Should we create smarter, more virtuous people? This seminar will explore the ethical, legal, political, and social implications of using various medical technologies to alter human cognition. We will briefly discuss the neuroscience and medical means used to alter human cognition. We will, then, critically evaluate philosophical arguments regarding the use and distribution of neurointerventions: Is there a morally relevant distinction between treatment and enhancement? Do we ever have a moral obligation to enhance ourselves? How do such enhancements relate to eugenic agendas? Do cognitive enhancements impede or bolster the principles of a liberal democracy? How might our (social) identities inform the (im)permissibility of cognitive enhancement?
Arizona State University (Spring 2025)
Princeton University (Spring 2024)
University of Pennsylvania (Summer 2020)
With the resurgence in anti-racist activism and the COVID-19 pandemic came a growing attention to racial and ethnic disparities in health and healthcare. What are we to make of these disparities? What role do injustices – past and present – play in generating these disparities? More generally, what constitutes racial (in)justice in clinical care and research? This course will explore these questions, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications of contemporary interventions offered to resolve racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare. Students will become acquainted with the empirical and philosophical literature regarding race and racism in clinical care and medical research, with an emphasis on constructing conceptual frameworks and philosophical arguments to better understand and promote the just practice of medicine.
Arizona State University (Fall 2024)
Princeton University (Spring 2023)
University of Pennsylvania (Fall 2021)
What is race? What is the function of race in society? What is racism? Should we use race-talk? What is the role of racial identities? What is racial justice and what distinguishes racial justice from other forms of social justice? These are some of the questions students explore, as we survey the analytic philosophical literature regarding the metaphysics, semantics, and ethics of race and race theory. This course provides a brief survey of some of the most influential race theories in Western culture from the 17th century onward, as well as the ethical and social implications of these race theories. In the process, students learn how to use the tools of analytic philosophy to critically read, write, and engage in contemporary debates in the philosophy of race.
Arizona State University (Spring 2025)
University of Pennsylvania (Summer 2020)
What makes a life go well? What is the good people (ought to) seek? How do we make sense of our lives as a whole and the moral landscape in which we live? What is the relationship between how we think, behave, and are disposed? This course will explore these questions and others as we analyze the structure, content, application, and criticisms of various virtue ethics accounts, with an emphasis on Western philosophical accounts, but extending beyond Western accounts. Additionally, students will become acquainted with empirical literature in (moral) psychology that animates our understanding of virtue and vice, and how they are acquired, maintained, or lost. Ultimately, the aim of this course is to critically evaluate virtue ethics as a viable ethical account.
Arizona State University (Fall 2025)
PHIL 001: Introduction to Philosophy (University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2020)
PHIL 025: Introduction to Philosophy of Science (University of Pennsylvania, Fall 2019)
AFRC 004: Contemporary African Film (University of Pennsylvania, Summer 2019)
PHIL 002: Introduction to Ethics (University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2019)
PHIL 072: Biomedical Ethics (University of Pennsylvania, Fall 2018)
AFRC 006: Race, Religion, and Black Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania, Summer 2018)