(Photo: One of the 'Herculaneum Centauri', Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli)
Ethics and Society Contemporary Social Issues [Syllabus] This course offers an introduction some pressing ethical and political issues arising in the context of contemporary society. Over five weeks, we will examine five such issues by reading important works authored by leading philosophers: the nature of consent, the permissibility of abortion, justifications of affirmative action, the ethics of immigration policy, and how to think about responsibility for climate change. At least four of these five issues are or are likely to be involved in landmark rulings by the United States Supreme Court this year or next [2022-23]. All these are subjects of continued political controversy that will characterize U.S. public discourse for years to come. Developing informed opinions on them and honing the skills to explore, articulate, debate, and revise these opinions is critical to participating in this discourse effectively and respectfully.
Science, Society, and Values The Ethics of Human Enhancement [Syllabus] This course offers an introduction to ethical questions in the rapidly emerging field of human bioenhancement. Over the course of our lifetimes, we will continue to witness the staggering growth of scientific knowledge and technologies which allow us to alter fundamental features of our humanity. The most famous of these may well be CRISPR-Cas9 gene therapy, a powerful gene-editing tool developed extensively since 2016 and administered directly into a human body for the first time only last year. The possibilities opened by CRISPR seem endless, yet some highly controversial uses of it have already been widely condemned. In this course, we will ask questions about the general purpose of human bioenhancement and the motives that might lie behind it, about the permissibility or feasibility of ‘enhancing’ features widely held as key to our humanity such as intelligence and the capacity for morality and love, about the ethics of eliminating disability in new generations and greatly lengthening the lifespan of current generations, and finally about whether any of this will put us on track to leave behind our humanity and become ‘post-humans’.
Introduction to Philosophy The Nature of Reality and of the State [Syllabus] This course offers an introduction to philosophy by engaging with two debates that featured centrally in 17th and 18th century European philosophy: (i) the nature of reality, and (ii) the origin and justification of the state. These debates are especially important because they respectively influenced, and were influenced by, two historical developments that would profoundly shape the world we live in today: (a) the birth of modern science, and (b) the birth of the modern nation-state. They thus provide a window on the creation of the norms and institutions that characterize modernity, and on new answers to perennial philosophical questions that followed in their wake: What ultimately exists? What can we know with certainty? What is a human being? Who has political authority over us? What constitutes appropriate use of this authority?