Teaching

Course Description: This course will be a survey and careful examination of answers to the question: what is the meaning of life? This seems to be an important question; indeed it seems to be the question, but philosophers have taken a number of different positions in attempting to answer it. In the first segment of the course, we will consider the issue of whether or not there is a connection between the value of human pursuits and the existence of God and the afterlife. In the second segment we will address the related issue of whether or not the best life is a life of hedonistic self-interest or a life that is guided by a concern for those around us. In the next segment of the course we will consider the Stoic and Buddhist view that happiness is not a matter of making things go as we please but instead is a matter of adjusting to the way that things happen inevitably and on their own. Then we will discuss what some critics have taken to be obstacles in the way of a meaningful life--for example the internet, technology, modernity, and the I-pod. The semester will conclude with a discussion of the prospect that life is just absurd. Philosophers have offered compelling insights on the different sides of these issues, and we will have a lot of discussion to try to sort it all out. Assignments will include study-question assignments, two exams, and active participation in discussion section.

Course Description: In this course we begin by examining theoretical questions about morality: What constitutes a good or valuable life for a human being?  What is it for an action to be right or wrong? Is morality relative to culture? Does it depend on God’s authority or command?  Is the rightness/wrongness of actions determined solely by the consequences of actions?  What role, if any, do agents’ motives or intentions play in determining the rightness or wrongness of actions?  We then turn to applied ethics, examining the controversial topics with help from ethical theory:

Virtual Reality and the Sources of Value: What are the values and dangers of virtual reality, simulations, and gaming?  Is it morally problematic to spend increasing amounts of time in a “fake” reality with created online identities?  Can you lead a good life in a virtual world?  What can we learn by reflecting on virtual reality about the sources of value or goodness in the world?

Poverty:  There are people who are starving, or who lack basic necessities (heat, water, food, clothes, safety, health, etc.), and whose life I could save or improve by giving up some of my income or wealth.  It would be good to do so.  But is it my duty to do so, or am I morally entitled to keep my money, perhaps because I earned it? If there is some other justification for keeping what I don’t need to survive while other die, what is it?    

Abortion: Is it permissible to have an abortion?  If it is permissible because the fetus is not a developed person, then why is it wrong to kill a newborn infant?  If it is impermissible to kill a fetus because doing so keeps a future possible person from existing, then why is contraception and abstaining from sex, which keeps some possible future persons from existing, permissible? 

Animal Ethics: Is it ever permissible to kill animals for food when we don’t need to do so to survive?  If it is permissible, would it be permissible to kill humans for food too?  If it is not, what’s the difference?  Because we are more rational than animals? More powerful than animals?  Of a different species than animals? Because we are the top of the food chain?  Are any of these reasons good reasons to kill animals for food but not kill humans for food?

Autonomous Weapons: We are increasingly relying on complex computer systems (AI) to make decisions previously only reserved for humans. Perhaps in many of these areas, the development is by and large a good thing.  But what about the use of autonomous weapons in war?  Should such a use be banned? Should an AI system ever be allowed to make “kill” decisions without human input? Without human supervision?  Who should be held responsible when it makes a fatal error?