We teach ethics, across the curriculum.
The Prindle Institute’s staff includes experienced teachers and scholars who bring innovative approaches to ethics education into the classroom. In addition to their work at the Institute, our faculty regularly offer courses at DePauw that connect ethical theory with real-world practice—ranging from traditional philosophy and applied ethics classes to special project-based and service-learning courses that extend beyond campus. Students can also enroll in focused, add-on reading courses designed to deepen engagement with specific ethical themes or thinkers. Across all formats, our teaching reflects a shared commitment to inquiry, reflection, and creative pedagogy in ethics.
Winter 2025 Course Offerings
Ethics Bowl: Strategy and Community Engagement
Kristen Fuhs Wells, Alex Richardson
This course invites DePauw students to take a leading role in shaping the future of the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl (IEB), a program in which the university has been a proud competitor for nearly three decades. Students will take on hands-on projects such as developing new case materials, producing training videos, designing collaborative events, curating the IEB content library, identifying guest speakers, and exploring creative outreach strategies for the national competition. The semester culminates in a two-day trip to St. Louis, where students will help demonstrate the Ethics Bowl model for a regional network of colleges interested in starting new teams. Through guided conversations with faculty, students, and community members, participants will engage in real-world ethical reflection and collaboration—preparing them to become national leaders in the next generation of Ethics Bowl innovation.
Spring 2026 Course Offerings
Advocacy and Activism | Alex Richardson
This course explores the ethical foundations, tensions, and responsibilities of advocacy and activism in democratic life. Students will examine questions about persuasion, power, justice, and the moral limits of protest and resistance through readings in classical and contemporary political philosophy alongside real-world case studies. By engaging both theory and practice, students will develop the tools to evaluate the ethics of advocacy strategies and to reflect thoughtfully on their own roles as participants in democratic society.
Ethical Perspectives on Leadership | David Holiday
This course introduces students to the theory and practice of ethical leadership. Leaders are called to pursue socially elevating goals and to consider how their choices affect a wide range of stakeholders. Because leadership involves power—the capacity to influence others—it demands both responsibility and respect for shared values. At the same time, leadership tests moral character, presenting temptations and difficult choices that can be hard to navigate. To prepare students for these challenges, the course develops key skills in ethical reasoning and examines major approaches to normative ethics—utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics—through case studies and applied topics in leadership. Coursework includes short take-home tests, writing assignments, and collaborative research and presentation projects.
Ethics in Business | Tucker Sechrest
This course examines how markets shape our social and political relationships, and how legal institutions both enable and constrain them. Is the market a friend or foe of equality? What kind of freedom does a “free” market really offer? Do businesses have ethical obligations to pursue socially desirable ends? Through close analysis of Supreme Court decisions and key works in classical and contemporary political philosophy, students will explore how law, economics, and ethics intersect in shaping a just society.
Ethics Reading Courses
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!
Spring 2026 Reading Courses
Instructor: Jessica Mejía
Text:Steven Nadler, Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die
Course Description: “The free person thinks least of all of death, and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.” Baruch Spinoza is a singular 17th-century thinker known for his exotic philosophical system, but in our class we’ll explore his lesser-known account of the good life. We’ll see how his ethics connects with his wider philosophical project, trace his influences, and highlight his innovations. Spinoza’s ethical account focuses on striving, virtues, friendship, and death—all subjects worthy of our consideration.
Enrollment Cap: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: DePauw Main Campus (TBA)
Meeting Time: First 8 Monday evenings of Spring 2026 semester
Instructor: Ronald Dye
Text: Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead
Course Description: Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead reimagines Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield in twenty-first-century Appalachia, tracing one boy’s fight as a foster child to survive poverty and the ravages of the opioid crisis. The novel appeals to both our need for humor in an abrasive world and our deepest understanding of the tragic, demanding that we consider the power of story to reshape our perceptions of dignity and hope. This course explores Demon Copperhead as a powerful social critique and ethical reflection, questioning collective notions of poverty, resilience, addiction, and recovery—and how storytelling can become both resistance and renewal.
Enrollment Cap: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: DePauw Main Campus (TBA)
Meeting Time: First 8 Tuesday evenings of Spring 2026 semester
Instructor: Victoria Peters
Text: Samuel A. Moore, Publishing Beyond the Market: Open Access, Care, and the Commons
Course Description: In this reading and discussion-based seminar, students will explore the moral dimensions of knowledge creation and control. Who has access to knowledge—and who doesn’t? Who profits from research, and who is left out of the conversation? As scholarly publishing collides with AI, inequality, and public disillusionment, liberal arts students are uniquely positioned to reflect on the ethical responsibilities of researchers, institutions, and the public. Through philosophical, historical, and contemporary case studies—including Publishing Beyond the Market by Samuel A. Moore—this course asks students to grapple with pressing ethical questions about intellectual ownership, social justice, and the public good.
Enrollment Cap: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: No
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: DePauw Main Campus (TBA)
Meeting Time: First 8 Tuesday evenings of Spring 2026 semester
Instructor: Tucker Sechrest
Text: David Luban, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity
Course Description: “Law is not a body of statutes or doctrines; rather, it is the activity of lawyers as architects of social structure.” This course explores how the everyday work of ordinary lawyers in run-of-the-mill cases shapes the legal landscape. What role do legal professionals play in upholding the rule of law, avoiding organizational evil, and ensuring the conditions for human dignity?
Enrollment Cap: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: The Prindle Institute for Ethics
Meeting Time: First 8 Wednesday evenings of Spring 2026 semester
Instructor: David Holiday
Text: Kwame Gyekye, Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience and Kwasi Wiredu, Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective
Course Description: This course introduces African moral thought through the work of two leading figures in twentieth-century Ghanaian philosophy. We’ll examine topics such as justice, wellbeing, community, tradition, and the good life through distinctively African ethical perspectives that challenge Western liberal assumptions. For students of ethics, these texts provoke serious reflection on issues such as wealth distribution, human welfare, and the relationship between individual and community. For students of Africana studies, the course offers a deep dive into two foundational thinkers whose influence continues to shape contemporary philosophy and public life.
Enrollment Cap: 10
Prerequisites: One course in philosophy
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: The Prindle Institute for Ethics
Meeting Time: First 8 Thursday evenings of Spring 2026 semester
Instructor: Jennifer Heaven Mike
Text: H. L. A. Hart, Law, Liberty, and Morality
Course Description: Should the law enforce morality or religion-based norms? Where do we draw the line between personal liberty and legal coercion? This course delves into these critical questions through the lens of H. L. A. Hart’s seminal work Law, Liberty, and Morality. Students will explore Hart’s debates with Lord Devlin and others to examine the philosophical foundations of legal positivism and its relevance to modern debates on same-sex marriage, abortion, obscenity, and more. Through landmark cases and lively discussion, we’ll consider the delicate balance between public morality and personal freedom.
Enrollment Cap: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: DePauw Main Campus (TBA)
Meeting Time: First 8 Wednesday evenings of Spring 2026 semester
Instructor: Kayla Flegal
Text: Suleika Jaouad, The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life
Course Description: The act of journaling—recording one’s life in any form—is a creative exercise that requires honesty, curiosity, and courage. Using Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy as a guide, this course explores journaling as a form of ethical and creative practice. Through reflection on themes such as beginnings, love, loss, and renewal, students will engage with discomfort, ask meaningful questions, and create with authenticity. Ideal for both experienced and new journalers, this course provides space to develop a mindful, intentional creative habit.
Enrollment Cap: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: DePauw Main Campus (TBA)
Meeting Time: First 8 Wednesday evenings of Spring 2026 semester