My Teaching

Courses That I Teach Regularly at ODU

PHIL 303E Business Ethics

My text in this course is William H. Shaw's Business Ethics.

PHIL 344E Environmental Ethics

I only began teaching this course in Fall 2015, after the faculty member who taught it previously retired. My text is David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willot's Environmental Ethics.


PHIL 410/510 Social and Political Philosophy (mixed undergraduate and graduate, cross-listed with Political Science)

I don't use a text in this class. In the most recent offerings, I assign selections from T. Hobbes, J. Locke, J. J. Rousseau, B. Constant, J. S. Mill, J. F. Stephen, W. Kymlicka [about Rawls], L. Wenar [about Rawls], R. Nozick, B. Mussolini, U. Eco, H. Arendt, J. Habermas, A. Jaggar, C. MacKinnon, and M. Nussbaum.


PHIL 412/512 Philosophy of Law (mixed undergraduate and graduate, cross-listed with Political Science)

My text in this course is John Arthur and William H. Shaw's Readings in the Philosophy of Law.


PHIL 423/523 Philosophy of Work (mixed undergraduate and graduate)

This class was originally created for students in ODU's Work and Professional Studies major, although it now serves a diverse population of students. I don't use a text, although the readings are too various to list all of the authors. The topics we cover, which I've chosen with an eye toward avoiding overlap with the Business Ethics course, include the nature of work, the value of work, alienation, exploitation, "universal basic income," paid surrogacy, prostitution, and career choice.


PHIL 441E/541 Foundations of Ethics (mixed undergraduate and graduate)

In this hard-working class I cover topics in normative ethics, meta-ethics, and moral psychology. In the most recent offering we read selections from Aristotle, D. Hume, I. Kant, and J. S. Mill, several chapters from The Blackwell Companion to Ethics (ed. P. Singer), and J. Haidt's The Righteous Mind.


Other Courses That I Have Taught Recently


PHIL 795/895 Global Ethics and Human Rights (mixed M.A. and Ph.D. course, cross-listed with International Studies)

My primary texts in this course were Global Ethics: Seminal Essays (eds. K. Horton and T. Pogge) and Global Justice: Seminal Essays (eds. D. Moellendorf and T. Pogge).


Utilitarianism (M.A. course in Philosophy, Universität Hamburg)

Each week in this course we read a chapter from The Cambridge Companion to Utilitarianism (eds. B. Eggleston and D. E. Miller) with supplemental readings.


Bentham and Mill on Democracy (M. A. course in Politics, Economics, and Philosophy, Universität Hamburg, co-taught with Peter Niesen)

We read a wide range of primary and secondary texts.


Other Courses That I Have Taught at ODU


PHIL 110P Introduction to Philosophy


PHIL 313 Computer Ethics


PHIL 493/593 Seminar: J. S. Mill (mixed undergraduate and graduate)


PHIL 495/595 War, Terror, and Patriotism