This seminar course examines topics related to the neuroeconomics of choice. Topics may include cognitive effort, temporal discounting, overconfidence, risk sensitivity, anchoring, and prospect theory. A significant portion of the course consists of student-led discussion of readings examining these topics. Readings focus on scholarly works featuring psychological and neurobiological perspectives.
Philosophy
Topics and themes in philosophy related to central questions of philosophy: Is there a meaning to human life? What can we know? What is the nature of reality? And how should we live? These questions are addressed through a rigorous examination of philosophical texts, works of literature, films, and contemporary issues.
Topics and themes in philosophy related to central questions of philosophy: Is there a meaning to human life? What can we know? What is the nature of reality? And how should we live? These questions are addressed through a rigorous examination of philosophical texts, works of literature, films, and contemporary issues.
Topics and themes in philosophy related to central questions of philosophy: Is there a meaning to human life? What can we know? What is the nature of reality? And how should we live? These questions are addressed through a rigorous examination of philosophical texts, works of literature, films, and contemporary issues.
Topics and themes in philosophy related to central questions of philosophy: Is there a meaning to human life? What can we know? What is the nature of reality? And how should we live? These questions are addressed through a rigorous examination of philosophical texts, works of literature, films, and contemporary issues.
Topics and themes in philosophy related to central questions of philosophy: Is there a meaning to human life? What can we know? What is the nature of reality? And how should we live? These questions are addressed through a rigorous examination of philosophical texts, works of literature, films, and contemporary issues.
An introductory study of classical logic, symbolic logic, and informal reasoning.
An examination of ancient thought from Homer to Augustine, involving the study of major works of ancient philosophy in the context of their historical, cultural and religious setting. Special attention is given to how ancient thinkers understood human happiness, the place of human life in the order of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of human knowledge and reason. Primary emphasis is on the evaluation of these thinkers' views.
An examination, through classical and contemporary texts, of the ways in which our economic actions and interests are shaped by our political values and institutions, and also by more general considerations of justice and fairness. Special attention is given to the following questions: Do the political values cherished most highly presuppose a market economy? Or would they be better served by a socialist economy? Can a market economy flourish in the absence of these values? Which sort of economic structure is most conducive to the common good? Can a just society tolerate economic inequality?
An examination of the moral dimensions of business activity, especially within the context of a democratic society. Topics may include social and economic justice, the nature of corporations, corporate accountability, social responsibility, the morality of hiring and firing, employee rights and duties, advertising, product safety, obligations to the environment, and international business.
This course explores ethical questions arising in health care and the biological sciences, focusing on the moral dimensions of decision-making within these domains. Topics may include allocation of healthcare resources, responsibilities of doctors to patients, the distinction between killing and allowing to die, medically-assisted suicide, abortion, and the use of technologies for genetic screening and manipulation.
An analysis of the philosophical problem of the nature of knowledge with specific emphasis on the problem of skepticism and solutions to that problem.
An examination of philosophical issues surrounding the nature of law and legal reasoning. Topics to include the following: the conditions of legal validity and the viability of natural law theory; the nature of legal normativity and its relation to other public manifestations of normativity (such as morality, religion, and etiquette); the limits and conditions of human liberty; the Constitutional status of rights to privacy; and the moral and legal justification of punishment.
An examination of the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard through a close reading of such primary texts as Either/Or, The Sickness Unto Death, Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific PostScript, and The Concept of Anxiety. Prominent themes may include, among other things, Kierkegaard's conception of the self and the various types of despair that constitute a misrelation of the self; his conception of the differing aesthetic, ethical and religious spheres of existence; his critiques of modern philosophy and the modern church; and his understanding of the significance of various philosophical and religious beliefs and activities for living well.