Image: Detail of 'I musici ambulanti', Villa c.d. di Cicerone, Pompeii. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.
Courses Taught |
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This course will survey some of the main writings on human freedom by major figures in the early modern period, from Hobbes and Descartes to Leibniz and Émilie du Châtelet. We will explore topics such as the nature of metaphysical contingency and possibility, the relation between mental faculties of willing and knowing, and the continued importance of final (or end-directed) causation for freedom. More broadly, we will think about the various ways that philosophers in the period leading up to Kant theorized human agency and at- tempted to embed it within a broader metaphysical and physical picture of nature, as well as to reconcile it with acceptable theological commitments.
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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 and interesting works authored by leading philosophers: Morally Justified Consent, Permissibility of Abortion, Justifications of Affirmative Action, Ethics of Immigration Policy, and Responsibility for Climate Change. At least four of these five issues are or are likely to be involved in landmark rulings made by the United States Supreme Court this year or next. 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.
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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 in ways that past generations may never have anticipated. 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’.
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This course offers an introduction to philosophy by engaging with two debates that featured centrally in 17th and 18th century Europe: (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?
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