Magic tricks delight us; biomedicine and other human sciences use deception in research (e.g., placeboes); and everyday politeness may obscure painful truths. With deception and disclosure as springboards, this course explores the contextual ambiguity of personal and professional ethics with special attention to knowledge control. Topics include: social fictions in daily life across cultures; the tangled histories of science, stage magic, and movies; ethically controversial practices in popular culture (reality TV, fake news), the arts (fictive memoirs), academia (sharing/plagiarizing), self presentation (racial and sexual passing), and more.

Should we create smarter, more virtuous people? This seminar will explore the ethical, legal, and social implications of using various medical technologies to alter human cognition. We will 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? Do cognitive enhancements impede or bolster the principles of a liberal democracy? These and other questions will be explored.

Democracy requires a proper understanding of the values, and forms of social cooperation, we ought to honor. But it also requires engagement with institutions and practices that make it more likely that those values will be honored. This course will examine institutional practices and political choices required to support a range of values we associate with democracy: equality, representation, deliberation, political competition, rule of law, etc. The course will use classic texts, philosophical papers and case studies to shed light on the institutional working of democracy.

This is a required course for the ten Graduate Prize Fellows (GPFs) in the University Center for Human Values. It is expected that the GPFs register for the course in both the fall and spring semesters of the year they are GPFs. The course has three central goals. First, the seminar is designed to support students' dissertation work while providing special aid to the human values aspect of the dissertation. Second, the seminar has an intensive focus on in-person academic performance skills. Third, the seminar aims to help graduate students to work toward the academic job market.

Recent developments in the United States and throughout the world have exposed fault lines in how communities design and regulate forms of citizenship. But current debates over the assignment, withholding, or deprivation of citizen status have a long and violent history. In this course we will attempt to map a history of citizenship from the ancient Mediterranean world to the 21st century. Questions to be tackled include: who/what is a citizen? (How) are exclusion and marginalization wired into the historical legacies and present-day practices of citizenship?

Introduction to ethical issues in market exchange, and in laws that regulate it. How ethical commitments evolve, and influence cooperation. The moral dimension of low wages, outsourcing, "fair" trade, price discrimination, and banning sales of sex, blood, organs and other "repugnant" goods. The nature, causes and consequences of economic inequality.

This transdisciplinary course investigates `home' as a central concept in both environmental studies (settler-colonial vs nomad) and arthouse cinema (anthropocentric vs environmental perspective). With the help of examples from masterpieces of cinema and our own short research film exercises, we will experiment with a possible compromise between the civilizational paradigms of settler colonialism vs nomadic homelessness.

Few political gestures are as ubiquitous or powerful as the appeal to our common "humanity." But a politics based on the human self (or, as it once was, "man") has often been accused of harboring limitations or prejudices that undercut its claim to be universal. More recently, the priority accorded to humans has been brought into question by studies into the cognitive and emotive capabilities of other animals, and developments in computing. In this course, we will examine the emergence of the human self as a master concept of politics, and we will also track the criticisms made by feminists, anti-colonial writers, and animal rights activists.

An introduction to central topics of moral philosophy. Questions include: What makes an action morally right or wrong, and why? Is the right action the one with the best consequences? Do our intentions matter for the rightness of our actions? Is there a moral difference between killing someone and letting someone die? Is there 'moral luck'? What makes someone's life go best for her? What is the moral status of future persons? Is abortion morally permissible? Is it permissible to kill animals to eat them? Is there a single true morality or is moral truth relative to cultures? Does anything really matter or did we just evolve to think so?

The choice of a kind of life involves both fundamental commitments and day-to-day decisions. This course is interested in zooming out and zooming in: how should we adopt commitments, and how do we realize them in ordinary life? What is the purpose of life, and how can you fulfill it? Should you live by an overall narrative, or is your life just the sum of what you actually do? Are commitments chosen or given to you? Are the decisions we think of as high stakes important at all? When should you relinquish what you thought were your deepest commitments? What should you do when commitments clash?

A survey of major problems and developments in twentieth century metaethics, from G.E. Moore to the present.

This course focuses on several problems in the philosophy of mind: the mind-body problem, the problem of other minds, the problem of personal identity, the problem of free will, and the problem of perception.

We take it for granted that normal adults are responsible for what they do. But what does this mean, and is it really true? The course will address central issues in ethics, moral psychology and the philosophy of law. What is free will, and do we possess it? Do our practices of censure and criminal punishment presuppose that we are free? Does reflection on human freedom motivate a revision in these practices?

What kind of public architecture is appropriate for a democracy? Should public spaces and buildings reflect democratic values - such as transparency and accessibility - or is the crucial requirement for democratic architecture that the process of arriving at decisions about the built environment is as participatory as possible? Is gentrification somehow un-democratic? The course will introduce students to different theories of democracy, to different approaches to architecture, and to many examples of architecture and urban planning from around the world, via images and films.

This course examines political thinkers who profoundly shaped normative thinking about politics in Indian, Islamic, African and Chinese contexts. The course will examine non-Western ideas of modernity, and justified forms of moral and political order. It will shed new light on key ideas of modern political thought: rights, justice, nationalism, identity, violence, perfectionism, democracy and power. The thinkers in this course such as Gandhi, Iqbal, Ambedkar, Qutub, Fanon, Cesaire, Mao and others, not only contribute to political theory. Their arguments also define fault lines in contemporary politics.

Scientists and humanists study "human nature" from radically different perspectives. This course explores interdisciplinary ways of tackling the gnarly problem of understanding ourselves. We'll grapple with questions like: Is human nature fundamentally good or evil? Is this even a sensible question to ask? How do technology and culture impact human morality and the ways we study it? What can AI tell us about human nature? Students will learn how to critically evaluate research examining the porous boundaries between self and society, and to think imaginatively about what the scientific method can reveal about humans- now and in the future.

This course investigates ethical assumptions and problems in medicine, nursing, biomedical research and engineering. Readings are philosophical and theological, and we evaluate a host of perspectives on issues and cases. We first consider accounts of human life and biological evolution and how they bear on our understanding of God and neighbor. We then examine some key definitions, virtues, and principles. Next we address these topics: assisted reproduction, genetic control, abortion, euthanasia and the right to die, informed consent, paternalism, confidentiality, just allocation of scarce resources, limits on research protocols, and cloning.

This course takes a close look at the foundational texts and critical concepts in the discipline of sociology, from the 19th century classics to contemporary theorists who have inspired important research agendas. Our two main goals will be to a) engage critically with authors and ideas and b) to develop your own 'sociological eye' and theoretical skills. Key authors will include Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Dubois, Schutz, Goffman, Bourdieu, Foucault, Butler and Latour. We will put these authors in their historical contexts and also ask how they can be used now to interpret contemporary issues and events.

This course will introduce students to contemporary constitutional law in comparative perspective. The emphasis will be on bringing together the main theories of constitutionalism; diverse regions that have been the scene of constitution-making in recent decades (including Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin and South America) in comparison with more 'consolidated' constitutional systems, and some of the main recent trends in constitutionalism (militant democracy, transitional constitutionalism, supranational constitution-making, constitutional populism) but with a firm focus on the question of judicial review and constitutional rights.