This course will introduce students to the philosophical foundations of cognitive science. Topics will include the nature and distribution of consciousness, including cognitive, neurobiological, and informational theories; theories of cognition, including computational-representational and non-representational “EEE” (embodied/emergent/enactive) theories; theories of emotion, affect, valence, and motivation; theories of action and agency, and evolutionary theory. All of these discussions will be cutting-edge research in human and nonhuman animal cognition. The class will also include a discussion of competing conceptual, inferential, and conceptual strategies across the disciplines that comprise cognitive science.

This course will familiarize students with foundational concepts and emerging ideas in the ethics of artificial intelligence and their implications for public policy. It will be broken down into three sections: (1) the ethics of machine learning; (2) the moral status of AI; and (3) AI and the distant future. The first section will consider such topics as the ethical implications of unconscious bias in machine learning (e.g., in predictive text, facial recognition, speech dialogue systems); what constraints should govern the behavior of autonomous and semi-autonomous machines such as drones and smart cars; whether AI can undermine valuable social institutions and perhaps to democracy itself and what might be done to mitigate such risk; and how automation might transform the labor economy and whether this morally desirable. The second section turns to the question of our moral obligations toward (some) artificial intelligences. Here, we will ask what grounds moral status in general and how this might apply to artificial intelligences in particular, including how should we should balance moral obligations toward (some) AIs with competing obligations toward human beings and other creatures with morally protectable interests. The final section will look to the far distant future and consider how (if at all) we might identify and estimate future threats from AI and what might be done today to protect all those who matter morally.

This course examines ethical questions that arise in the course of day-to-day individual and social life. Some consideration will be given to ethical theory and its application to such questions, but emphasis will be on basic moral questions and practical issues. Examples of typical issues to be examined are: What are the grounds for moral obligations like keeping promises or obeying the law? How do we reason about what to do? Examples of typical moral issues that may be introduced are capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion, corporate responsibility, the treatment of animals, and so forth.

This course is a survey of foundational, and normative, approaches to moral philosophy and their motivating moral questions. Topics will include virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism, and other approaches. Some of the questions to be examined are: How is human nature related to morality? What are the grounds for moral obligations? Is there an ultimate moral principle? How do we reason about what to do? Can reason determine how we ought to live? What are moral judgments? Are there universal goods? What constitutes a morally worthwhile life? Can morality itself be challenged?

Introduces students to models of film interpretation and critique that arose in pre-war Europe and that have burgeoned since; these models combine philosophical, aesthetic, economic and psychoanalytic methods of analysis. Among the topics considered are the nature of the image, ideology and alienation, trauma, fetishism, magical realism, realism and anti-realism in film.

This course is a discussion-oriented, small group exploration of a targeted philosophical topic. The topic varies depending on the current research interests of the instructor. The seminar is an opportunity to do cutting-edge philosophy alongside other students. It is open to both majors and non-majors and may be retaken for credit.