I am a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy at Duke University, specializing in ethics, social philosophy, and the philosophy of artificial intelligence. I have served as a teaching assistant for courses in ethics, philosophy of language, and neuroethics, and I have twice been the instructor of record for Introduction to Philosophy. In Spring 2025, I will serve as the co-instructor of record for a new graduate-level course on the ethics of AI with my advisor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, offered as part of Duke’s new interdisciplinary AI and Society graduate certificate program.
As an instructor, I approach philosophy not merely as the study of abstract arguments but as a discipline that cultivates intellectual virtues that promote student flourishing. My overarching goal is to help students develop two interrelated skills: first, the ability to engage disagreement charitably and respectfully; and second, the ability to apply philosophical reasoning to the practical, social, and ethical challenges they encounter in their own lives beyond the classroom. Both skills are urgently needed—not only in philosophical debate but in civic life, professional collaboration, and the digital public sphere that increasingly shapes our understanding of each other.
Many of my students, especially in introductory courses, begin the semester assuming that philosophy is detached from real-world concerns. They arrive expecting abstract puzzles or historical arguments with little bearing on their own experiences. Early on, I work to unsettle this assumption by showing that philosophical thinking is something we already do in ordinary life. I design each class to draw students into active philosophical inquiry by connecting abstract theory to concrete dilemmas.
When we study Aristotle’s taxonomy of friendship, for instance, I begin with contemporary reports of people reporting forming friendships with AI chatbots. Students debate whether such relationships fit Aristotle’s categories of friendship and what this phenomenon reveals about technology’s impact on how we understand relationships (A1). In reflecting on this case, they come to see that ancient ethical concepts can be tools for understanding our contemporary technological moment.
This kind of practical grounding serves a deeper pedagogical purpose: it makes philosophy responsive to the world students already inhabit. At the start of each class, I often present a case or anecdote drawn from legal disputes, policy controversies, literature, or film to highlight the practical stakes behind the philosophical questions we are examining (V4). These opening cases help students see that philosophy is not a detached exercise but a method for clarifying and navigating the complexities of their own lives.
As students begin to recognize the relevance of philosophical inquiry, they also realize that it requires them to engage seriously with perspectives they may find uncomfortable or counterintuitive (V1, V2). Respectful disagreement is how we refine, strengthen, and challenge philosophical assumptions we often take for granted. Yet students often struggle to distinguish between disagreeing with an argument and dismissing it. To address this, I design activities that explicitly cultivate habits of intellectual charity, humility, and respect (A1).
One of the most effective of these exercises is a “steel-manning” exercise (A2). After reading a challenging text or discussing a divisive issue, I pair students with someone inclined toward an opposing view. Each student must then reconstruct the other’s position in its strongest possible form—anticipating its best reasons and responding to potential objections (V1). Only once both partners agree that their positions have been represented fairly do they return to defending their own perspective. Students come to see that to reject a position, one must first be able to articulate it in its strongest possible form. Over the semester, they realize that charitable debate is a core part of responsible intellectual inquiry (V2).
This same principle informs how I teach students to engage with philosophical texts.
Dense arguments can easily alienate those unfamiliar with philosophy, so I divide longer passages into smaller segments for close-reading groups (K1). Each group reconstructs a short passage, identifying its central claim, premises, and conclusion before presenting it to the class (K2). This approach demystifies difficult texts while helping students collaborate with each other to reconstruct arguments with care, precision, and rigor. (A4)
Writing assignments extend these habits into students’ independent work. Because philosophical writing can be intimidating, I scaffold major essays into several stages: a thesis proposal, an outline, a full draft, and a revision. At each stage, students receive feedback and meet individually with me outside of class to discuss the clarity and strength of their arguments. By the time they submit their final papers, they have received multiple rounds of feedback (A3). In teaching evaluations, students have shared that writing philosophy essays with continuous feedback throughout the writing process has improved their argumentative writing skills and discouraged them from merely relying on AI tools (K3).
Across all these activities, I emphasize that the skills we cultivate in philosophy extend far beyond the classroom. Learning to argue with precision and charity, evaluate others’ argument, and anticipate objections are not just academic exercises; they are practical skills that prepare students to think carefully and listen charitably in a social, digital, and political climate where discourse is too often reactive rather than reflective. Whether they go on to work in medicine, law, public policy, or technology, these capacities equip students to engage the moral, social, and technological challenges of the world they are inheriting. (V4)
Looking ahead, I aim to deepen and expand my teaching in ways that continue bridging philosophical inquiry with practical skill development. My immediate priority is to refine my upcoming graduate seminar on the ethics of AI into a model for how philosophy can engage graduate students across disciplines—computer science, public policy, law, and the humanities—around shared questions of the ethical concerns raised by AI systems. I will teach this course with my doctoral advisor Walter Sinnott Armstrong (V5). After I teach a graduate version of this course, I plan to also develop an undergraduate course exploring similar topics. (A1)
In this seminar, I will experiment with interactive and collaborative technologies that allow students to engage directly with the technology we are theorizing about. For example, students might analyze algorithmic decision-making tools through simulated policy exercises or use generative AI to explore questions about authorship, bias, and responsibility. (K4). By bringing technological artifacts into the classroom as philosophical objects of inquiry, I aim to help students see that the moral questions surrounding technology are neither abstract nor speculative.
Alongside developing these courses, I am also committed to ongoing professional development to improve my teaching. I am currently pursuing the Certificate in College Teaching offered through the Duke Graduate School (A5). During a seminar on teaching philosophy, for instance, we examined research showing that traditional lecture is often an ineffective tool for learning, which has reinforced my emphasis on discussion and group work in the philosophy classroom (V3). Apart from coursework on college teaching, the certificate also requires formal teaching observations from fellow graduate student instructors. Once I participate in these observations, I plan to use the feedback I receive to refine my course design, classroom facilitation, and teaching habits (K5).