I’ve been teaching philosophy for 15 years, and while I’ve had some very memorable experiences along the way, I knew early on that my current seminar would be unique. The course itself is on values, and each Monday for nearly three hours my students debate — in an often lively and engaging manner — issues ranging from the existence of universal moral truths to the permissibility of torture and the death penalty. In fact, a few weeks ago, there was a complaint about the level of noise coming from my classroom. The reason for the noise? The utilitarians were rather loudly arguing to the Kantians that sacrificing one of their classmates to prevent the Paris attacks would clearly have been justified.
[For more of this story, written by Jennifer Lackey, go to http://opinionator.blogs.nytim...life-sentences/?_r=0]
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