The Covid-19 pandemic is raising unprecedented challenges for communities all across the world. While many of these challenges are scientific ones, others are ethical challenges about what we ought to value and how we ought to navigate difficult tradeoffs. In this brief course, you will learn tools from philosophy to help you make progress on these questions. In particular, we will discuss the following: How should goods be distributed under conditions of scarcity? When should we engage in nonviolent protest? Are we morally required to make sacrifices to help others (or are such sacrifices nice, but not required)? How should we respond to false or misleading news and to accusations of fake news?
| Syllabus |
| Optional Reading for Week 1 |
| Optional Reading for Week 2 |
| Optional Reading for Week 3 (Part 1) |
| Optional Reading for Week 3 (Part 2) |