These courses count toward our Majors, our Minors, and toward Option D for students whose major is not in the Humanities.
PHIL 301 Ethics and Metaethics
TR 1:30-2:45 (17626), TR 3:00-4:15 (20657
Dr. Joel Bock
Dr. Bock is a philosopher of technology trained primarily in the Continental European philosophical tradition and the history of Western philosophy. He is joining the department starting in the Fall, so this course is not fully developed yet, but figures in the course might include Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Hannah Arendt. More contemporary material may include ethical theories emerging from technology ethics, feminist ethics of care, disability studies, and environmental ethics. Major themes will include free will, moral responsibility, human agency, and the impact of technologies on moral values and human relations. Class time will consist of a mix of lecture and discussion of class reading assignments, and graded assignments will include discussion posts related to the course readings, a presentation analyzing an ethical case study, and a final paper.
PHIL 303E Business Ethics
Online asynchronous (11300, 18182, 18183 & 11517, 18184, 18185 & 17625, 18186, 18187)
Prof. Aaron Nachtigal
This course explores the sometimes humorous and sometimes disturbing consequences of trying to be ethical in the world of business while satisfying your philosophy and ethics general education requirement.
PHIL 340 Logic
MWF 11:00-11:50 (16847)
Dr. Teresa Kouri Kissel
We start by analyzing arguments in English, and then translate them into a formalsystem called Propositional Logic, which we’ll use to learn to do logical proofs. At the end of the semester we’ll also look at non-standard logics. Taking a course in formal logic like this one is supposed to be the best single thing you can do to prepare for the LSAT.
PHIL 344E Environmental Ethics
TR 9:30-10:45 (18190)
Service Learning course
Dr. Chad Wiener
This class is about moral obligations we have to our environment, ranging from animals and plants to habitats and ecosystems. We will spend the first half of the term thinking about various moral theories that commit us to moral obligations to the environment and what these obligations would be and the second half of the class discussing the largest environmental ethics issue: climate change. There will be a service-learning project that deals with sea-level rise, social justice, and resilience.
PHIL 345E Bioethics
MWF 10:00-10:50 (29520), MWF 11:00-11:50 (29521), 12:00-12:50 (33202)
Dr. Chad Wiener
This course covers topics including patient autonomy, personhood, animal ethics, abortion, voluntary active euthanasia, genetic engineering, racism in healthcare, and just distribution of healthcare resources. We will focus on grasping the moral arguments for and against various positions. There will be planned discussion days where students get to discuss what interests them most on these topics.
PHIL 345E Bioethics
TR 4:30-5:45 (20143)
Dr. Joel Bock
This course examines moral standards as they apply to various dimensions of medical institutions and practices. It reviews the major Western ethical theories and the feminist ethics of care, and it discusses the ways in which these theories can inform the delivery of health services as well as serve as the ethical framework for the social and political structures in which these services are provided. Class time will consist of both lectures on important ethical theories and concepts and discussions of case studies in which we apply the moral frameworks to analyze the ethical stakes of concrete situations in the medical field. Graded assignments will mainly consist of multiple-choice quizzes and short take-home essay exams.
PHIL 355E Cybersecurity Ethics
Online asynchronous
LeADERS Leadership course
Dr. Shamim Hunt (17630/18087/18088)
Prof. Nathan Nicol (18562/18563/18564)
Prof. Ryan Thompson (19075/21371/21372)
In this course, you’ll learn ethical theories through sci-fi short stories, read academic articles on the ethical issues distinctive of cybersecurity, and complete case analyses. Units are on privacy, data ethics, corporate social responsibility, professional ethics, whistleblowing, cyberconflict, and information warfare. No quizzes or exams, but expect weekly reading and writing assignments throughout the semester.
PHIL 357E Ethics and Data
MWF 10:00-10:50 (22042)
Dr. Teresa Kouri Kissel
This course will provide a framework for considering the ethical implications of collecting, drawing inferences from, and acting on data, especially when these activities are automated and on a large scale. Topics to be covered may include privacy and confidentiality, defining research and the responsibilities associated with conducting ethical research, implicit and structural biases in data collection and analysis, freedom of speech, and consent to data collection.
PHIL 383T Philosophy of Technology & Innovation
Online asynchronous (17695/17881/17882)
Prof. Camilla Cannon
In this course, students will develop a familiarity with major philosophical approaches to technology from ancient Greek considerations of types of knowledge to contemporary ways of understanding mass surveillance, artificial intelligence, and social media. A focus will be the relationship between technology, society, and the self. In addition to learning about these philosophical approaches, students will develop their ability to critically analyze, develop, and defend arguments relating to the social nature of technology.
PHIL 402/502 Gender and Philosophy
T 4:30-7:10 (22462/22463)
Dr. Dana Rognlie
This course addresses feminist philosophy as a distinctive field of philosophy, offering a pluralist survey of both analytic and Continental approaches to feminist epistemology, ontology, phenomenology, ethics, and politics. Importantly, students will develop an intersectional lens of analysis to consider the lived reality and politics of gender, race, sexuality, and other entwining marginalized identities through engagement with Black Feminist Philosophy, Chicana Feminist Philosophy, Disability Studies, Lesbian Feminist Philosophy, Trans Feminist Philosophy, and Transnational Feminism.
REL 403/503 Gender and Sexuality in Islam
MWF 1:00-1:50 (22045/22469)
Dr. Kristian Petersen
This course explores the shifting constructions of gender and sexuality in Muslim communities from the early period until the present. Our conversations will consider concepts of feminism, patriarchy, gender identity, masculinity, femininity, transgender, homosexuality, and heteronormativity. We will survey subjects including marriage, divorce, polygyny, domestic violence, sex, and human rights, but also issues ranging from environmentalism and cultural production to dress and religious leadership. We will examine social and legal norms and how these are embodied in various contexts. But we will also investigate how gender and sexuality inform the production of social, cultural, and political realities.
PHIL 425/525: Kant and Hume
TR 11:00-12:15 (22058/22060)
Dr. Dylan Wittkower
Hume brought central debates of Modern European philosophy to their breaking point, and soon afterward Kant suddenly resolved them all, integrating rationalist and empiricist views into a systematic unified theory of metaphysics and epistemology: Transcendental Idealism. Unfortunately, Kant’s success in putting controversies to rest often took the form of showing that both sides were right when applied to everyday experience, but that when we try to ask about the fundamental truths of the world and of ourselves, we can know nothing except that both sides are wrong. After covering Hume’s famous Problem of Induction, this course will cover Kant’s metaphysics, epistemology, metaethics, and political philosophy. In the latter part of the course, special attention will be paid to the important roles played by Hume and Kant in the field of Anthropology, contributing to the development of scientific racism, and in the field of Philosophy of History in the invention of the ideas of the West and of Western Philosophy.
PHIL 432/532: Nietzsche and Life Affirmation
TR 1:30-2:45 (22046/22047)
Dr. Justin Remhof
This course is an examination of Nietzsche’s attempt to provide a philosophy that affirms life. Nietzsche was deeply troubled by Schopenhauer’s pessimistic view that life is meaningless because suffering is horrible and inescapable. We will examine Nietzsche’s attempt to provide a life-affirming philosophy after laying waste to many traditional Western efforts to find life meaningful.
PHIL 482/582: Chinese Religion and Philosophy
W 4:30-7:10 (22055/22057)
Dr. Nicole Willock
In the first half of the course, students will read and analyze a selection of early Chinese philosophical texts including: The Analects, Mozi, Zhuangzi, The Daodejing, and a Chan Buddhist classic, Zen Master Yunmen. We also read and discuss contemporary philosophical analysis of these primary sources. In the second half of the semester, the course focuses on “doing religion” by examining the social dimensions of contemporary Chinese religious life. In this context, students will be introduced to and apply new methodological approaches in the study of Chinese religions and cover various forms of religiosity present in China today including Tibetan Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. We will also look at relevant topics in the study of religion in China including: politics and religion, ethnic-religiosity, globalization, and the religious marketplace. Students are expected to do their own research in the form of either a project or a formal paper.