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Your search for courses · during 25FA, 26WI, 26SP · tagged with PHIL Prac/Value Theory · returned 7 results
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GWSS 365 Black Feminist Thought 6 credits
This seminar offers students an opportunity to engage closely with key concepts, figures, and arguments in the Black Feminist intellectual tradition. We will focus primarily on texts by key figures/scholars from the Americas/Caribbean—in order to situate Black Feminisms within a transnational feminist context. We will take a historical approach, starting in the 19th century and work our way to more contemporary figures and texts throughout the term. Some of the key figures we will examine are Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, Angela Y. Davis, Sylvia Wynter, Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
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PHIL 218 Virtue Ethics 6 credits
What is a good human life? Who is a good person? From the time of Plato and Aristotle onwards, many philosophers have thought about these questions in terms of two central ideas. Virtues, such as justice or courage, make us a certain type of person (they give us a certain character). Wisdom enables us to make good judgments about how to act. How do virtue and wisdom work together to produce a good human life? Is a good life the same as a happy life? We will reflect on these and related questions as we read texts from Alasdair MacIntyre, Philippa Foot, and other significant thinkers in the contemporary virtue ethics tradition. We will also consider the application of virtue ethics to specific areas, such as environmental ethics, as well as the parallels between Western virtue ethics and the tradition of Confucianism in ancient China.
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PHIL 218.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Allison Murphy 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLibrary 305 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLibrary 305 1:10pm-2:10pm
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PHIL 221 Philosophy of Law 6 credits
This course provides students with an opportunity to engage actively in a discussion of theoretical questions about law. We will consider the nature of law as it is presented by natural law theory, legal positivism and legal realism. Then we will deal with responsibility and punishment, and challenges to the idea of the primacy of individual rights from legal paternalism and moralism. We will next inquire into the explanations of why individuals should obey the law, and conditions under which civil disobedience is justified. Finally, we will discuss issues raised by feminist legal theory and some theories of minority rights.
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PHIL 221.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Anna Moltchanova 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 426 3:10pm-4:55pm
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PHIL 260 Critical Philosophy of Race 6 credits
What is race? Is “race” real? Is it a biological fact, a social category, or a cultural production? How do we define racism? This course introduces students to the major issues and debates from the emergent subfield referred to as the “Critical Philosophy of Race.” Throughout the course, we will examine the ways in which philosophers first defined the concept of race, how the definition of this concept has evolved since its introduction, and the philosophical/societal implications of these shifts. In doing so, we will investigate how race relates to issues of identity, culture, knowledge, and social difference.
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PHIL 260.01 Winter 2026
- Faculty:Cynthia Marrero-Ramos 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 304 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 304 2:20pm-3:20pm
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PHIL 261 The Individual and the Political Community 6 credits
Are human beings by nature atomic units or oriented towards community? What does the difference amount to, and why does it matter for our understanding of the ways in which political communities come into existence and are maintained? In this course we will explore these and related questions while reading two foundational works in political theory, Plato’s Republic and Hobbes’s Leviathan, as well as several related contemporary pieces.
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PHIL 261.01 Winter 2026
- Faculty:Allison Murphy 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 426 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 426 9:40am-10:40am
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PHIL 274 Existentialism 6 credits
We will consider the emergence and development of major themes of existentialism in the works of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, as well as “classical” existentialists such as Heidegger, Sartre and De Beauvoir. We will discuss key issues put forward by the existentialist movement, such as “the question of being” and human historicity, freedom and responsibility and look at how different authors analyzed the nature and ambitions of the Self and diverse aspects of subjectivity.
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PHIL 274.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Anna Moltchanova 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 426 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 426 2:20pm-3:20pm
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PHIL 276 Existentialism and Literature 6 credits
Against the background of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of secularism, the spread of mass consumption and technocracy, and the devastation of war, the question of the human being’s place in the world became increasingly pressing. ‘Existentialism’ became the term associated with intellectuals and artists who grappled with questions of authenticity, freedom, and our responsibilities to others, all while seeking new forms of meaning and value that were not rooted in traditional sources of authority. We’ll read texts that give voice to modernity’s social upheaval and alienation as well as works of philosophy and literature that responded to this predicament. Authors include Kafka, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus, and Viktor Frankl.
- Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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PHIL 276.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Allison Murphy 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 305 1:15pm-3:00pm