Ethical Reasoning

These courses introduce students to major traditions of moral theory and ethical reasoning, engage students in critically examining ethical problems, and challenge students to develop rigorous personal systems of ethical reasoning. The central goals of the course are to develop students' skills in reasoning about ethical problems and encourage deep, habitual reflection on the ethical dimensions of life. This course requires a major case study analysis of some sort. Individual sections may focus on different ethical arenas or problems. Prerequisite: UCOR 2500 Philosophy of the Human Person.

Sample Sections

Environmental Ethics

Faculty: Daniel Dombrowski

There are two principal aims in this course, one theoretical and the other practical.  The theoretical aim is to understand the major options in the history of philosophical ethics, especially utilitarianism, Kantianism (or deontology), and virtue ethics.  The practical aim of the course is both to apply these theories to various ethical problems regarding human nature and to see how these theories emerge out of these problems.

Ethics of Food

Faculty: Paulette Kidder

This course engages students in ethical reasoning about issues surrounding food, including the health of the environment, hunger and inequality, and the treatment of nonhuman animals.

Ethical Reasoning

Faculty: Yancy Hughes Dominick

What is ethics? Is it a science or an art? What--if anything--determines the difference between right and wrong? We will examine responses to these and other questions by Aristotle, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill. We will also address the practical application of these theories by discussing issues including poverty and social justice, animal rights, and euthanasia.