Photo by Lawrence Lerner
Courses I teach regularly at Rutgers-Newark:
Introduction to Ethics, PHIL 212 (Fall and Spring)
What makes an action right or wrong? What is a good life? Why should we do what is morally right, rather than what is best for ourselves? Are there any objective moral truths? This course introduces students to some of the most influential answers to these and other central questions in ethics. We also explore how different ethical theories bear on controversial moral questions about abortion, gun ownership, or eating meat.
The Good Life, PHIL 422 (Fall)
What makes our lives go well? Is it a matter of how happy we are? Or does it all come down to getting what we want? Or are the best things in life independent of what we want and enjoy? What role should morality play in a life well lived? What would it take for our lives to be meaningful, and how does that relate to how good our lives are? In this course we explore these and other central questions in the philosophy of the good life. We also examine how different conceptions of the good life bear on other ethical questions that we all face. For instance, is death bad for us, and why? And how should we make important choices in life, such as deciding what career to pursue, or whether to have a child?
Social Media, Big Data, and Fake News, PHIL 385 (Spring)
What should companies and governments be able to learn about you based on your digital footprint, and what role should our rights to privacy and informed consent play here? How should freedom of speech be regulated on the internet? What, if anything, is wrong about “cancel culture”? How does social media affect our well-being and our ability to live an authentic life? What impact does social media have on political polarization, and how does this affect the functioning of democracy? What is bad about partisan echo chambers and epistemic bubbles, and how can we avoid them? How should we respond to the evergrowing spread of fake news and conspiracy theories? This course explores these and other ethical, political, and epistemological questions that are central to our lives in the era of social media, information overload, and mass digital tracking.
Previous teaching experience:
Rutgers-Newark: The Nature of Morality (undergraduate)
New York University: The End of Life (graduate course), Reproductive Ethics (graduate), Medical Ethics (undegraduate), Logic (undegraduate)
The New School for Social Research: Modern Deductive Logic (graduate)