• Environmental Ethics (Winter 2023)​​​​

How should human beings interact with the natural world? Do we have moral obligations toward living parts of nature? Non-living parts? And what do we owe to other human beings, including future generations, with respect to the environment? In this course, we tackled ethical questions that confront us in our dealings with the natural world, looking at subjects such as: climate change, conservation, environmental justice, economic approaches to the environment, access to and control over natural resources, pollution, technology, and environmental activism. We framed our inquiry with leading ethical theories and divide our approach to these topics by ecosystem, dedicating time to each unique environment and its specific nuances: aquatic, land, and aerospace. 

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• Sustainable Business (Spring 2021)

This course examined fundamental problems of moral philosophy in a business context, with a special focus on sustainability. We examined ethical business principles and practices as they relate to the local and global environment, including climate change, and to society and culture. The main question that frames these discussions throughout the semester is, “What responsibilities, if any, do businesses have to create and promote sustainability, both internally and externally?” 

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• Climate Ethics (Spring 2019)

This course was a introduction to the practice of ethical deliberation through the lens of climate change. We considered four dominant traditions in normative ethics: consequentialism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, and contractualism. This course applied these ethical theories to moral questions regarding global climate change. Applied ethics turns the answers to normative ethical questions into action-guiding principles. Our ethical theories ought to guide us in our practical deliberation and decision making, providing us with the necessary resources to justify our ethical claims in the context of public discourse and policy making. Thus, we can now ask questions such as, “how do we apply our theory of the good to evaluate the inter-generational consequences of climate change?” and “what makes certain forms of geoengineering morally right or wrong?” 

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• Ethics and Star Trek (Spring 2018)

​This course was an introduction to ethics using science fiction cases. We covered a number of the major ethical theories and supplemented our readings with viewings of classical science fiction media to be used as case studies. We watched one piece of science fiction per week (either film or television series), typically accompanied by 1-2 selected readings on an ethical theme found in the science fiction piece. The format for the class included a lecture and discussion period covering the assigned readings on Tuesdays. On Thursday viewed a media selection as a case study for the week’s readings and follow with a sustained discussion of the case in light of our topics for the week. 

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Sample Lecture

Excerpt from Business and Morality (asynchronous/synchronous hybrid)

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