Courses

9:30-11am TTH
Carola Binder
Unique number 61599

In 2021, inflation in the United States rose above 5% for the first time in decades. The return of inflation caused economic, social, and political concerns. The impacts of inflation are widespread, and its causes are difficult to understand. Rising prices affect every member of society and can be especially devastating to families struggling to afford groceries, gas, and other necessities. Unsurprisingly, people suffering the ill effects of inflation want policymakers to do something to address it. But what can be done? What is both economically effective, politically feasible, and democratically legitimate? We will explore these questions in historical context, considering the many different approaches to stabilizing prices in United States history and the controversies that have surrounded them.

3:30-5pm TTH
Daniel Bonevac
Dirk Mateer
Unique number 37640

This course introduces the interdisciplinary cluster of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. It introduces some of the key intellectual tools from each of these disciplines, and shows how they can be used together to shed light on important theoretical and practical debates in morality, economics, and politics. Topics to be discussed include the nature and justification of property rights, the uses and limits of market prices in coordinating economic activity, the role of government regulation in correcting market failure, and the ethical dimensions of economic growth, exploitation, and repugnant transactions. In addition, the course provides students with the tools they need to understand and apply causal inference to a wide variety of policy issues.

12:30-2pm TTH
Patricio Fernandez
Unique number 40770

Moral goodness and badness are the goodness and badness that apply to human action and, in some way, also to the human agents who perform them. Thomas Aquinas’s (1225-1274) ethical theory fundamentally relies on those notions. On Aquinas’s view, understanding what it is for an action to be good or bad is crucial for understanding what it is for a human being to be good or bad, what it is for certain character dispositions to be virtuous or vicious, and what is the nature of the moral standards that apply to human action as such. In this course we will explore Aquinas’s account of the goodness and badness of actions, considering mainly some central passages of his Summa Theologiae. Aquinas’s approach to ethics is grounded in his metaphysics—what ‘goodness’ and ‘badness’ are in general—and it builds upon a theory of the human mind—what it is for a human agent to act and to act on the basis of thought. We will thus consider ethical, metaphysical, and psychological questions in tandem.

12-3pm Mondays
James T. Hackett, Sr.
Unique number 61624

This course helps students to develop personal and professional mission and values statements for future leadership ambitions, after exploring elements of moral psychology and philosophy, emotional intelligence, character development, the formation of communal and personal identities, the purpose and practice of commercial activities from the vantage point of five spiritual traditions, practical examples of institutions applying missions and values (both successfully and unsuccessfully), ideas regarding meaning-making, measuring our success in life, creating a life purpose, and giving voice to our values. The question at the center of the course is whether we can live professional and personal lives that do not conflict, but rather work in concert with the economic dimensions of institutions, especially if we find ourselves leading others in these organizations. 

The course is organized in three sections. In Section I (Virtue, Moral Psychology and Decision-Making, Identity Formation, Emotional Intelligence, Character Development, and Leadership), we will discuss the forces that form societal ethics, character development, and leaders, sometimes unconsciously. In Section II (Moral Philosophy, Ethics, and Economics), we will explore the intersection of moral values, ethics, and economic practices in relation to different spiritual traditions. In Section III (Defining Mission and Values as Leaders), we analyze some of the major social forces acting upon leaders of all institutions and read about meaning-making in organizations. The course conclusion involves developing a personal and institutional mission and values statement.

2-3:30pm TTH, plus breakout sections
Dirk Mateer
Unique number 62050

This course will examine the economics and ethics of wealth creation, studying phenomena such as market competition, institutions of private and public property, trade regulation, and globalization. More broadly, how do people create wealth? How do societies enable people to create wealth? Are some ways more ethical than others? Why do some societies grow rich while neighboring societies remain poor?

Salient topics in micro and macroeconomics are surveyed to better understand human flourishing. The goal of the course is also to develop critical thinking, writing, and communication skills. Students will regularly participate in small group learning activities, classroom demonstrations, a class wide trading pit, experiments, Kahoots and puzzlers.

MW 9:30-11am
David Puelz
Unique number 03579

The Policy Research Laboratory (PRL) is a semester-long course in statistics, econometrics, and data science to learn the tools necessary for policy and social science research. In parallel, the students will apply these tools to real-world data and answer crucial policy questions. Policy research is important, and appropriately using data, cutting-edge statistical tools and remaining skeptical are equally important.
Students can expect to leave this class with a deep understanding of policy questions and a toolbox for evaluating them.

12-1pm MWF
Raul Rodriguez
Unique number 37210

1-2pm MWF
Raul Rodriguez
Unique number 37225

2-3pm TTH
Abigail Staysa Thomas
Unique number 37230

This course involves the close reading of primary texts that have shaped or that reflect deeply on American democracy, including the Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.

2-5pm Mondays
Ryan Streeter
Unique number 61664

Happiness is often understood as feeling good about yourself, increasing your material resources, or some combination of the two. Historically, philosophically, and scientifically, though, happiness is a deeper notion rooted in multiple factors related to fulfillment, potential, and progress.

The third unalienable right in the Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of happiness,” is grounded in a rich tradition of thought about human flourishing. While not all in agreement, the best writers on happiness, going back at least to Aristotle, generally discovered common elements to human happiness. The best recent research in psychology, economics, and social science has confirmed much of these classical notions of happiness and discovered new elements about human flourishing, as well. We will read both classic texts about happiness and the recent research findings. We will discuss how understanding happiness is essential to being a good leader.

Unfortunately, most leaders learn about happiness through hard experience, if they do at all, because they were never exposed to the history and science of it. By the end of the course, you will be equipped with knowledge and practices aimed at increasing your own happiness, and to encourage it in others both in your personal life and the professional workplace.

12:30-2pm TTH
Alexander Batson
Unique number 61539

This course examines the history of ideas of democracy in the Western world from ancient Athens to the 21st century United States. Particular focus will be given to using historical context to understand the perils and strengths of democratic government. Seminar sessions cover ancient times (Greek city-states, Mosaic law, the Roman Republic), medieval thought and institutions (Magna Carta, conciliarism, canon law), early modern democracy (Renaissance civic humanism, Reformation, English republicanism), Enlightenment (Locke, Montesquieu, American Founding), and modern democracy (Civil War, Reconstruction, universal suffrage, global expansion of democracy in the 20th century).