Courses

Philosophy for Children  |  Alex Richardson

This course will provide extended engagement with both the theory and practice of engaging children in philosophical discussion. Topically, students will explore issues in traditional areas of philosophy such as ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, as well as more specific questions about the philosophical and developmental nature of childhood and the purposes of education. This theoretical work will be supplemented with the development of age-appropriate pedagogies for introducing philosophical ideas to young people through children’s literature. Students will apply their work outside the classroom by leading and facilitating periodic discussion workshops with local children in grades 3-5 at Greencastle’s Tzounakis Intermediate School.

The Ethics Project  |  Jeff Dunn

The highlight of this class is a semester-long, experiential project called the Ethics Project. The idea is simple: Think of something good to do and that adds value to the world. Then do it. To help you implement your project, the Prindle Institute for Ethics will make available to each group at least $600 in funding. This project gives you great freedom to be entrepreneurial, but also great responsibility. At the end you will need to justify the way you spent your time and money. How do you know you added value to the world? Why does it matter? The course content will complement the Ethics Project. In class we will think about different kinds of value, about how values might be measured, and the promise and dangers therein. We will address questions about cooperation and self-interest, as well as foundational questions about the role of business, the role of government regulation, and the role of markets. Thinking about these foundational questions and then implementing the Ethics Project is excellent career preparation. In some jobs, people tell you what to do. But as you advance in your career, you will have jobs where you have to identify what the most important problems are, and then solve them. That is what we will do in this class.

Forgiveness and Revenge  |  David Holiday

What should we do after we, or our loved ones, have been wronged? After you have been abused, mistreated or suffered an injustice, or after your community has been subjected to an atrocity, how should you act towards the perpetrator(s)? Moral philosophers tell us that there is a natural and justified response to moral injury, resentment (or ressentiment). They also tell us that there are two options for how to move beyond resentment: to forgive the perpetrator; or to take revenge against them. And they are almost unanimously in favour of forgiveness and strongly against revenge. This course will explore these issues through engagement with the work of some classic philosophers (Nietzsche, Bacon, Butler and Arendt), as well as contemporary theorists of forgiveness and vengeance (Jeffrie Murphy, Peter French and Charles Griswold). We will explore the almost magical power of forgiveness to release us from an otherwise irreversibly ruined past, and the very real dangers of taking revenge. But we will also tackle difficult questions about the limits of forgiveness, whether forgiveness is possible in political or social-level wrongs, the possibility of unforgivable crimes, and some partial and wholehearted defences of vengeance. A note of caution: The class will involve a viewing of the hyper-violent South Korean revenge film Oldboy, and include readings from post-atrocity contexts such as the Holocaust, which some students may find unpleasant or disturbing.

Ethical Perspectives for Leadership  |  David Holiday

The practice of leading involves the use of interpersonal influence, which means that leadership has substantial ethical aspects “built in.” Leadership must pursue socially elevating goals, and restrict collaborative teams to only good (or at least morally permissible) means to attain them. Leaders must resist various temptations to abuse their position, and their ability to influence others. Leadership tests moral character, and requires a commitment to consistently uphold shared values. It also requires respect, inclusivity and equitable treatment for all members of the team. This course offers students the core tools and concepts needed to grapple with the ethical questions at the heart of leadership. First, we study multiple moral frameworks needed to understand and practice ethical leadership. Then we will engage with case studies, and contemporary literature, considering ethical aspects of leadership including: privilege and diversity; gender and culture; unethical influence (coercion, exploitation and manipulation); bridging the gap between knowing something is wrong and actually speaking up against it; and whether leaders are ever right to make exceptions to practical principles or rules. (The course has no prerequisites, although students will be well served by having completed LEAD 228—Foundations of Leadership. It serves the Leadership minor, and may also count towards the major and minor in Philosophy.)

Ethics in Business  |  Tucker Sechrest

The course examines the ways the market impacts our social and political relations and the ways in which our legal institutions constrict and enable the market. Is the market a friend or foe of equality? What kind of freedom does the free market give us? Do businesses have an obligation to support socially desirable ends? Much of the coursework will be dedicated to tying Supreme Court case opinions to classical and contemporary political philosophy.

Ethics in Action  |  Jeffrey Dunn

This course is an exploration of ethical theory and practice for Hillman Interns at the Prindle Institute for Ethics. The course will introduce you to the basics of ethical theory and also provide you with some of the tools to effectively play your role encouraging ethical reflection and dialogue at DePauw and in the community. This year one large focus of the course will be how to effectively have and facilitate discussions about controversial topics where there is deep disagreement. This is difficult but important work.

Ethics and Business  |  Tucker Sechrest

The course examines the ways the market impacts our social and political relations and the ways in which our legal institutions constrict and enable the market. Is the market a friend or foe of equality? What kind of freedom does the free market promise? Do businesses have an obligation to support socially desirable ends? Much of the coursework will be dedicated to tying Supreme Court opinions to classical and contemporary political philosophy.

Big Questions in Practical Philosophy  |  David Holiday

This course provides an accessible introduction to philosophy through a survey of some classic and contemporary philosophical perspectives on perennial questions relating to life and action. Topics covered will include: the objectivity of ethical values; the relationship between religion and morality; how best to determine “the right thing to do”; what kind of person we should strive to be; and the role of friendships, care, and community in a good life. Emphasis will be placed on the development of philosophical skills, such as argument analysis and evaluation, critical reasoning, clear expression, and productive dialogue.

Ethical Theory  |  Alex Richardson

This course provides an introductory exploration of ethical theory via extended engagement with both influential thinkers from the history of moral philosophy and cutting-edge recent work in normative ethics. Throughout the course, we will focus on questions about the nature of the good life, moral status, and our moral obligations to ourselves and others. We’ll begin with a primer on moral reasoning, developing a useful ‘toolkit’ of various values and methods employed by moral philosophers. Then, we’ll examine normative theories of the good life as advanced by classical thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, and Immanuel Kant, as well as some of their more recent methodological counterparts. We’ll end our term with an exploration of some normative problems and prospects currently being grappled with by moral philosophers.

Non-Profit Leadership  |  Kristen Fuhs Wells

This course is designed to help students understand the fundamental role of nonprofits, their structures and goals, and how they differ from and are similar to for-profits. Each week will focus on a different theme (e.g., fundraising) and will include in-depth discussion about the ethical dimensions that confront nonprofit leaders in that area. Guest lecturers, real-world cases, and independent and group projects will round out your understanding of key leadership strategies and frameworks. The goal of the class is to help you better understand nonprofits and help prepare you for future interactions with them—whether it’s as an employee, donor, or volunteer/board member.

No matter how busy you are, you can work ethics into your schedule with a quarter-credit Prindle Ethics Reading Course. In these courses, you’ll read and discuss with your professor and classmates a single work to enhance your understanding of the field of ethics or an individual ethical issue. These quarter-credit ethics reading courses allow students to easily weave an ethics component throughout their curriculum while at DePauw. Consult the Schedule of Courses to register for one of these courses today!

Fall 2025 Reading Courses

Instructor: David Holiday

Text: Paul Nnodim and Austin Okigbo, Ubuntu: A Comparative Study of an African Concept of Justice

Course Title: Prindle Reading Course: Ubuntu: A Comparative Study of an African Concept of Justice

Course Description: Students will read, discuss, and reflect on a range of perspectives on Ubuntu: a relational or community-based ethical perspective from the Bantu cultures of South and East Africa. Ubuntu is the moral perspective of great South African leaders, such as: Nelson Mandela, who lead the successful struggle to overcome the racial segregation and injustice of apartheid; and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who lead the nation’s path-setting Truth and Reconciliation Commission (an innovative model for national, restorative justice after atrocity). Ubuntu ethics contrasts deeply with the individualism of modern, Western, Liberal moral and political philosophy, the perspective shared by Kant, Bentham and Mill, Sidgewick, Rawls, Ross, Nussbaum and other leading figures in philosophical ethics. The course will challenge students from Western cultures to step back critically from their own cultural perspective, engage with a new way of thinking about justice, and thereby to enlarge their moral imagination. For students from Bantu, and other non-Western, cultures, the course offers an opportunity to engage with a serious philosophical exploration of a moral perspective which has shown itself to have particular value in post-conflict and post-atrocity contexts, contexts which the world, unfortunately, continues to create.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location:
Meeting Time: First 8 Thursday evenings of Fall 2025 semester

Course Description: “If a lie is what it takes to ensure our survival, then let it be told.” So declares escaped slave Jim in Percival Everett’s novel “James,” a reimagining of Mark Twain’s classic “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. By turning Twain’s novel on its head, Everett challenges traditional notions of truth and who gets to tell it. As the titular James struggles for control of his narrative and his destiny, he faces moral dilemmas familiar in western ethics: rights, consequences, duty, and virtue, to name just a few. But how can we, as readers, understand the complexities of choices made within the dehumanizing framework of slavery?
This question will guide our inquiry over eight weeks. Some issues we will consider include: identity and performance, truth-telling and historical narratives; marginalization and human dignity, duty and freedom.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: Campus
Meeting Time: First 8 Tuesday evenings of Fall 2025 semester

Course Description: What responsibilities do institutions of higher education and their students, faculty, and staff have to actively confront and seek to dismantle systemic racism, promoting justice, equity, and human dignity? Engaging in antiracist praxis acknowledges the historical and ongoing marginalization of certain groups, aiming to rectify power imbalances , and societal inequities. This commitment requires continuous self-awareness, critical examination of personal biases, and a dedication to transformative societal change. This course utilizes “Do the Work!: An Antiracist Activity Book” by W. Kamau Bell and Kate Schatz to engage in interactive discussions and exercises aimed at understanding and dismantling systems of oppression. Students will critically examine concepts of white privilege, meritocracy, and historical disenfranchisement. The course emphasizes practical application by encouraging students to initiate conversations, reflect on personal biases, and commit to actionable steps toward creating a more equitable campus and society.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: Prindle
Meeting Time: First 8 Wednesday evenings of Fall 2025 semester

Course Description: Discussing evil in The Gulag Archipelago, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn writes, “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Solzhenitsyn makes several contested claims about evil in this quotation including: that there are no evil persons, that all humans have in them the capacity for good and evil, that evil is a fundamental part of human nature. In this course, we will look at the concept of evil. Our book Evil: A History contains several essays with varying views on evil. These essays consider its very existence, its nature, whether it is a force or a person, the source of evil, its scope, and other questions. In addition, the book will provide us with a sense of how evil is understood in various eras, religions, philosophies, and from the perspective of the natural sciences.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: Campus
Meeting Time: First 8 Monday evenings of Fall 2025 semester