Learners will learn foundational aspects about AI, including what it means for machines to “think” and best current understanding of machine abilities to “emote”, “create”, “imagine”, and so on. On the basis of this understanding the course will delve into a critical examination of a range of ethical questions raised by recent developments in AI.

Curriculum Category: Building Connections

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes

1. One key to good philosophy, and good argumentative writing generally is 1. to clearly identify one’s premises for whatever conclusion(s) one is defending, 2. to make sure that conclusions follow (either deductively or inductively) from one’s premises, and 3. to defend one’s premises against likely objections. These are skills emphasized in the writing for this course (SLO/GE outcome.)

2. Because this is an applied ethics course – applying ethical theories to questions about AI – one outcome is that students will become acquainted with those theories that figure in ethical debates about AI. These include Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, Virtue Ethics, and such principles as Double Effect (often associated with Just War Theory). Learning this material is especially important for those majoring or minoring in philosophy. 

3. Throughout the course, students will learn how to bring ethical considerations to bear on issues in AI – considerations that are properly informed by ethical theory. For instance, readings on the ethics of drones often refer to “just war” theory – a theory that addresses questions about the justification of going to war, but most importantly for the topic of drones, provisions regarding constraints on military activities within war. These provisions include discrimination (who is a legitimate target of aggression) and proportionality (what is a tolerable level of anticipated civilian deaths as a consequence of war activities). Learning how to apply just war theory to the case of killer drones (the topic of the signature assignment) requires learning how to apply these (and other) provisions that has resulted a large literature in ethical theory. This outcome is specific to this course. 

4. As stressed earlier under the “How and Why” question, one central learning outcome of the course is to engage students in understanding and thinking about the design and capabilities of modern artificial intelligence from the perspective of the cognitive scientist – one of the two Perspectives mentioned under Building Connections.  

Course Objectives

• Understand the various topics of the course and why they are worthy of the attention they receive from philosophers and cognitive scientists of various stripes.
• Carefully and critically read texts (both classical and contemporary) that address issues and questions at the intersection of moral philosophy and the pertinent sciences that contribute to debates in moral philosophy.
• Understand the basic methods of philosophical thinking (defining terms, clarifying positions, identifying arguments and being able to critically assess them) in thinking and writing about the topics of this course – skills that apply generally to thinking, discussion, and writing.
• Understand the experimental methods of the pertinent sciences in addressing questions about our moral lives.
• Understand how these disciplines contribute to each other in addressing a common set of questions about morality. 

Signature Assignment

SAMPLE SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT

The Assignment: The Ethics of Killer Drones

The use of AI technologies in the battlefield and in law enforcement are imminent. In fact, in the latter they are now a part of reality. From facial detection to on-the-fly translation to bomb diffusal, AI technologies are and will be deployed in battlefields and law enforcement to supplement, and even to take over, difficult and dangerous tasks hitherto performed by human beings. The emerging landscape throws up tremendous ethical challenges, as AI systems fundamental “reason” and “think” and “emote” in ways different from human beings, and yet we must code them in ways that their use remains consistent with the tenets of international law and with sound moral principles. 

Of particular ethical concern is the rise of robotic weapons used for killing – “killer drones.” One objection raised against their use in warfare is that “ethical reflection on drone fighting suggests that this practice does not only create physical distance, but also moral distance: far removed from one’s opponent, it becomes easier to kill” (from M. Coeckelbergh 2013 cited below). This ethical objection is most powerfully raised by N. Sharkey (cited below). Coeckelbergh attempts to answer Sharkey’s objection in defense of the use of killer drones. The work of both authors is informed by relevant scientific advances in AI. 

The assignment is to write an integrated essay in which you bring to bear work in philosophy, big data, computation, cognitive science, and related areas discussed in this course to discuss the ethical issue concerning killer drones raised by Sharkey and Coeckelbergh. 

The core readings for this assignment are: “Killing made easy: From joysticks to politics” by N. Sharkey (in Robotic Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, 2012) and “Drones, Information Technology, and Distance: Mapping the Moral Epistemology of Remote Fighting” by M. Coeckelbergh (Ethics of Information Technology 15, 2013). These readings are available on our D2L course site. 

Here is a step-wise outline for completing this writing assignment. 

1: Introduction
An introductory paragraph in which you explain to your reader what your paper is about and give some indication of how you plan to proceed (the organization of the paper). This should be short, no more than half a page. Here you should mention the particular dispute ethical over the use of killer drones raised by these authors explaining briefly what the dispute is about, as well as say what you will go on to do in the paper.

2. Then, explain in some detail (roughly two pages) how Coeckelbergh following Sharkey develops the idea that drone fighting creates epistemic and moral distance insofar as “screenfighting” tends to remove he psychological barriers to killing. 

3. Next, explain Coeckelbergh’s views about the use of surveillance technologies and the possibility of “empathic bridging” that may serve to “rehumanize” a fighter’s opponent and thus overcome the worry over screenfighting. 

4. Then, considering the work of work of these two authors, take a stand on the plausibility of Coeckelbergh’s defense of killer drones. Does Coeckelbergh provide an adequate defense against Sharkey’s objection concerning screenfighting? To answer this question, approach it by considering what you take to be the best line of defense that you would advise Sharkey to take in responding to Coeckelbergh. Do you think this defense is adequate? How might Coeckelbergh reply? In thinking about the Sharkey/Coeckelbergh debate, you might consider whether there is a compromise position that accommodates the insights of these two authors. 

5. Conclusion. 
Write a short conclusion in which you briefly summarize your paper. 

Audience

Imagine that your audience (for whom your essay should make clear sense) is one of your university peers who is not taking this course. Someone smart like you, but who is unfamiliar with the dispute between moral disgust advocates and moral disgust skeptics.  

Citations

Follow authors who use the Harvard style in which full references to the works referred to in the text are listed at the end of the work and specific references in the text have the form: (Author Date, Pages).

 Evaluation

This paper assignment is worth 100 points. Here is a list of the grading criteria and how much each of the items is worth.

Grammar and Spelling: worth 20 points

Clarity and organization: the organization part shouldn’t be hard given the above outline. But writing clearly is a skill that I’m expecting anyone enrolled in the course to be able to do at a high level. Worth 30 points.

Accuracy: some of the assignment is an exercise in exegesis – explaining in your own words the views of the authors. Worth 30 points.

Quality of response: item 4 of the assignment asks you to be creative in taking and then defending the position you take on the debate over killer drones. Worth 20 points. 

How this assignment addresses GE learning outcomes for Building Connections

This assignment requires students to integrate and discuss relevant of multiple perspectives on the selected topic. Students will need to demonstrate mastery across the areas covered during the course, synthesize these perspectives, identify a position as their own, and clearly explain and defend it using the techniques of argumentation that they will learn during the course. They will also need to respond to potential challenges to their point of view, thus deepening their understanding and further refining their argumentative skills.

Course description: 

This course covers some of the central aspects of the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, and ongoing philosophical and scientific debates about those foundations. Course topics may include: the mind-body problem; the relationship between psychological and biological sciences; the mystery of subjective experience; emotions; innateness; rationality (and irrationality); nonhuman minds; artificial
intelligence; and moral cognition. The course is strongly interdisciplinary, drawing on both scientific and philosophical sources.

Curriculum Category:  Building Connections

Curriculum Attributes:  Writing

Student Learning Outcomes
• Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to utilize multiple perspectives and make meaningful connections across disciplines and social positions, think conceptually and critically, and solve problems.
• Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development.
• Students will demonstrate an understanding of how deeply entwined both philosophical and scientific questions regarding the nature of cognition, and consciousness are, and how the different tools of these disciplines must work together in order for us to achieve greater knowledge of the mind.
 

Course Objectives
• Identify and distinguish the main positions on the mind-body problem, including dualism, behaviorism, reductionism, and functionalism; and articulate their various advantages and disadvantages
• Apply the philosophical method of thought-experimentation to testing the adequacy of different conceptual constructs
• Analyze and evaluate the design of scientific experiments, with particular application to a range of classic studies in the recent history of psychology
• Evaluate major philosophical and empirical arguments for positions in the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, and to offer constructive novel extensions of those arguments
• Convey complex and subtle ideas in clear, cogent written language
• To respond thoughtfully and constructively in scholarly disputes with their peers, and to be prepared to receive such responses in an equally constructive manner.

Signature Project
Students will choose one of the major topics of the course, and construct a dialogue between a scientific and philosophical perspective on that topic. They can approach this using one of three different textual strategies.

Scholarly debate - This would be written as an academic paper, in a mostly third-person approach in which the two perspectives would be articulated, and then possible responses canvassed on behalf of each, including responses to responses. This would be considered as aimed to a specialist audience, with the appropriate writing conventions.

Personal meditation - Taking Descartes’s famous Meditations as a model, the student will write their project as an expression of an internal dialogue between the different modes of thinking as parts of their own intellectual character. They should think of this as a personal communication, as if to a friend or student, in which they are trying to capture and convey their thoughts on the matter. The style here would thus be more informal, but with no less of an emphasis on clarity.

Dramatic dialogue - Written as a piece of dramatic literature, such as a skit, play, or screenplay, here the scientific and philosophical voices will be embodied in presumably two separate characters (though more would be fine, if that should be an appropriate choice for the topic). Students could turn it in as written or, delightfully, could stage, record, or film a production. 

The length will be flexible, and indeed will likely vary depending on which textual strategy is adopted, but they should generally aim for at least 800 words.

Catalog Description: We will investigate and seriously consider how and why we should live as morally responsible members of an ecological community. Students will explore philosophical responses to questions such as: What makes something natural? What value is there to non-human entities? What obligations do we have to each other regarding the environment?   Students will investigate social scientific responses to questions such as:  How should wilderness be preserved?  How should we respond to climate change?  How should water resources be allocated?  Students will build connections between and reconcile philosophical and social scientific approaches to issues of environmental concern. 

Curriculum Category: Building Connections (BC)

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes:
REQUIRED GenEd learning outcomes:

Students will demonstrate competency in analyzing a philosophical text, critical thinking, and writing a sound philosophy paper. (Program outcome)

Students will demonstrate the ability to utilize multiple perspectives and make meaningful connections across disciplines and social positions, think conceptually and critically, and solve problems. (BC)

Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development. (Writing)

REQUIRED Philosophy program learning outcomes (must include one):

• Outcome 1: Write a sound philosophy paper. Write a clear, logical, and mechanically sound philosophy paper.
• Outcome 2: Analyze a philosophical text.
• Outcome 3: Demonstrate critical thinking. 

OPTIONAL:

Utilize prior knowledge and experience to reflect on what nature is, our relation to nature, the value of nature, and how societies should respond to contemporary issues of environmental concern.

Reflect on writing as tool for utilizing and creating knowledge, on writing skills, and on writing goals and areas for writing improvement.

Describe environmental challenges contemporary societies face and the history of these challenges.

Explore conceptions of nature and the place of human beings in nature.

Critically assess anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric conceptions of environmental value, and draw out the implications of these conceptions.

Discuss and evaluate institutional proposals for responding to contemporary issues of environmental based on incentives, information constraints, feasibility, and cultural fit.

Consider the perspective of marginalized groups and environmental justice in critically assessing institutional proposals.

Collaborate with other students to present and defend an institutional proposal that addresses a contemporary issue of environmental concern.

Draft and revise a substantial paper that reconciles social scientific and philosophical perspectives in defending an institutional proposal for a contemporary issue of environmental concern.

Draft and revise essays that conform to the genre conventions of academic philosophy.

Signature Assignment(s):
In the first part of course students will have written 3 shorter papers on philosophical conceptions of nature, our place in nature, and its value.

In the second part of the course students will have drawn on the perspective of the social scientist in composing 2 shorter papers that critically evaluate institutional proposals for responding to issues of contemporary environmental concern and in collaborating on 1 group presentation recommending an institutional response to one such issue.

Course Description

This course examines fundamental questions about our existence and our place in the universe. Questions such as the following will be examined from a philosophical perspective: Is the mind the same as the brain, or are we something else? Does free-will exist? What, if anything, can we know with certainty? We will explore traditional and contemporary debates about these issues while developing clear, methodical reasoning about how we might go about trying to answer them.

Curriculum Category: Exploring Perspectives: Humanist

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes

• Understand some of the most historically significant philosophical positions on human persons and their relationship to the universe at large
• Acquire ability, through close reading, to analyze and critically evaluate textual arguments for philosophically systematic views
• Acquire ability to develop written accounts of others’ philosophical positions
• Acquire ability to develop a philosophical thesis and write a cogent argumentative essay in support of that thesis

Course Objectives

•    Understand and classify a variety of philosophical positions in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of religion and other central philosophical subfields.
•    Recognize and identify the key features of philosophical arguments on topics such as freedom of the will, the existence of God, and the nature of the mind.
•    Summarize and clarify concepts central to important philosophical debates.
•    Develop clarity in writing and thought about complicated and abstract concepts.
•    Discern and appreciate different philosophical approaches and the contributions those approaches have made towards furthering the dialectic.
•    Draft a carefully constructed paper clarifying, analyzing, and ultimately evaluating philosophical ideas, positions, and arguments.
•    Identify the approaches and methodologies of the disciplinary perspective, use evidence and/or knowledge generated within the disciplinary perspective to critically analyze questions, ideas, and/or arguments, and describe contributions of this perspective to finding solutions to global and/or local challenges.

Signature Assignment

All assignments in the course will be aimed at addressing different student learning objectives, whether it’s through peer-to-peer discussion, informal short reading responses, or quizzes based off of the reading.

The signature assignment will be the term paper, a longer analysis of one of the topics covered during the course. Students will be strongly encouraged to use one of the previous, smaller writing assignments as a starting point. In light of feedback students received on those papers, they can engage in the process of editing and re-writing to more clearly express their own arguments. 

This process has two benefits that might not be explicitly emphasized in the course material: (1) the editing process is integral to clear, coherent writing and editing in response to feedback is a very useful skill to learn, and (2) it encourages students to re-visit the ideological positions they took in their paper, allowing them to re-evaluate in light of feedback (just as one might if one offered a philosophical argument against their view), and opens the possibility of changing their position, even if just slightly, to accommodate objections, or answer those objections. This process is integral to the methodology of philosophy, and perhaps to critical thinking more generally.

More specifically, the paper will be a four page paper that aims to explore one of the arguments covered during the course. It will require the following components:

1. Exposition: clearly describing in their own words a view or argument offered by one of the philosophers we covered. This includes not only being able to introduce the surrounding topic, but also understanding the text well enough that the student can explain it clearly and succinctly.
   
    
2. Analysis & Objection: This involves a close examination of the argument or view under consideration and offering an objection the view. Whether this is questioning one of the premises of the argument, pointing out that the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises, or providing a counterexample to the theory offered. This is crucially important to philosophy, and also helps the student develop their ability to assess difficult, technical material.
3. 
    Defense/Response: After considering an objection to the view, the student must evaluate whether they think that the argument can withstand the objection by providing a rebuttal, or whether the objection warrants changing the view/theory, or makes it completely untenable. 

As you can see from this description, this assignment nicely encapsulates many of the skills philosophers view as central to their discipline. Specifically, students will be able to develop their abilities (among others):

• To analyze and evaluate complex problems, and engineer creative solutions to those problems.
• To develop systematic, coherent arguments for one’s views.
• To appreciate, evaluate, and understand the views of others.

To think, speak, and write clearly and critically.

Catalog Description:
Students will explore the nature of morality in general and examine opposing sides of particular moral debates. Topics may include: abortion, animal rights, the ethics of immigration, genetic enhancement, and euthanasia. This course aims to help students become more reflective and open-minded about morality, while also providing them with the skills to successfully defend their own moral beliefs.

Curriculum Category: Exploring Perspectives (EP) - Humanist

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes:

REQUIRED GenEd learning outcomes:

Students will identify the approaches and methodologies of Humanists, using evidence to critically analyze questions and arguments, and consider contributions of this perspective to finding solutions to global and/or local challenges. (EP Humanist)

Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development. (Writing)

REQUIRED Philosophy program learning outcomes (must include one):

• Outcome 1: Write a sound philosophy paper. Write a clear, logical, and mechanically sound philosophy paper.
• Outcome 2: Analyze a philosophical text.
• Outcome 3: Demonstrate critical thinking. 

OPTIONAL:

Being able to describe and discuss the various moral perspectives featured in the course, including perspectives on specific and on general moral issues.

Being able to apply these theories to various moral issues.

Being able to compare the theories and assess their relative merits according to relevant philosophical standards.

Being able to compose a clear and well-structured essay, suitable for the discipline of philosophy.

Course Objectives:

Students will acquire knowledge of some of the central questions, views, and different perspectives in moral philosophy, and they will do this by engaging with those questions in a way that helps them critically reflect about their own views about the issues. They will develop and sharpen their ability to analyze and assess philosophical arguments in a way that will help them reflect about and communicate their own ideas more effectively—an important skill for the study of philosophy, but it is also important for any intellectual pursuit whatsoever.

Students will acquire these skills through both sessions attended by all their peers led by their professor and smaller discussion groups led by their teaching assistant. In the larger sessions they’ll have the opportunity to discuss the main ideas and diverse perspectives presented in the readings, and in the smaller discussion sections they’ll have the opportunity to debate those ideas with their peers in a lot more depth.

Through these means, by the end of the course students will have identified their own views on moral questions, they will have developed them or refine them when needed, and they will have learned how to support them on the basis of reflective and sound reasoning.

Signature Assignment(s):

Here is an example of a Signature Assignment.

The assignment is to write a paper on one of the following topics:

1. During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers and administrators have faced this type of question: How should scarce medical resources (such as vaccines, drugs, ICU beds, and ventilators) be allocated? That is, which patients should be given priority, and on what basis? Think about this question from the perspective of what you have learned in this class in the unit on moral theories (Utilitarianism and Deontology). How would Utilitarians approach this question? How would Deontologists (in particular, those who believe in DDE or DDA) approach it? Would Utilitarians and Deontologists agree or disagree about the answer to this question? Why? [EXTRA-CREDIT: Finally, conclude with your own assessment: What can we learn (if anything) from views like Utilitarianism or Deontology about what we should do in these challenging cases? Do you see yourself better positioned to answer this question after having taken this class? Why?]
2. Pick your own example of a moral disagreement across different cultures (it could be an example that involves cultures that exist at the same time—such as now—or at different times). Explain how Cultural Relativism and Objectivism are different perspectives about the nature of morality, and illustrate the two views with that example. Next, explain how each perspective could account for or explain that particular example of moral disagreement. Which explanation do you think is right, the relativist or the objectivist? Why? [EXTRA-CREDIT: Finally, conclude with a reflection on what you have learned on this topic from having taken this class: Has your perspective on the nature of morality (in particular, on its objectivity/relativity) changed or evolved in any way from having taken this class? How?]

Guidelines for the students: The paper should be around 5 pages long, double-spaced, using 1”margins throughout. It should have a clear structure that follows the different parts of the chosen prompt, preferably in the order suggested. It should be structured into different paragraphs separating the different parts of the prompt. The ideas need to be explained as if you were writing for a peer who’s introduced to the topic for the first time. You should start with a rough outline and draft and then edit it until you reach a polished version. The recommendation is not to quote from the readings or from the class notes, but, instead, to set out the ideas in your own words as much as possible, and to illustrate them with your own examples when appropriate. You should demonstrate in your writing that you are applying the concepts and skills learned in this class. As with other assignments in this class, you won’t be graded on the basis of the views that you defend, but on how well you apply the concepts learned in class, and on how you structure and express your reasoning using the analytic tools learned and applied in class.

Catalog Description: It is important "to do the right thing." But how can anyone tell what "the right thing" is? What makes some actions right and some wrong? This course is an overview of ethics, which is the field of philosophy that examines these questions. We examine three main ways of thinking about ethics: those that focus one the outcomes of actions, those that focus on the nature of the actions themselves, and those that focus on the character of the one who acts. Students will gain a foundational knowledge that will serve as a solid background for more advanced work in ethics, as a resource for thinking about moral issues, and as a piece of general education valuable for understanding practical aspects of human life.

Curriculum Category: Exploring Perspective (EP) - Humanist

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes:
REQUIRED GenEd learning outcomes:

Students will identify the approaches and methodologies of the disciplinary perspective, use evidence and/or knowledge generated within the disciplinary perspective to critically analyze questions, ideas, and/or arguments, and describe contributions of this perspective to finding solutions to global and/or local challenges.

Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development.

REQUIRED Philosophy program learning outcomes (must include one):

• Outcome 1: Write a sound philosophy paper. Write a clear, logical, and mechanically sound philosophy paper.
• Outcome 2: Analyze a philosophical text.
• Outcome 3: Demonstrate critical thinking. 

Signature Assignment(s):

The assignment is to compare and critically assess how Classical Act Utilitarianism and Rule Consequentialism would apply to the following case:

Janice is suffering greatly from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. This disease causes the death of neurons which control voluntary muscles. Here is a quote about the disease from the ALS Association:

Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their demise. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, people may lose the ability to speak, eat, move and breathe.

Because there is no effective treatment at present, ALS is fatal. It is also progressive. Janice’s ALS has progressed to the point where she has lost her ability to speak, eat, and move. Soon the disease will cause her death. Janice understands this and has requested she be given a painless life-ending drug. (This would be a case of physician-assisted suicide.)

Let us suppose Janice lives in a country where there are no laws against such actions. Still, the moral question is whether it is morally right for a physician to administer a fatal dose of the drug to Janice, upon her request.

Length: to adequately address the assignment, your paper should be 7-8 pages, double-spaced, 1” margins.

Suggested Paper Outline
1. Write a short introductory paragraph explaining to your readers what you will do in your paper. Explain that you plan to compare the implications of classical Act Utilitarianism and Rule Consequentialism to a difficult moral to compare and evaluate these theories as they apply to the case.

2. Next, describe in your own words the case of Janice.

3.  Next, begin with classical Act Utilitarianism (AU) and explain to your reader the elements of this theory in question.

4. Then, once you’ve explained AU, take the position of a judge, and proceed to explain whether it would be morally permissible for the physician to administer the life-ending drug to Janice.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 now focusing on Rule Consequentialism (RC).

Catalog Description: In this course, students will considers a wide range of moral or ethical controversies and positions involved in contemporary life. Topics covered will vary but may include, among others, famine relief; euthanasia and physician assisted suicide; the morality of warfare, often known as Just War Theory; sexual morality; racism; sexism; the ethics of immigration; the morality of genetic engineering, as well as the related topic of human cloning; the restriction of liberties pertaining to recreational drug use, prostitution, pornography, and free speech; environmental damage and moral obligations to future generations; the moral status of nonhuman animals; and abortion.

Curriculum Category: Exploring Perspective (EP) - Humanist

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes:
REQUIRED GenEd learning outcomes:

Students will identify the approaches and methodologies of the disciplinary perspective, use evidence and/or knowledge generated within the disciplinary perspective to critically analyze questions, ideas, and/or arguments, and describe contributions of this perspective to finding solutions to global and/or local challenges.

Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development.

REQUIRED Philosophy program learning outcomes (must include one):

• Outcome 1: Write a sound philosophy paper. Write a clear, logical, and mechanically sound philosophy paper.
• Outcome 2: Analyze a philosophical text.
• Outcome 3: Demonstrate critical thinking. 

Signature Assignment(s):

Two different signature assignments involve two different goals. One is more general as part of a quality education in any humanities course another is more focused upon excelling in the discipline of philosophy.

The first is a 1000-word essay requiring each student to write a critical assessment of an article or articles (or specific arguments in an article or articles). Each of these assigned articles takes a position on some particular moral controversy. What is distinctive about the assignment is in part the lead up to it. Students in the course are divided into groups, and each group is assigned a specific week and topic. (For example, week one is the topic of famine relief, and students in Group 1 are then required to write their essay on tha topic. In week 2, when the topic is famine relief, students in Group 2 are required to write on that topic.) Students in each group are required to write individual (not group) essays, but prior to writing their essay, they are treated as accountable for being “experts” for that week. To that end, prior to class meeting for that week, each student in the group has to write and submit a “shorty” that summarizes in one paragraph one of the two or three assigned readings. (This shorty is “low stakes” in that there is no grade assigned. It is just a simple requirement that each student do this and submit it prior to a class meeting on this topic.)  This insures that these students have carefully invested in the topic ahead of time. Then in attending lectures on the topic, these students are asked to take on a leadership role in asking critical questions and just being prepared to answer hard questions from their professor in helping to explain the material. The students are then also asked to prepare for the second class meeting that week at least one discussion question to help structure a seminar-style discussion. They also prepare these ahead of time and send them to the professor to help plan a class session that engages them. (Note this is also another low-stakes assignment.)

With this as background, after the completion of the topic in class lecture and discussion, students are given a week to write an essay, based on an (optional) prompt. Having invested deeply in the week’s topic, they then submit a 1000-word essay wherein they are required to express in their words, and not based on further research, their views. The instructor then grades that essay focusing both on mastery of philosophical content but also on quality of written arguments. The student is then required to revise in specific response to the feedback to earn full credit. In getting feedback, students are encouraged to take on a professional tone. In doing so, they often produce something that has the respectable appearance of a position piece that could appear in the op-ed section of a good newspaper.

A key aim of this signature assignment is to infuse carefully reading, class lecture, peer discussion, and feedback from both peers (in the class discussion) and from the professor into a writing assignment. In this way, it just cannot be that writing something is one little step, and other aspects of the class are other little steps, reading, shared discussion, reflection, feedback, and revisiting one’s ideas are all enmeshed. This is just what good writers and thinkers do.

Below, I will past an example of a prompt for one of these essay assignments.

Before doing so, here is a second Signature Assignment, and this is far easier to explain. It instead is aimed at drilling down into the disciplinary practice to craft a quality piece of work unique to philosophy as a distinctive area of the humanities. In the last third of the course, we shift from focus on one topic each week to intensive focus on two topics for two weeks each. The final assignment is a final paper that asks the students to write a proper philosophy paper that incorporates the many (4-6) assigned readings. These papers should be of a quality that, at the upper end, could be submitted in application to a graduate program as a writing sample. The two topics most recently used are the moral status of nonhuman animals and the moral permissibility or impermissibility of abortion. Students often produce astoundingly mature and well-crafted essays.

Catalog Description:
Happiness matters to us; and now it is in the news. There are large numbers of self-help books telling us how to be happy. Some nations are planning to measure the happiness of their citizens to find out how it can be increased. There is a huge new field of “happiness studies,” and new focus on happiness in positive psychology as well as fields like politics and law. Much of this material is confusing, since often it is not clear what the authors think that happiness is. Is it feeling good? Is it having a positive attitude to the way you are now? Is it having a positive attitude to your life as a whole? Is it having a happy life? Can some people advise others on how to be happy?

Philosophers have been engaged with the search for happiness for two thousand years. They have asked what happiness is, and have explored different answers to the question, including some of the answers now being rediscovered in other fields.

In this course we will ask what happiness is, and examine critically the major answers to this question. We’ll look at the rich philosophical tradition of thinking about happiness, at contemporary answers, and also at some recent work in the social sciences. We’ll examine the contributions being made to the ongoing search to find out what happiness is, and how we can live happy lives.

This course has two primary objectives:
* To introduce students to the theoretical nature of the question of the nature of happiness by presenting a representative sample of the primary historical and contemporary literature
* To enable students to think and write critically, logically and objectively about the philosophical issues pertaining to happiness.

These objectives will be approached through lectures, discussions and writing assignments informed by the assigned readings. Course outcomes will be assessed through substantial writing assignments, some of which will feature opportunities for students to revise their work in light of advice from the professor.

Curriculum Category: Exploring Perspectives (EP) - Humanist

Attribute(s): World Cultures and Societies, Writing

Learning Outcomes:

REQUIRED GenEd learning outcomes:

Students will identify the approaches and methodologies of Humanists, using evidence to critically analyze questions and arguments, and consider contributions of this perspective to finding solutions to global and/or local challenges. (EP Humanist)

Students will describe, from one or multiple perspectives, the values, practices, and/or cultural products of at least one non-US culture/society; relate how these values, practices and/or cultural products have shaped their social, historical, political, environmental and/or geographic contexts; and reflect on how the student's own background has influenced their perceptions of other societies and their sense of place in the global community. (World Cultures & Societies)

Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development. (Writing)

REQUIRED Philosophy program learning outcomes (must include one):

• Outcome 1: Write a sound philosophy paper. Write a clear, logical, and mechanically sound philosophy paper.
• Outcome 2: Analyze a philosophical text.
• Outcome 3: Demonstrate critical thinking. 

OPTIONAL:

Apply a variety of disciplinary lenses—from Philosophy, Social Science, and Humanities—to identify the scope, achievements, limitations, and concerns of research on human quality of life.

Interpret texts from different times, places, peoples, and disciplines about human quality of life, in terms of the concerns and methodologies of their authors and audience.

Appreciate some of the challenges of merging different disciplinary perspectives and methodologies to construct a more unified understanding of human quality of life.

Critically analyze diverse theories of the nature of human happiness and well-being, and understand the concerns and methodologies that often drive the development of those theories.

Gain proficiency in reading complex texts on happiness and well-being, from different disciplines and historical periods, that require a high degree of analytical reasoning.

Compose written texts that carefully, accurately, and precisely reconstruct complex perspectives on human quality of life that both represent the reasoning and concerns of their creators and make them intelligible and compelling for capable but uninformed readers.

Signature Assignment(s):

The overarching assignment for the semester is to learn to produce concise, accurate, and clear secondary texts on the nature of human well-being. This, one finds, is a struggle for even the best-prepared students, often to their surprise. However, with practice and guidance every student can improve, often dramatically. The skills involved in reconstructing complex viewpoints of others and communicating complex viewpoints to others, are skills that students can apply throughout their lives.

Several times during the semester, students compose a written text in which they identify an idea, problem, question, or challenge arising in a recent reading on human quality of life, reconstruct it in a way that demonstrates deep understanding of the author’s concerns and methods, and present it in a clear and engaging manner for a capable but uninformed reader.

Each individual assignment includes multiple components. Students produce and exchange rough drafts of their work. Students then review and provide feedback on each other’s drafts. Lastly, students revise their work in light of advice received from their instructor and in-class colleagues, in preparation to submit final drafts.

The individual assignments work towards a cumulative, semester-long effect. Students’ final drafts of one text become the basis for new recommendations for skill development on subsequent texts. Over the course of the semester, students are expected to show substantial progress in their development of this foundational skill of reconstructing and communicating complex ideas.

Course Description:

This course focuses on the idea of the social contract as it has evolved from the seventeenth century to contemporary philosophy. Can government be justified in terms of a pact that all rational individuals would accept in a ‘state of nature’ or an ‘original position’? What would be the terms of the agreement? We will read selections from, among others, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, David Gauthier, Robert Nozick, and John Rawls.

Curriculum Category: Exploring Perspectives: Humanist

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes:
Exploring Perspectives

Students will identify the approaches and methodologies of the disciplinary perspective, use evidence and/or knowledge generated within the disciplinary perspective to critically analyze questions, ideas, and/or arguments, and describe contributions of this perspective to finding solutions to global and/or local challenges. 

Writing

Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development.

Course Objectives:

• Define and deconstruct tools for thinking about how we relate to others, including game theory and the arguments of various political philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Rawls, and others.
• Think about the relation of individual interests and social cooperations. Ask questions such as: can rational individuals living without restraints cooperate or will they fight? What is needed for peaceful cooperation? Morality? Government? And assuming we do need government, what sort?

Signature Assignment(s):

PHIL250 has a number of critical writing assignments throughout the course, but only one signature assignment. The writing assignment asks students to author a 1,250 word op-ed argued from the perspective of one of the social contract theorists presented in class.

Assignment:

While many social issues grab headlines, the most important pieces of legislation that come before Congress each year pertain to budgeting. Congress holds the authority to fund different programs and each year the Speaker’s office crafts legislation to advance the interests of the party in control of the House of Representatives.

Budgeting is foundational to governance, but intrinsically involves tradeoffs. Ought the government take on more debt or should it extend more services and provide more incentives? Of the programs that are to be funded, which ought to receive more and which cut back? These are critical decisions to be made that not only regard high-level concerns, but also outline particular government programs and judgments on whether to increase or diminish funding levels.

This assignment asks you to author an op-ed for a major U.S. news service written from the perspective of one of the social contract theorists we have encountered in this course. All the perspectives we have encountered understand the critical nature of government, but have differing views on how governance ought to be implemented. For this assignment you must write a 1,250 word article outlining specific signature programs to be enhances as well as the tradeoffs that theorist would make in order to justify those policies. What programs would get rolled back or what deficit spending would offset those signature policies. 

Strong papers will not only identify specific programs, but also use focused language to justify the theorist’s argument. Rather than speaking in absolutes, consider how the author you identify would offer a nuanced approach to these issues.

Writing:
This signature assignment asks students to write in an informed and persuasive fashion--one that considers the objective, context, and audience. Throughout the course, students will be asked to make arguments and counter-arguments, find reliable empirical sources and brainstorm ideas. 

Exploring Perspectives:

In the course of this assignment students are asked to take the perspective of the theorists presented in class and implement them for real-world purposes. The perspective of the course is recruited in order to offer a lens through which to make sense of problems of governance offering a practical application of the theoretical approaches leveraged in this course.

Course Description

Survey of influential 19th century philosophers, including Hegel, Marx, J. S. Mill, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Their views on the individual and society, and human nature. 

Curriculum Category: Exploring Perspectives: Humanist

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes

Analyze a philosophical text.

Demonstrate critical thinking.

Write a clear, logical, and mechanically sound philosophy paper on 19th century philosophy.

Course Objectives

1. Demonstrate, in writing and discussion, the knowledge and approaches of various philosophers using supportive examples.
2. Identify contributions of diverse Humanists in recognizing the complexity of questions and challenges addressed by nineteenth century philosophy.
3. Identify the values, practices, and knowledge traditions of nineteenth-century philosophy.
4. Use the analytical tools of nineteenth century to relate how these values and practices have shaped their social, historical, and political context.
5. Compose texts following disciplinary formats and genres, with an evident purpose, intended audience, and in response to assigned tasks.
6. Compose texts that execute effective disciplinary and genre conventions of organization, design, style, syntax, mechanics, and citation format. 

Signature Assignment

All three signature assignments are formal, academic essays which are aimed at familiarizing students with the tasks of academic writing in the humanities, including citing properly, structuring arguments logically, being able to combine exegesis with original argumentation, and arguing for a stated thesis. Students are permitted to scaffold the assignments by using materials from weekly discussion boards in their essays, provided that such use conforms with the standard practices of academic writing.

For each signature assignment, students are to select one prompt from several choices. Since prompts deal with the primary source material, students must integrate exegesis into their signature assignments. Examples of prompts for such assignments include, but are not limited to:

For Hegel, why does self-recognition come through the Other? What are the normative implications of this view, and what does the master and slave dialectic say about the human mind?

What does Hegel mean by “what is rational is real; and what is real is rational?” How does it structure his conception of freedom?

For Marx, why does alienation occur in capitalist production? What are the proximate effects on the lives and minds of the people in its grasp?

What is the relationship between use-value, exchange-value, and value in the opening chapter of Capital?

For Nietzsche, what are the key differences between monumental, antiquarian, and critical history? When it is appropriate to use which one? How might we apply his analysis to the history of philosophy?

What role does ressentiment play in Nietzsche’s slave revolt in morality? Does it stain slave morality as a whole, or can parts of it be salvaged despite its origins?

Course Description

As we interact with others in the world, we all must grapple with moral dilemmas – situations where we are unsure about the right thing to do. Such quandaries form the backdrop for a field of academic study known as ethics. Some moral dilemmas, such as whether or not telling a certain lie is justified, arise as part of our day-to-day lives, but in this course, our focus will be on ethical questions commonly faced in the profession of medicine. We will begin by learning how to use the tools of moral reasoning and philosophical argument to answer difficult moral questions. Afterward, we will apply what we have learned to moral issues such as what physicians must do to meet the standards of informed consent, when conscientious objection to prescribing a medicine might be justified, whether physician-assisted suicide is a permissible medical practice, and how prescription drugs should be priced.

This is, at its core, a philosophy class. This subject area is usually associated with a range of big questions – What is the meaning of life? What is knowledge? Is beauty objective? Does God exist? Our course is derived from one such question: what is the morally right thing to do? As you might imagine, answering these kinds of questions is difficult. We cannot use the methods of the natural and social sciences to arrive at the answers; instead, we have to construct and evaluate arguments about these issues. Since we are focusing on issues tied to medical practice, most of the arguments we will examine are tied to medical professions.

Here is a concise list of the main moral questions we will investigate during the term:

1. How do we reason about moral issues?
2. What principles and theoretical perspectives should guide our moral reasoning in medical ethics?
3. Are doctors ever permitted to lie to their patients? If so, when?
4. What does it mean for a patient to satisfy the requirements of informed consent?
5. Are medical professionals justified in refusing to fulfill certain professional obligations on the basis of their personal moral convictions?
6. Is there anything wrong with voluntarily choosing not to get vaccinated against deadly diseases?
7. Under what circumstances is it permissible to perform an abortion? And why?
8. Is it permissible to prescribe drugs to patients who intend to ingest them to end their lives? If so, how should this practice be regulated?
9. Are vaccinate mandates morally justified?
10. How does epistemic injustice affect patients’ treatment by healthcare professionals?
11. How do structural inequalities – both in the medical professions and in society more generally – affect people’s access to healthcare?
12. How should we prioritize the development of medications for rare diseases?
13. What moral principles should guide the way that drugs are marketed?
14. How should we approach caring for the elderly? In the long term, should we strive to eliminate the effects of aging and extend the human lifespan?

Curriculum Category:  Exploring Perspectives:  Humanist

Curriculum Attributes:  Diversity & Equity:  US Context; Writing

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Students will identify the approaches and methodologies of philosophy, use evidence and/or knowledge generated within philosophy to critically analyze questions, ideas, and/or arguments, and describe contributions of philosophy to finding solutions to global and/or local challenges.
2. Students will demonstrate knowledge of how historical and contemporary populations have experienced inequality, considering diversity, power, and equity through disciplinary perspectives to reflect upon how various communities experience privilege and/or oppression/marginalization and theorize how to create a more equitable society.
3. Students will demonstrate rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency by writing for a variety of contexts and executing disciplinary genre conventions of organization, design, style, mechanics and citation format while reflecting on their writing development.
4. Students will write a clear, logical, and mechanically sound philosophy paper.
5. Students will demonstrate the ability to analyze a philosophical text.
6. Students will demonstrate critical thinking.

Course Objectives

1. Compare and contrast different ethical theories and moral concepts.
2. Engage in civil and productive dialogue with others about controversial issues in medical ethics.
3. Analyze and evaluate philosophical arguments about controversial issues in medical ethics, especially in writing.
4. Demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which bias and social inequalities manifest to create injustices in healthcare access and medical outcomes.

Course Description

This course introduces students to neuroethics a burgeoning field in philosophy conducting research in the intersection of neuroscience and ethics. The guiding question of this course are what ethical questions neuroscience raises and what ethical questions it helps to answer. Students will encounter questions and issue such as the nature of free will, ethical implications of brain manipulation, the relation between moral responsibility and mental disorder, the ethics of moral enhancement, the nature of moral judgement, feminist critique of neuroethical research, the challenges of motivated reasoning, the ethics of brain reading, among others.

Curriculum Category: Exploring Perspectives: Humanist

Attribute(s): Writing

Learning Outcomes

• Students will write a sound philosophy paper.

Course Objectives

•    identify the questions and issues raised and addressed by neuroethics in contemporary analytic philo-sophy,
•    apply philosophical concepts appropriately when addressing ethical issues raised by neuroethical re-search in philosophical papers and discussions,
•    analyse published work in neuroethical research using the critical thinking tools and methods of con-temporary analytic philosophy,
•    compare and appraise the advantages and disadvantages competing views and theories in contemporary academic debates in neuroethics,
•    evaluate the soundness of views and theories about questions and issues in neuroethics, and
•    support personal views in philosophical papers regarding the questions and issues in neuroethical research discussed in the course.

Signature Assignment

Students in this course must complete one signature assignment. In it, students will write an essay supporting a view of their own regarding one of the questions or issues in neuroethical research discussed in the course. Students will

1. explain a particular question or issues in neuroethical research,
2. offer an argument in support of a view of their own that addresses such question or issue,
3. present a case study that illustrates how their views explains a real-life case, and
4. critically evaluate the advantages of their view over competing positions.

The signature assignment is worth 36 points and amount to 27% of their final grade.

This assignment contributes to the student learning outcome of any Exploring Perspectives: Humanist course by giving them an opportunity to showcase their understanding of the approaches and methodologies of neuroethics as practiced in contemporary analytic philosophy. In this assignment, students will generate knowledge that will contribute to current academic discussions on questions or issues in neuroethics that necessarily uses previous knowledge generated in neuroethical research. Moreover, students will have to describe current state of the debate surrounding the question and issue in neuroethics that they’re focusing on as they situate their proposal within contemporary neuroethical research.

The assignment contributes to the student learning outcome of any Writing Attribute course by making students write an essay executing contemporary analytic philosophy genre conventions and demonstrating rhetorical awareness and writing proficiency in the process.

The purpose of writing this essay is to

• describe in detail a particular question or issue discussed in neuroethical research,
• defend a particular view regarding said question or issue that inserts itself in the contemporary philosophical debate surrounding it,
• produce an explanation of a real-life case based on the argued view, and
• critically evaluate their view in the light of other competing views in the debate.

The audience of this essay must be the contemporary neuroethics community.

It should follow standard contemporary analytic philosophy writing conventions as well as the following specifications. 

• It should use either Chicago or APA-citing style.
• It must exhibit an academic-writing style.
• The essay must have the following structure.
  • First, it states the claim to be defended in the essay – a personal view regarding some question or issue in neuroethics.
  • Second, it explains the question or issue that the defended view is addressing.
  • Third, it presents an argument in favor of the defended view. Each of the premises of the argument is defended, and it is shown how the premises make the conclusion true.
  • Fourth, it describes a real-life case where an answer to the discussed question or issue is relevant, and there is an explanation of how the truth of the defended view dissolves the problematic surrounding the real-life case.
  • Fifth, it discusses how the defended view has some advantages over competing views in the debate.
  • It has a conclusion summarizing what was done in the essay.
• The essay should have 1.5 spacing and be in a legible font, a word-count, and it should be between 1200 and 1500-words-long.

Students will be expected to work on these essays, discuss their ideas with their peers, and offer constructive feedback to one another’s work during the week before its due date. Throughout the course and during the last week, students will receive instruction on how to follow standard contemporary analytic philosophy writing conventions and participate in in-class activities that will prepare them to write their essays.

The essay will be graded depending on how successfully each one of the parts of the structure of the essay is achieved. A detailed rubric will be offered to students some weeks before the signature assignment is due.