The Ethical Policy Maker

How do we evaluate whether a particular public policy is good or bad? Which goals should public policies serve? From Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), public policies cannot be properly understood without exploring the political and moral values that underpin them. This course asks what it means to think ethically about public policies. Each week, it introduces a domestic or international public policy, pairing it with relevant scholarship in ethics to better understand what is at stake. Students are invited to consider how they would improve or replace the policies in question.