Teaching
One major goal of my teaching is to prepare students to reason, communicate, and learn in the presence of diversity. To that end, I enjoy teaching courses that allow students to make use of their own background experiences, forms of expertise, and perspectives to contribute to discussions, while learning from others with different experiences, expertise, and perspectives to their own. I have found that learning objectives related to this goal have worked well in courses on applied ethics, social and political philosophy, and philosophy of religion.
I have benefitted a great deal from attending workshops run by the AAPT (American Association of Philosophy Teachers). I highly recommend attending one if you have the chance.
Below you'll find some information on the courses I am currently teaching or have taught recently. Please feel free to contact me for copies of syllabi.
Graduate Seminar on the Epistemology, Ethics & Politics of Diversity
Fall 2024
Diversity is, at this point, a culturally pervasive buzzword. It is evoked in the public sphere to highlight the desirability of neighborhoods and college campuses, to debate school curricula, and as a motivation for changes in hiring processes and the organization of higher education. In academic debates, diversity has been discussed as, among other things, a source of collective wisdom, a threat to social cohesion, and a basis for moral and legal rights and recognition. In this course, we will consider how the concept of diversity has been used in different contexts and academic literatures, noting a taxonomy of its different uses, and identifying potential connection points across those literatures and uses. The topics we will cover include models of how diversity can contribute to group performance, the relevance of diversity for the evaluation of religious beliefs and practices, moral and political responses to diversity such as multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism, and the opportunities and challenges that diversity creates for social movements. Along the way, we will discuss and evaluate philosophical argumentation that is informed by different kinds of evidence, including formal models, case studies, and social scientific research.
Bioethics
Fall 2024
Whether as patients, healthcare workers, voters, policymakers, activists, consumers, or researchers, we all encounter ethical challenges as we make decisions about our own health and well-being, and the health and well-being of those around us. In this course, we will develop the skills to reason about ethical challenges related to healthcare and health policy. We will develop the skills to closely read and evaluate arguments, assess our own views and assumptions, as well as the capacity to reason from premises that are not our own. Along the way we will consider topics such as pricing in the pharmaceutical industry, the permissibility of cosmetic surgery, and health-oriented taxes.
Environmental Ethics
Spring 2024
In this course, we will consider the moral and political relationship between humans and their environment. We will develop a toolkit to address ethical challenges that we face with respect to this relationship at the level of individual action and with regard to collective action and public policy. Our attempts to answer these questions will be guided by particular cases that we will consider in detail, as well as arguments with a more general scope. In order to do so, we will consider particular applied questions, such as should we act to protect endangered species? If so, what should we do when conservation conflicts with other interests that humans have? Our ability to address these particular questions will be enriched by a discussion of more abstract moral questions, such as the moral status of animals, plants, and ecosystems, or even what makes an action morally required. Other topics that we will discuss include: efforts to combat climate change, economic decision-making with regard to the environment, resurrecting extinct species, and responsibility for environmental activism.
Philosophy of the City
Spring 2024
In this course, we will discuss and analyze the nature of cities and our relationship to them. We will learn about different conceptions of the value of cities, the nature and value of city life, and contemporary urban policy challenges and debates. We will take a philosophical approach to these questions with a focus on interpreting and evaluating arguments, as well as developing the capacity to engage in productive dialogue with others. In addition to philosophy, we will also draw on resources from other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences to enrich our discussions. The topics we will cover include: public art and architecture, public transit, gentrification, and urban sprawl.