Ethics Matters

This course aims to introduce graduate and professional students from a wide range of backgrounds to some common moral concepts and to provide a basic philosophical framework for thinking about related issues that arise within their own disciplines or fields. Topics include moral status, autonomy, respect, integrity, trust, responsibility and forgiveness. Students will submit weekly critical reading questions, produce a short paper/project proposal with annotated bibliography, and write a term paper with a required and graded draft (draft to be presented to the class in a mini-conference). An alternative to writing a final term paper is to produce a more public-facing product (e.g., podcast episode, webpage, short opinion piece) on a course-related topic, designed for greater accessibility and wider impact (with a presentation of a draft version during the mini-conference).

The reading/listening load is fairly heavy. Attendance at the seminar meetings is very important in a discussion-oriented class such as this one.

This version of Ethics Matters is developed with the support of a Mellon-funded initiative at the UW Simpson Center for the Humanities, Reimagining the Humanities PhD and Reaching New Publics: Catalyzing Collaboration.