Studying ethics is incredibly fun, and it also develops critical thinking and logical reasoning skills.  But most importantly, studying ethics helps people develop their own moral codes.  One great way for students to delve in to these ideas and concepts is through the lens of favorite books and TV shows.    

In this course we will explore ethics through dilemmas that come up in popular books and TV shows.  Our discussions will include talking about various philosophies of ethics, such as Utilitarianism, and various philosophical thought experiments, such as the trolley problem.

These are the books and shows we will study:

Week One:  Harry Potter (book series)
Week Two:  The Hunger Games (book series)
Week Three:  Avatar: The Last Airbender (animated TV show)
Week Four:  The Hobbit (book)
Week Five:  The Good Place (TV show)
Week Six:  The Simpsons (TV show)
Week Seven:  The Office (TV show)
Week Eight:  Ender's game (book)

Students do NOT have to have read all of these books or seen all of the TV show episodes, but if you happen to love any of these series, then you will definitely love this class!  Every week we will go over enough of the plot to make sure everyone can understand and share thoughts on the dilemmas we discuss in class.  Warning:  this will definitely include spoilers for anything you haven’t read.  

Please note that for The Hobbit and Ender’s Game, we will focus only on those books, and not the Lord of the Rings Trilogy or the other books about Ender.

This is a discussion class--there will not be any lectures.  We will use ethical dilemmas from books, shows and movies to focus our discussions on various questions and ideas in ethics.  Students should come to class prepared to have their cameras on and actively participate.