Topics of discussion include paternalism and autonomy, physicians’ obligations, the role of nurses, confidentiality, intersex and amputations, cosmetic surgery, research ethics, animal research, definitions of death, euthanasia, human cloning, genetic enhancement, anti-natalism, and justice and healthcare.
Topics include happiness as pleasure, happiness as satisfaction, happiness as achievement, happiness and virtue, the separation of happiness and morality, happiness and immorality, the impossibility of happiness, happiness and existence/non-existence, and happiness and the absurd.
Propaganda and Democracy: Hartwick College, Spring 2022
Topics included historical criticisms of various governmental systems (e.g., those of Plato, Aristotle, and Rousseau); the nature of political idealogy and demagoguery; the nature and history of propaganda; Free speech; contemporary examples of propaganda as it relates to, e.g., eating meat, feminism, and the Movement for Black Lives.
Science vs. Religion in Modern Philosophical Thought: Hartwick College, Spring 2022
Topics included Descartes’ mechanistic philosophy (esp. as it pertains to biology); discourse concerning non-human animal minds (esp. those of Descartes, Cavendish, Hume, and La Mettrie); Locke’s human/person distinction and how it relates to contemporary discussions regarding animalism, biology, and medicine; Hume’s accounts of the argument from design; Hume and Buddhism; Hume and Darwin; Leibniz’ Monadology and biology.
Knowledge, Self and Reality (Helen Steward): University of Leeds, Spring 2021
Introductory epistemology and metaphysics module in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. I was also responsible for marking student essays. Topics discussed included scepticism, other minds, epistemic injustice, personal identity (including animalism), Buddhism and the no-self view, free will, the metaphysics of everyday objects, and the metaphysics of race and gender.
Taught online
The Good, the Bad, the Right, the Wrong (Daniel Elstein): University of Leeds, Spring 2021
Introductory ethics module in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. I was also responsible for marking student essays. Topics discussed included utilitarianism, deontology, moral relativism, social justice, free speech, and the ethics of eating animals.
Taught online
The Mind (Léa Salje): University of Leeds, Spring 2021
Introductory philosophy of mind module in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. I was also responsible for marking student essays. Topics discussed included the mind-body problem, behaviourism, identity theory, functionalism, eliminativism, consciousness, and panpsychism.
Taught online
How to Think Clearly and Argue Well (John Divers): University of Leeds, Autumn 2020
Introduction to logic and reasoning module in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. Topics discussed included validity and soundness; justification, evidence, and probability; and fallacies.
Taught online
Moral Philosophy (Jessica Isserow): University of Leeds, Autumn 2020
A Second-year ethics module in which I led several tutorials of about 10-15 students each. I was also responsible for recording an online lecture on the ethics of death. Topics discussed included well-being, value, death, duties to future people, partiality, collective harm, consent, and supererogation.
Taught online
Defining Death: What is human death? When does it occur? What ethical difference does it make – University of Leeds, Autumn 2019
A third-year ethics project as part of the School of Medicine’s Year 3 Campus to Clinic. I led discussions for two separate groups of about 5 students each. Topics discussed included somatic, whole-brain, and higher-brain definitions of death and death as a process. Topics and reading list curated by me.
Medical Ethics (Georgia Testa) – University of Leeds, Autumn 2019 semester, Autumn 2020
Part of the School of Medicine’s Year 1 Campus to Clinic. I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. Topics discussed included capacity and autonomy, valid consent, truth-telling and withholding information, and confidentiality.
Autumn 2020 tutorials taught online
Knowledge, Self and Reality (Robin Le Poidevin) – University of Leeds, Spring 2019
Introductory epistemology and metaphysics module in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. I was also responsible for marking student essays. Topics discussed included scepticism, truth, the problem of other minds, the possibility of change, time and persistence, and the self.
The Structure of Reality (Steven French) – University of Leeds, Autumn 2018
A third-year metaphysics module in which I led several tutorials of about 5 students each. Topics discussed included various conceptions of what imposes a structure on what exists (e.g. laws, causality, space, and time.)
Introduction to Philosophy of Religion (Scott Shalkowski) – University of Leeds, Autumn 2018
Introductory philosophy of religion module in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. I was also responsible for marking student essays. Topics discussed include the Kalām cosmological argument, the problem of evil, atheism, agnosticism, and non-classical conceptions of God.
How Science Works (Ellen Clarke) – University of Leeds, Spring 2018
Introductory philosophy of science module in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. I was also responsible for marking student essays. Topics discussed included scientific realism, induction, testability, sociality and values in science, and reductionism.
Great Philosophical Thinkers (Nick Jones) – University of Leeds, Autumn 2017
General introductory module in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. I was also responsible for marking student essays. Topics discussed included Plato’s Meno, René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, and John Locke’s “Of Identity and Diversity” (from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.)
Introduction to Ethics (Lara Giordano) – University of Kansas, Autumn 2015 – Spring 2016
Introductory ethics course in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. I was also responsible for marking student essays and exams as well as monitoring the students during examinations. Topics discussed included Aristotelian virtue ethics, utilitarianism, deontology, ethics of care, abortion, hedonism, ethical egoism, divine command theory, and moral relativism.
Introduction to Philosophy (Sarah Robins) – University of Kansas, Autumn 2014 – Spring 2015
A general introductory course in which I led several tutorials of about 15-20 students each. I was also responsible for marking student essays and exams as well as monitoring the students during examinations. Topics discussed included personal identity, theories of knowledge, philosophy of mind and cognition, scientific reasoning, and artificial intelligence.
Miscellaneous
Tutor for the Kansas Athletics Tutoring Program: University of Kansas, Autumn 2015 – Spring 2016
Tutored student-athletes in a variety of writing-intensive subjects including Introduction to Ethics, English Composition, Ethics in Sports, Introduction to Philosophy, and Philosophical Communications.
Arthur G. Carlyle 