COURSES

AI Ethics

Semester: 

First Term

Offered: 

2022
AI Ethics
This course explores ethical concerns and issues in artificial intelligence (AI), including the philosophical presuppositions (e.g., agency, autonomy, responsibility, intelligence, humanity) that amplify moral dilemmas, repugnance, distress, excitement, fantasies in dealing with the technological advances attendant to AI. The course also examines the promise of AI in relation to questions of justice and human flourishing.

Data Ethics

Semester: 

First Term

Offered: 

2020
Data Ethics

Ethical issues in data processing, data generation, storage, curation, dissemination, sharing, utilization are explored in this course. Normative standards are used to evaluate data utilization pratices by human and artificial agents or “intelligence”, in machine learning, surveillance, hacking, research, social media. Special attention is given to the codes of conduct used by some professional groups and institutions in their use of data. 

Credit: 3 units.

Philosophy of Science

Semester: 

Second Term

Offered: 

2019
Philosophy of Science

This course explores key issues in scientific knowledge, methodology, and enterprise. These issues include the extent to which science differs from other ways of knowing, scientific accounts of reality, the nature and limits of scientific method and explanation, probability, scientific theory-change. The course also introduces related areas, including philosophy of biology, philosophy of information, and philosophy of social science. (Course syllabus available on UVLe)

Privacy Protection in Human Subjects Research

Semester: 

N/A

Offered: 

2018
Phil Soc Sci Council offering

This short course aims to teach basic privacy awareness and privacy protection skills to participants. It discusses aspects of research or certain types of research (like surveys, interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation, clinical trial, archival research, chart reviews, database searches, electronic record search) requiring privacy protection. Safeguards against unauthorized use or disclosure of personal or sensitive information will be demonstrated.

Topics include: privacy protection plan, privacy impact assessment, data protection officer, privacy...

Read more about Privacy Protection in Human Subjects Research

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Semester: 

N/A

Offered: 

2018
Philosophy of the Social Sciences

This course provides an overview of issues in social scientific inquiry, the nature of society and our knowledge of it, social facts and human action, explanations and laws, the role of values and norms in the social sciences. (Course syllabus available on UVLe)

Philosophy of Information

Semester: 

N/A

Offered: 

2018
Philosophy of Information

This course provides an overview of the philosophical and theoretical foundations of information, especially as they relate to computation, artificial intelligence, cognitive sciences, ethics, privacy. (Course syllabus available on UVLe)

Philosophy of Biology

Semester: 

N/A

Offered: 

2017
Philosophy of Biology

This course explores key philosophical issues in biology: explanations and laws in biology; evolutionary theory; units of selection; biological diversity and complexity; the gene's self-interest and biological altruism; conceptions of life. (Course syllabus available on UVLe)

Ethics 1: Ethics and Moral Reasoning in Everyday Life

Semester: 

Second Term
Ethics 1: Ethics and Moral Reasoning in Everyday Life

Offered: 

2019 - 2020
Using philosophical lenses, this course surveys scientific work on everyday moral thought and action. Among the research considered comes from cognitive science, neuroscience, developmental and social psychology, behavioral economics. Empathy and compassion, prejudice, sexuality, cheating, daily consumption and lifestyle, violence and cruelty, moral sanctions and punishment, fairness, religious influence on morality, descriptive and prescriptive aspects of ethics are the major topics of the course.