PHIL 261.001 – Ethics in Action

Instructor: Delaney Thull. This course meets TR 9:30 – 10:45 a.m. in CW 208, with a recitation on Tuesday evenings.

Moral philosophy is often broken into three distinct subfields: metaethics, normative ethics, and practical ethics.  This course might best be described as a course in very practical ethics.  The course focuses on applying moral reasoning to ethical case studies about practical issues in engineering, law, medicine, personal relationships, education, and both domestic and international politics.

Students will prepare sophisticated views about these cases and prepare to defend those views in the team-based discussion format of the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. Prior to receiving the cases, students will learn the basics of normative ethics to help orient their ethical thinking about the case studies. This course will boost students’ skills in analytical thinking, philosophical discussion, collaborative argument building, and public discourse.

Permission of the instructor is required to enroll in this course. Email dthull@live.unc.edu. 

Prerequisite: 1 PHIL ethics course.