PHIL 230 Contemporary Moral Problems (5 credits)
Distribution Area Fulfilled Humanities; General Transfer Elective
Course Description
Provides students with an introduction to ethical theories and their application to moral issues. Topics may include: privacy rights, capital punishment, animal rights, environmental issues, and euthanasia.
Course Content
Definition of ethics
Distinction between factual claims and value judgements
Identification and examination of logical tools used to analyze arguments
Survey of a culturally and geographically diverse set of ethical theories
Current individual and systemic moral issues, including medical, reproductive, environmental, commercial/economic, and social equity/social justice
Student Outcomes
- Apply an ethical theory to discuss and attempt to resolve moral problems.
- Assess ethical theories by applying them to various moral issues.
- Examine the distinction between facts and values that help to define particular moral problems.
- Judge the strength/weakness, validity or invalidity, of the arguments presented.
- Create arguments and develop counterarguments for/against the moral issues presented in class.
- Examine one’s moral perspective in relation to other moral perspectives discussed in class.
Degree Outcomes
Humanities: Graduates acquire critical skills to interpret, analyze, and evaluate forms of human expression, which can include creation and performance as an expression of human experience.Critical, Creative and Reflective Thinking: Graduates will evaluate, analyze, synthesize, and generate ideas; construct informed, meaningful, and justifiable conclusions; and process feelings, beliefs, biases, strengths, and weaknesses as they relate to their thinking, decisions, and creations. Global Citizenship: Graduates will be able to critically examine the relationship between self, community, and/or environments, and to evaluate and articulate potential impacts of choices, actions, and contributions for the creation of sustainable and equitable systems.
Lecture Contact Hours 50
Lab Contact Hours 0
Clinical Contact Hours 0
Total Contact Hours 50
Potential Methods
Exams
Journals
Essays
Essay exams
Instructor observation of in-class participation
Term papers
Research project
Discussions and debates
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