I teach classes in moral, political and legal philosophy and philosophy of literature. Course descriptions and websites for currently offered classes are below.
You can check out my illustrated Pink Guide to Taking Philosophy Classes here.
I co-organize an annual workshop for philosophy professors aimed at diversifying philosophy syllabi. You can read about it here.
Moral Philosophy
PHIL 106 Introduction to Moral Philosophy (site)
We all face a set of tricky ethical questions when going about our lives. Some of these directly concern practical decisions we need to make. For instance: Should you be giving more of your resources to people experiencing poverty and homelessness? Is it wrong to eat meat and dairy products, wear leather, or go to the zoo? If your friend asks you if they should have an abortion, what should you tell them? Does it make moral sense to take that job at Facebook, given, you know, Facebook? Other ethical questions are more abstract: they ask what unifies and grounds our answers to the above kinds of questions. For example: Should we try to make everyone as happy as possible? Does the end always justify the means? Why is it wrong to lie and break your promises, if it is? Is ethics fundamentally about following rules, or is it messier than that? Finally, we sometimes consider even more abstract questions, about the basis of ethics itself: What's the relationship between morality and religion? Do your moral obligations depend on the culture you're raised in? Is there any such thing as objective moral truth? If there were such a thing, how could we find out what it is? This course canvasses a range of historically important approaches to each of the above kinds of questions and helps students apply them to a set of urgent questions that arise in their own lives.
PHIL 340 Seminar: The Meaning of Life (site)
This seminar will explore a range of questions concerning life’s meaning. Is meaning possible in a world without God? What is the difference between a happy life and a meaningful one? What is the role of love, achievement, knowledge, beauty, virtue and authenticity in a purposeful life? Do the stories we tell about our lives contribute to their meaning? Is life, in the end, absurd—or just kind of awful? Does meaning now depend on death later? We will discuss answers to these and related questions, using readings from both philosophy and literature.
Philosophy of Literature / Literary Philosophy
PHIL 220 Philosophy of Literature (site)
This class will consider philosophical questions concerning the nature, appreciation and value of literary works, including: What is literature? What distinguishes fiction from creative nonfiction? Do fictional characters exist? Do emotional responses to fiction make sense? Are an author’s intentions relevant to interpreting their work? Can there be more than one correct interpretation of a literary work? Are some literary works objectively better than others? What, if anything, can we learn from fiction? Does reading literature make us morally better people? It is wrong for non-minority writers to write from the perspective of members of minority groups? The course will cover these and other topics in metaphysics, value theory, philosophy of language and mind and include work by philosophers, literary theorists and creative writers.
PHIL 331 Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Philosophy in the First Person (site)
Philosophical writing is often thought to be impersonal and abstract, focused on rigorous argument and high theory to the exclusion of personal narrative, voice, humor, and literary style. But not all philosophy takes that form. This seminar explores the alternative mode of more personal philosophical writing, as it appears in contemporary personal essays on philosophical themes and pieces of public philosophy with a personal slant (in e.g., The New York Times, The Point, Aeon, Guernica and The Believer.) The course is structured as a writing workshop, and centrally aims to develop students’ confidence and skill in writing their own pieces of autobiographical philosophy. Students will create a portfolio of writing and workshop it closely with their peers and professor throughout the semester.
Political / Legal Philosophy
PHIL 213 Justice (site)
Why should we obey the government? Are there limits to what the state may demand of us? Does social justice require equality? Is taxation - or wage labor - theft? This course addresses these and other questions of social and political morality, through the lens of the major theories of Western philosophy. Topics will include Mill on the general welfare and the importance of liberty, Locke and Nozick on individual rights, Rawls and Dworkin on distributive justice and Marx and Cohen on equality. We’ll study the structure and justification of each of these theories, as well as apply them to contemporary issues such as affirmative action, campaign finance, gay marriage and welfare policy.
PHIL 236 Global Justice (site)
An introduction to recent work in political philosophy on the ethics of international relations. The course will discuss some of the main theoretical approaches to the topic: including realism, global liberal egalitarianism, political liberalism, utilitarianism, and nationalism. We will also consider how these different approaches might be applied to some central moral controversies in international politics, including those relating to global poverty, human rights and humanitarian intervention, immigration, climate change, and fair trade.
PHIL 226 Philosophy of Law (site)
A systematic consideration of fundamental issues in the conception and practice of law. We will first consider the nature of law and legal reasoning. Is law derived from moral principles or created by legislative fiat? Is international “law” law? When judges interpret the Constitution, do they discover the law or, in effect, make it up as they go along? We will then discuss moral limits on the law. Which principles should guide the state’s restriction of citizens’ liberties? Is refusal to obey the law ever justified? We will also consider the legal issues surrounding responsibility and penalties.Under which circumstances can we hold people responsible for outcomes that they caused or could have prevented? What, if anything, justifies punishment by the state? Does the death penalty violate human rights? Readings will include selections from legal theory and contemporary court decisions.