PHIL 291 Philosophy of Biology
Fall 2024; Professor Alexandra Bradner
This discussion-based philosophy course critically examines the many ways in which philosophers and other theorists have responded to the question, “What is love?” We will study love of wisdom in Plato's "Symposium" and "Phaedrus," friendship in Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics," love of God and grace in Augustine's "Confessions," another form of agape or transcendental love in works by bell hooks on social justice, solidarity in the work of Axel Honneth, courtly love in Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," love of nature and the sublime in Burke and the romantic poets, romantic love in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and "Troilus and Cressida", and parental love in the ethics of care. We will contrast love with sex and marriage. We will explore contemporary research in the psychology of love, covering topics including arranged marriage, crushes, breakups, loneliness, grief, narcissism, and polyamory. Last, we will consider the commercialization of love in Hollywood movies, Valentine's Day, dating apps, social media, and the greeting card industry.
PHIL 291.01 Bioethics of Birth, Illness, Sex, and Death
Spring 2025; Professor Alexandra Bradner
This discussion-based applied ethics course examines the philosophy of four experiences that all human beings all share: birth, illness, sex, and death. We will discuss readings about international and embryonic adoption, prenatal screening, abortion, public oversight of CRISPR technologies and human enhancement, human and non-human animal experimentation, informed consent and patients’ rights, caregiving, elective surgery, recreational drug use, hookup culture, sexual perversion, the concept of sex and atypical sexual characteristics, prostitution, sex trafficking, euthanasia, killing in war, immortality, and the meaning of life.
PHIL 291.02 Philosophy of Biology
Spring 2025; Professor Alexandra Bradner
This interdisciplinary, discussion-based course covers philosophical issues in several biological subdisciplines, including zoology, anatomy, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, cell biology, genetics, biochemistry, sociobiology, and ecology/environmental biology. We begin with a historical march toward Darwin's "Origin of Species," through works by Aristotle, Paley, Lyell, Malthus, and Lamarck. We then read the entire "Origin" in order to grasp how Darwin's theory of natural selection disenchants nature and initiates one of the most important intellectual revolutions in history. We move next to study contemporary philosophical debates over units of selection, adaptationism, fitness, function, reduction, altruism, cultural evolution, evolutionary epistemology, evolutionary ethics, feminist philosophy of biology, sociobiology, and human nature. Contemporary authors will include philosophers and biologists such as: Richard Dawkins, Evelyn Fox Keller, Stephen Jay Gould, David Hull, Phillip Kitcher, Richard Lewontin, Michael Ruse, John Maynard Smith, and Elliott Sober, among many others.