A-S 3900: Humanitarian Intervention

Course Description:   From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, to the Rwandan genocide in 1994, to the Arab Spring in 2011, the norms governing humanitarian intervention have been subjected to intense scrutiny and debate. This discussion is complicated by the multitude of stakeholders affected, the politicization of intervention, and the wide variety of forms intervention can take—from traditional UN peacekeeping to NGOs to full-fledged military engagement. Where the just war tradition turns to cases of individual self-defense in search of  moral principles that govern national self-defense, humanitarianism finds its moral basis in other-defense. This course will explore how to apply principles of just war theory to humanitarian intervention. Using the Responsibility to Protect as our conceptual framework, we will evaluate the morality of unilateral humanitarian wars of the cold war era, UN peace keeping operations of the early 1990s, and contemporary humanitarian aid.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2018)

PHIL 201: Introduction to Philosophy

Course Description: This course surveys Western philosophy from Plato through the 19^th century.  It traces the development of scientific, metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical thought, with an emphasis on pivotal historical figures and debates.

@ University of Alaska.  Course Syllabus (Fall 2014, Summer 2016)

PHIL 2010: Introduction to Ethics

Course Description: Ethics is concerned with how we should live our lives and with what separates right from wrong action.  In these inquiries, we can focus on overarching normative theories, or else on particular topics to which these theories can be applied; we will spend roughly half the course in each regard.  Starting with normative theories, we will consider:  the virtue ethics of Plato and Aristotle, the social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, and Immanuel Kant’s deontology.  After our survey of normative theories, we will consider a range of topics in applied ethics:  abortion, cloning, euthanasia, animal rights, capital punishment, terrorism, and torture.  Our study of ethics will be complemented by movies that develop moral themes; a principal focus will be on integrating our abstract inquiries with popular media in the hopes of augmenting the ways in which we think about ethics.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2011, Fall 2011)

PHIL 211: History of Philosophy I

Course Description:  This course surveys Western philosophy from the pre-Socratic era through the late Middle Ages.  It traces the development of scientific, metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical thought, with an emphasis on pivotal historical figures and debates.

@ University of Alaska.  Course Syllabus (Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Summer 2016)

PHIL 212: History of Philosophy II

Course Description:  This course surveys Western philosophy from the Scientific Revolution through pragmatism in the late 19^th century.  It traces the development of scientific, metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical thought, with an emphasis on pivotal historical figures and debates.

@ University of Alaska.  Course Syllabus (Spring 2015)

@ Northern Michigan University.  Course Syllabus (Fall 2015)

PHIL 3140/5700: Ethics of War

Course Description:  There has been a long, intellectual tradition in thinking about the moral justification of war, ranging at least from Thomas Aquinas’s writings in the 13^th century to Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars to contemporary work by Jeff McMahan and others. The tradition draws distinctions between the justice of war itself (jus ad bellum), restrictions on our conduct within war (jus in bello), and our obligations following the conclusion of war (jus post bellum).  The contemporary advent of terrorism arguably challenges central tenets of this just war tradition, replacing the doctrine of preemption with that of prevention, blurring the distinction between civilians and combatants, accelerating both the speed and potential damage of attacks, and so on. How, if at all, should these features of terrorism lead to a revision of just war principles? Finally, consider modern military technologies, including weaponry, robotics, drones, cyber, and warfighter enhancement. Do these alter the state of play such that traditional just war principles become displaced? Or can these principles accommodate novel technologies?  [This course has been run under different course codes but has the same description; either title has substantial units on both just war theory and the ethics of emerging weapons technologies.]

Course Syllabus ([Phil 5700] Spring 2014, [PHIL 3140/GIST 3500] Spring 2018)

@ University of Michigan [Phil 430:  Topics in Ethics:  Ethics of War].  Course Syllabus (Fall 2010)

@ University of Wyoming [Pols 4710].  Course Syllabus (Fall 2016)

@ University of Notre Dame.  Course Syllabus ([PHIL 20628:  Ethics of Emerging Weapons Technologies] Spring 2017, [PHIL 20422:  Just War Theory] Fall 2017)

PHIL 318: Business Ethics

Course Description:   The course has four main goals.  First, it will provide a general introduction to ethical theory and, more importantly, the tools of ethical decision-making and problem-solving. Second, the course will acquaint students with the generally-accepted ethical standards in the business world.  Third, it will give students a chance to think through various positions on several controversial ethical, political, and public policy issues related to the business world.  Finally, the course will encourage students to develop an ethical perspective on business activities—a perspective which emphasizes the balancing of economic goals with other important values, including moral values.

@ Central Michigan University.  Course Syllabus (Fall 1A 2015, Fall II 2015, Fall 2016)

PHIL 3310: Moral Philosophy

Course Description: Ethics is frequently divided into three branches:  meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics.  In this course on theoretical ethics, we will study the first two branches.  We will begin by studying two traditional challenges to morality:  cultural relativism and amoralism.  Next, we will study some issues in meta-ethics, especially focusing on the meaning of moral claims.  For the latter half of the course, we will discuss the three most dominant moral theories:  utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics.  For each of these theories, we will consider classical formulations, as well as the associative criticisms.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2006)

PHIL 3340:  Biomedical Ethics

Course Description:  Biomedical ethics has Ancient roots, dating at least to Hippocrates in the 5^th century BCE.  Its moral foundations are typically held to rest on four separate—yet sometimes competing—values:  autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.  In the first few units of this course, we consider these values and their application to a range of healthcare practitioners.  In the next set of units, we consider these values in specific contexts, including clinical medical ethics, informed consent, research ethics, and preventative care and testing.  We then turn to more abstract philosophical discussion of abortion and end-of-life care before more broadly considering the structure and distribution of both healthcare and other scare medical resources.  The last few units cover topics that have emerged more recently in biomedical ethics, including diversity and pluralism, race, and globalization.  The course concludes with optional modules on both mental illness and the opioid epidemic.  No previous coursework in moral philosophy is required for this course; fundamental concepts will be explained as they become relevant.

Online Course Syllabus (Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Summer 2019, Summer 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Summer 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Sumer 2022, Fall 2022)

@Northern Michigan University [PL 185, Medical and Bioethics].  Course Syllabus (Spring 2019).

[This course was completely rewritten for Fall 2018.  Below is the description and syllabi from previous offerings.]

PHIL 3340: Biomedical Ethics [Old]

Course Description: Biomedical ethics is composed of two separate fields:  bioethics and medical ethics.  Bioethics is the study of the ethics of life (and death), and includes familiar topics such as abortion, cloning, stem cell research, allocation of scarce medical resources, and euthanasia.  We shall spend approximately the first two-third of the course on these issues.  For the last third of the course, we shall discuss topics in medical ethics, which is concerned with “micro” issues such as the moral underpinnings of doctor-patient relationships as well as “macro” issues such as the structures of medical institutions or the duties that societies have to provide health care for those in need.  No previous coursework in philosophy is required for this course and fundamental concepts in moral philosophy (e.g., consequentialism and deontology) will be explained as they become relevant.  This is a course on theoretical (as opposed to clinical) bioethics.

On-Campus Course Syllabus (Fall 2005, Spring 2006)

Online Course Syllabus (Fall 2008, Summer 2009, Spring 2010, Summer 2010, Fall 2010, Summer 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Summer 2014, Summer 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Summer 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Summer 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Summer 2018)

@ University of Michigan [Phil 160, Moral Principles and Problems/Phil 356, Issues in Bioethics].  Course Syllabus (Fall 2010)

@ University of Alaska [Phil 302, Biomedical Ethics].  Online Course Syllabus (Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016)

PHIL 3550: Philosophy of Science

Course Description: Science appears to be extraordinarily successful is two crucial respects.  First, science apparently serves as an extremely reliable vehicle for arriving at the truth (as contrasted with astrology or palm reading).  Second, the methodology of science seems eminently rational (again as opposed to the methodologies of astrology or palm reading).  Philosophers have been quite interested in these two apparent virtues of science.  Some philosophers think that the two virtues are illusory and that, upon reflection, science is not significantly superior to astrology or palm reading.  Some philosophers even reject concepts like truth and rationality as somehow bogus or illegitimate.  Our basic goal in this course is to survey 20^th century philosophy of science as centered upon such disputes.  To this end, our focus will be upon the following question:  are truth and rationality genuine features of scientific inquiry, or are they mere illusions?

On-Campus Course Syllabus (Fall 2006) | Online Course Syllabus (Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Summer 2014, Summer 2015)

PHIL 4800:  Senior Seminar:  New Atheism

Course Description: In recent years, so-called “New Atheism” has garnered increased attention.  Names like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett have emerged as the most energetic and outspoken defenders of this program, and the sales of their books have routinely earned high-ranking spots on national bestseller lists.  Who are the targets of these books?  A recent Gallup poll has shown that only 12% of Americans believe in Darwinian evolution, and 53% believe in creationism.  In other words, ours is still a very religious country, and the majority of our citizenry denies the worldview that the scientific community has articulated since Darwin.

In this senior seminar, we will read and evaluate the arguments of the new atheists.  What are their principal objections to religion?  Are the objections filed against a real or imaginary audience?  Is it possible to dispel religious belief?  Would that even be good?  As a senior seminar, this topic allows us to incorporate queries from a range of philosophical disciplines:  philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.  Note that this seminar does not purport to be a defense of new atheism, but rather an evaluation thereof; students of any religious proclivity are encouraged to participate.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2010)

PHIL 518:  Professional Ethics

Course Description:   This course explores what distinguishes professionals, both conceptually and ethically.  After these general investigations, it focuses on ethical dimensions and dilemmas for five professions in particular:  accounting and finance, engineering, journalism, law, and medicine.

@ Central Michigan University.  Course Syllabus (Spring 2016, Summer 2016, Fall 2016)

PHIL 5700:  Environmental Philosophy

Course Description:  This seminar explores foundational questions in environmental philosophy.  We will consider conceptual approaches to the environment, as well as to the relationship between humans and the environment.  We will also consider different approaches to protecting the environment, principally between the contrastive approaches of conservation and preservation.  Finally, we will consider the philosophical underpinnings of food and agriculture, including foraging and hunting.  Primary focus will be given to classic texts, as opposed to contemporary scholarship.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2017)

PHIL 5700:  Teaching Philosophy

Course Description:  This course is for graduate assistants or part-time instructors in philosophy, as well as advanced undergraduate students who may wish to pursue graduate training in philosophy.  Students will gain experience with different pedagogical approaches, syllabi development, assignment and rubric construction, and relevant online platforms.  They will also learn relevant legal and university policies, including, but not limited to:  academic misconduct, sexual harassment, student privacy, and students with disabilities. Finally, they will consider inclusion and diversity and ways to promote these through their teaching.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2019)

PHIL 5700/6000: Experimental Philosophy

Course Description: Philosophy has traditionally taken place from the armchair; experimental philosophy portends a philosophical revolution wherein the methodologies for doing philosophy are expanded from armchair reflection to include broader engagement.  As philosophers’ intuitions are thrown into conflict with those of more diverse populations, what should be the status of received philosophical wisdom?  Do philosophers’ intuitions occupy some sort of privileged status?  Can “folk” intuitions be informative in the construction of our philosophical theories, or can experimental results only undermine traditional work?  What do cross-cultural differences tell us about the epistemic status of our intuitions?  What is the relationship between experimental philosophy and empirical approaches to philosophy more generally?  In this seminar, we will explore these and other questions; particular coverage will be dictated by student interest.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2011 [6000], Spring 2014 [5700])

PHIL 6000:  Philosophy of Law

Course Description:   This course will provide an introduction to the philosophy of law.  Rather than comprehensively explore some particular set of questions, our approach will be broadly pluralistic, both in terms of content and methodology.  Coverage will comprise the following principal areas, chosen for their philosophical richness:  jurisprudence, torts, criminal law, and First Amendment law.  Following our introductory unit in jurisprudence, each subsequent unit presents both philosophical writings and pertinent case law.  Students will therefore acquire a facility not just with academic work, but also will acquire the analytical abilities needed to work through court opinions.  A final research paper will allow students to explore a topic in philosophy, law, or the intersection thereof.

Course Syllabus (Fall 2013)

PHIL 6000: Darwin & Darwinism

Course Description: In 2009, we will celebrate the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth and the sesquicentennial of his On the Origin of Species.  There will undoubtedly be a tremendous amount of discussion regarding his life and works, so this seems an appropriate time to conduct a thoroughgoing discussion therein.  Despite his renown, Darwin remains, at least popularly, far less read than he should be.  Much of contemporary thought ascribes to him views or certainty that he lacked, and his popularity obscures some of his failings (e.g., his theory of heredity); nevertheless, Darwin’s central ideas remain among the greatest successes in intellectual history.  In this seminar, we will read the most important elements of the Darwinian corpus, as well as reflect upon the philosophical themes that it contains.

Course Syllabus (Fall 2007)

PHIL 6000: Philosophy of Biology

Course Description: This course will address central issues in philosophy of biology and, in particular, will focus on the philosophical issues and implications of evolutionary theory.  We will start by considering some fundamental conceptual issues:  fitness, units of selection, and adaptationism.  Next, we will discuss the notion of developmental constraints, and then arguments for and against evolutionary psychology.  In the third part of the course, we will think about traditional topics in the philosophy of science—laws and reductionism—and how they apply to biology.  Next, we will move on to systematics and consider the species concept and phylogenetic inference.  Finally, we will discuss cultural evolution, altruism, and evolutionary ethics.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2008)

PHIL 6000: Sesquicentennial of Origin of Species

Course Description: In 2009, we celebrate the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth (February 12) and the sesquicentennial of the publication of On the Origin of Species (November 24).  This year portends tremendous amount of discussion regarding his life and works, and is therefore a brilliant opportunity to conduct a thoroughgoing discussion therein.  Despite his renown, Darwin remains, at least popularly, far less read than he should be.  Much of public thought ascribes to him views or certainty that he lacked, and his popularity obscures some of his failings (e.g., his theory of heredity); nevertheless, Darwin’s central ideas remain among the greatest successes in intellectual history.  In this seminar, we embark on a sustained investigation of his most influential work, On the Origin of Species.  We will read the text in its entirety, along with the reactions of Darwin’s most pointed critics and contemporary scholarship.

Course Syllabus (Fall 2009)

PHIL 6000:  War, Terrorism, and Torture

Course Description: There has been a long, intellectual tradition in thinking about the moral justification of war, ranging at least from Thomas Aquinas’s writings in the 13^th century to Michael Walzer’s contemporary classic, Just and Unjust Wars. The contemporary advent of terrorism arguably challenges central tenets of the just war tradition, replacing the doctrine of preemption with that of prevention, blurring the distinction between civilians and combatants, accelerating both the speed and potential damage of attacks, and so on.  How, if at all, should these features of terrorism lead to a revision of just war principles?

In the war on terror, much controversy has emerged over the use of torture.  The Third Geneva Convention protects prisoners of war against torture, but there are at least two ways around this convention:  either by denying that it applies or else conceiving of torture in such a way  that hostile measures nevertheless fall short of it.  Should it apply?  And what is torture?  Independently of the historical and legal status of torture, we can ask whether it could be morally justified.  In particular, imagine that the torture of a terrorist will reveal actionable intelligence that is necessary for the protection of innocents.  If so, is torture permissible?  Regardless, are such scenarios anything other than philosophical fiction?

Course Syllabus (Spring 2009)

PHIL 6310:  Biomedical Ethics

Course Description:  Biomedical ethics has Ancient roots, dating at least to Hippocrates in the 5^th century BCE.  Its moral foundations are typically held to rest on four separate—yet sometimes competing—values:  autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.  In the first few units of this course, we consider these values and their application to a range of healthcare practitioners.  In the next set of units, we consider these values in specific contexts, including clinical medical ethics, informed consent, research ethics, and preventative care and testing.  We then turn to more abstract philosophical discussion of abortion and end-of-life care before more broadly considering the structure and distribution of both healthcare and other scare medical resources.  The last few units cover topics that have emerged more recently in biomedical ethics, including diversity and pluralism, race, and globalization.

Course Syllabus (Fall 2020)

PHIL 6310: Contemporary Problems in Political Philosophy

Course Description: American politics has devolved into polarized extremes, made no better by last year’s divisive election. The aim of this seminar is to critically evaluate some of the most contentious issues facing us, as well as to try to charitably construct—as opposed to caricature—arguments from across the political spectrum. The methodology will be broadly interdisciplinary, drawing from sources in philosophy, political science, and law. The first unit is theoretical, trying to understand the differences between liberalism and conservatism, as well as different approaches to judicial interpretation. The second unit looks at issues in voting, gerrymandering, and campaign finance.   The third unit considers the First Amendment, specifically religious tolerance, religious liberty, and hate speech. The final unit engages patriotism, nationalism, immigration, and the Second Amendment.

Course Syllabus (Fall 2017)

PHIL 6310:  Ethical Theory

Course Description:  We will read three books related to ethical theory.  Grandstanding is about the use (and abuse) of moral language.  The Philosophical Baby spans a range of issues, many of which are related to cognitive science and moral psychology.  The Soil Will Save Us is a foray into environmental ethics, covering everything from regenerative approaches to agriculture to mitigation of climate change.  Students may write research papers on any of these topics—or other related areas.

Course Syllabus (Fall 2021)

PHIL 6310:  Memory

Course Description:  This seminar explores the ethical, legal, philosophical, and scientific dimensions of memory.  The first set of unit surveys these dimensions, as well as the related topics of remembering, forgetting, and false memories.  The second set of units looks at more purely philosophical topics, including personal identity and external memory.  We then explore amnesia, before turning to collective and historical memories.  What does it mean for “us” to remember the Holocaust—or the Civil War?  Should atrocities be remembered or forgotten?  Does forgiveness require forgetting?  The last series of units looks at applications, including memory dampening as a prospective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder or rape, the fallibility of eyewitness memory, and Europe’s so-called right to be forgotten.

Course Syllabus (2018)

PHIL 6310:  Moral Issues in Criminal Law

Course Description:   Criminal law aims to punish those who are responsible for wrongdoing.  This aim gives rise to two classes of affirmative defense.  First, the accused can argue that they are not responsible for their actions.  Second, they can argue that, while they have otherwise satisfied the elements of a crime, no wrongdoing occurred.  This first category suggests that the accused should be excused from punishment—either in whole or in part—and trades on doctrines such as duress, intoxication, and insanity.  The second category suggests that the accused’s actions were justified, and trades on doctrines such as self-defense and necessity.  This seminar will therefore consider the related doctrines of justification and excuse, both by review of primary case law and secondary sources.

Course Syllabus (Fall 2016)

PHIL 6310:  Neuroscience and Law

Course Description:  Recent developments in neuroscience portend a range of interesting questions for the law. Most fundamentally, neuroscience challenges traditional doctrines of moral and legal responsibility. Concepts like competence and addiction are cast in new lights, as are developmental axes, like the adolescent brain. Free will and determinism loom large here, and legal doctrines need to respond to a new empirical scene. Mind reading and lie detection move from the realm of the science fiction into, maybe, the realm of the possible. But hazards loom large as neuroscientific information is often misunderstood, or even faces barriers in terms of evidentiary admissibility. In the future, brain-machine interfaces and artificial intelligence may revolutionize what it even means to be human. This seminar offers an introduction into a wide array of topics; it draws from academic scholarship, as well as the limited—but growing—case law.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2016)

PHIL 6310:  Philosophy and Tort Law

Course Description: In this course, we will investigate the philosophical foundations of:  intentional torts, privileges, negligence, causation in fact, proximate cause, defenses, and damages.  In these investigations, our focus will be less on what the law is, than why it is what it is and whether it should be as it is.  Furthermore, we shall consider case-based approaches to moral methodology, as opposed to principle-based approaches or alternatives (e.g., reflective equilibrium).  To put this another way, torts doctrine is largely constructed from the common law, and we can query the advantages and disadvantages of this method.

Course Syllabus (Spring 2012)

PHIL 6310:  Ethical Theory

Course Description:  We will read three books related to ethical theory.  Grandstanding is about the use (and abuse) of moral language.  The Philosophical Baby spans a range of issues, many of which are related to cognitive science and moral psychology.  The Soil Will Save Us is a foray into environmental ethics, covering everything from regenerative approaches to agriculture to mitigation of climate change.  Students may write research papers on any of these topics—or other related areas.

Course Syllabus (Fall 2021)