Teaching

My teaching philosophy rests on two fundamental principles: 




In other words, be critical but be kind. 


A typical day in my classroom involves my introducing a topic, defining some key terms, and introducing one or two arguments for discussion. In class, I provide time for students to think, to write down their ideas, and to discuss them with their peers. When designing a course, I work backwards from what I want students to have learned by the end of the term and assign readings and develop formative and summative assessments that are in alignment with those learning outcomes. 


Below is a selection of courses I offer. 




The rapid development and ubiquitous use of artificially intelligent systems raise a host of perplexing ethical questions. Are artificially intelligent systems morally responsible agents? Do they have interests that we must take into account when developing and deploying them for the benefit of humankind? Should autonomous vehicles be programmed to minimize the total number of deaths in the event of a deadly crash, even if doing so requires sacrificing the life of its owner? Is it possible, appropriate, or desirable to have a romantic relationship with a robot? To what extent is racial inequality exacerbated by the use of new technology such as predictive algorithms? In this course, we will examine these and related questions in an effort to evaluate the views of others and to develop our own views on these matters. The course is designed to help graduate students and advanced undergraduates to become better readers and writers of philosophy, especially as it relates to ethical questions concerning artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. 





Perhaps no social movement of the 21st Century has captured the world's attention as the movement for black lives. Starting as a form of so-called hashtag activism in the wake of George Zimmerman's acquittal for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, the Black Lives Matter movement seeks to redress state-sanctioned violence against the black population, examples of which include the tragic deaths of Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. This course examines the philosophical foundations of this remarkable and influential movement. We will address the nature of racial injustice, police use of excessive force, mass incarceration, and other related issues. The course is designed to help the student become a better thinker and writer (especially as it relates to issues concerning racial injustice) and to equip the student with the critical tools necessary to be a thoughtful and engaged citizen. 





Much of our ethical theorizing concerns our duties to other people who currently exist. But what about our duties to ourselves and to people who do not currently exist but who will exist in the future? In this course, we will investigate what we owe to ourselves and what we owe to future generations. The first part of the course concerns the non-identity problem, in which we will try to resolve the apparent paradox of there being moral reasons not to bring into existence individuals with unavoidably flawed lives that are nonetheless worth living. The second part of the course concerns whether and to what extent the constraint on what morality can demand of us are set by the duties we owe to ourselves. Our investigation of these two main topics will give rise to various side issues that are of no less importance, such as whether harming a person is just to make them worse off than they otherwise would have been and whether there are any genuinely supererogatory acts (i.e., acts that are optional but better than a permissible alternative). 





Game play is a central feature of the human experience. This course investigates both the nature and value of games. The course is primarily an investigation of two main texts: Bernard Suits' The Grasshopper and C. Thi Nguyen's Games: Agency as Art. We will discuss such topics as how to distinguish game play from other kinds of human activities; the role of agency in game play; the role of the game designer in shaping that agency; the motivational structures involved in game play; the aesthetics of game play; and the potential of games to transform—sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse—our values and choices in everyday life. Our primary aim is to use the tools of philosophy—e.g., clarifying concepts, making distinctions, crafting thought experiments, formulating arguments, presenting objections—to understand and evaluate the Suitsian analysis of games and Nguyen's views on the relationship between games and human agency. This is an advanced course designed to help students formulate and defend their own views about our subject matter and to improve their ability to answer difficult theoretical questions systematically with the use of reason and careful argumentation. 






What is of ultimate benefit and harm to beings like us? What is it for a life to go well? Is it always a good thing to get what you want? Can something be of benefit to you even if you are not at all interested in it? Is a life that starts out poorly but gets better over time better than one that starts out well but gets progressively worse? These are the central questions of well-being—or welfare or quality of life—with which we will be concerned. We will also address closely related topics concerning the nature of happiness and the meaning of life, depending on student interest. Our primary aim will be to use the tools of philosophy—e.g., clarifying concepts, making distinctions, crafting thought experiments, formulating arguments, presenting objections—to understand and evaluate the main theories on this cluster of topics. This is an advanced course designed to help students formulate and defend their own views about our subject matter and to improve their ability to answer difficult theoretical questions systematically with the use of reason and careful argumentation. 






Our main aim in this course is to investigate ethical issues as they relate to medical research and the provision of medical care. We will ask questions such as: When, if ever, is it permissible to have an abortion? On what basis should we distribute scarce medical resources, such as vaccinations for COVID-19? Should medical professionals honor your advance directive that you be denied medical care under certain conditions? Clergy, scientists, medical professionals, lawyers, and public-policy experts have all taken up the questions that we will address this term. Our approach, however, will be a distinctly philosophical one. We will use reason to develop and evaluate arguments on these and related issues. The course is designed (i) to introduce the student to some of the central topics in the field of biomedical ethics in particular and (ii) to cultivate each student’s capacity for philosophical reasoning more generally. 





Are moral assertions mere expressions of emotion or are they descriptions of a moral reality? Are there any moral truths? If so, are they objective or subjective? What, if anything, is the fundamental moral principle that explains what we are morally obligated to do? What is the good life? This is a course in ethical theory, and in it we will attempt to answer questions such as these. The course is divided into three parts. The first deals with meta-ethics, that area of ethical theorizing concerning the foundations of our moral thought and language. The second is on the normative ethics of behavior. There we’ll ask whether anything other than the consequences of an action can affect its moral status. In the third part we turn our attention to well-being, a topic in axiology concerning the study of what is of ultimate benefit and harm to beings like us. Throughout the course we will use reason to examine arguments for various positions on these and related issues. Students will sharpen their abilities to engage in ethical theorizing, to read and make sense of complex texts, and to write clearly and cogently.



7. Environmental Ethics 



In this course, we will investigate ethical questions concerning nature, its value, and its relationship to human beings. Topics include: our obligations to future generations, sustainable agriculture, animal rights, anthropocentrism, environmental holism, and ecofeminism. The main text for the course is Ronald Sandler's Environmental Ethics: Theory in Practice.