Philosophy (PHIL)

PHIL 101. Introduction to Philosophy

Credits: 3
Typically Offered: FALLSPR
Examination of philosophical topics such as good and evil, meaning of life, knowledge and truth, mind/body/self, justice and morality. Students must be willing to consider challenging issues from unfamiliar and diverse viewpoints. They will be encouraged to look for reasons for belief, to think through issues and clearly express why they agree with or differ from others. Emphasis on developing critical thinking skills.

PHIL 210. Ethics

Credits: 3
Typically Offered: FALL
An introduction to the tools for assessing and resolving moral dilemmas and conflicting values in public and professional life, including learning how to apply ethical theory to moral issues and how to move from theory and discussion to ethical action.

PHIL 220. Introduction to Logic

Credits: 3
Typically Offered: FALLSPR
An introduction to reasoning and argumentation. Students will consider general patterns of arguments, including deduction and induction; fallacies; elementary symbolic logic; and reasoning in different fields such as law, science, the arts, business, and ethics.

PHIL 230. Political Philosophy

Credits: 3
Typically Offered: ONDEMAND
A study of Western political thought from Plato to the present. Basic themes include the relationship between the individual and the collective, forms of government, role of citizens, and concepts like freedom, power, and rights. Philosophers/political thinkers include: Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Locke, and Marx.

PHIL 250. Philosophy In Cinema

Credits: 3
Typically Offered: ONDEMAND
This course is a qualitative survey of movies and the ways in which they impact and shaped our lives, cultures, and institutions. Mixing reality and fiction, films offer an invaluable source of innovative ideas and new approaches for viewing the world around us.

PHIL 253. Environmental Ethics

Credits: 3
Typically Offered: FALL
The course centers on the way that ethics helps us to understand environmental issues. We examine a broad cross-section of environmental issues from a variety of traditional and contemporary ethical frameworks. Issues include sustainability, animal rights, energy consumption, habitat loss, biodiversity, land conservation, and pollution. Class members will explore such issues through case studies in a context of relevant ethical history and theory.

PHIL 441. Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Credits: 3
Prerequisite: PHIL 210.
Typically Offered: FALLSPR
The ethics of artificial intelligence is the part of the ethics of technology specific to automation, robotics, augmentation and other forms of artificial intelligence. This course looks at the moral behavior of humans as they design, construct, use and treat artificially intelligent beings; the moral behaviors of artificial moral agents; and assess the ethical dimensions of the potential effects of artificial intelligence for human life. In addition, exploring the search for balance between regulation and innovation as well as the ethical questions arising from AI for individual rights, discrimination and architectures of control, and dissemination of information is included in this course.