Course Syllabus

Summer 2026 | PHI-1040-VO03 - Introduction to Ethics

Online Class

Online courses take place 100% online via Canvas, without required in-person or Zoom meetings.

Faculty

Zachary Young
View Faculty Credentials

Hiring Coordinator for this course: Collin Lee

General Education Requirements

Humanistic Perspectives

Note

Many degree programs have specific general education recommendations. In order to avoid taking unnecessary classes, please consult with additional resources like your program evaluation, your academic program catalog year page, and your academic advisor.

Courses may only be used to meet one General Education Requirement.

Course Description

This course examines personal and professional issues from an ethical point of view, emphasizing how we decide what is right and wrong in our daily lives. Issues might include: civil rights, health care, political concerns, business decisions, war, and the environment.

Essential Objectives

1. Explain the basic concepts of classical and contemporary theories in ethics as they pertain to right and wrong, the individual and society, objectivity and subjectivity, happiness and suffering, free will, and fate.
2. Discuss the ideas of selected theorists, the methods they used to develop their ideas, and the cultural factors which influenced their theories.
3. Identify and describe the major influences in our society which shape our values.
4. Apply ethical theories of decision making and critical thinking skills to problems of social justice and propose just solutions.
5. Apply the basic concepts of classical and contemporary theories in ethics to the field of business and professional ethics.
6. Develop an ethical framework for defining and addressing issues in one's own life.
7. Describe his or her own decision-making process.

Required Technology

More information on general computer and internet recommendations is available on the CCV computer recommendations Support page.

Please see CCV's Digital Equity Statement (pg. 45) to learn more about CCV's commitment to supporting all students access the technology they need to successfully finish their courses.

Required Textbooks and Resources

*** This is a low cost ($50 or less) textbook or resource class. ***

PHI-1040-VO03 Link to Textbooks/Resources Information for this course in eCampus.

The last day to use a Financial Aid Advance to purchase textbooks/books is the 3rd Tuesday of the semester. See your financial aid counselor at your academic center if you have any questions.

Methods

This course is designed toNOT be difficult. My goal is for you to learn this stuff with as little struggle as possible!

Required Texts

Quinn, Daniel. 1992.Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. New York: Bantam/Turner.

Various handouts, articles and links Zach will share.

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Schedule

Part 1: Ethical Frameworks (Weeks 1–7)

Students will study how philosophers have tried to answer the question, "What makes something right or wrong?" The course moves from questions about the nature of morality itself to major moral theories including Divine Command Theory, Natural Law, Kantian ethics, Utilitarianism, Contractarianism, and Virtue Ethics, concluding by asking what justice means in both theory and practice.

Week 1: What Is Ethics?: Metaethics.
Week 2: Ethics and God: Divine Command Theory and Natural Law Theory.
Week 3: Ethics and Immanuel Kant: The Categorical Imperative.
Week 4: Ethics and Happiness: Utilitarianism.
Week 5: Ethics and Society: Contractarianism.
Week 6: Ethics and Virtue: Aristotle
Week 7: Ethics and an Important Question: What is Justice?

Part 2: Environmental Ethics and the Story of Civilization (Weeks 8–11)

Students will turn to Daniel Quinn's Ishmael to examine how culture shapes our ethical relationship with the Earth and with one another, applying traditional ethical frameworks to questions about progress, human exceptionalism, and the ethics of knowledge and control.

Week 8: The Problem of Civilization: The Story We Live By (Ishmael 1–3).
Week 9: Takers and Leavers: The Ethics of Progress (Ishmael 4–6).
Week 10: The Law of Life: Ethics Beyond Humanity (Ishmael 7–9).
Week 11: Hubris, Awakening, and Moral Imagination: The Ethics of Knowledge, Control, and Responsibility (Ishmael 10–End).

Week 12: Final Exam due by 11:59 PM on the last official day of the semester.

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Weekly Video Posts & Written Responses – 50%

Your Video Reflection(due Fridays by 11:59pm)

• Post a 2–4-minute video in the CanvasDiscussion Forum.
• Respond directly to the week's reading and prompt.
• Reference at least one specific quote, idea, or passage from the reading.
• Go beyond summary and show your own thinking.
• Speak naturally.
• Worth 50 points.

Your Response Post (due Mondays by 11:59pm)

• By Saturday at 5pm, Zach will post a collective reflection on the week's videos in the Canvas.Announcementssection.
• By Monday at 11:59pm, post one substantive response in theAnnouncementssection, either to Zach's collective reflection or to a classmate's response to it.
• Engage the ideas directly and be respectful and curious in how you do it.
• Worth 50 points.

Unengaged or low-effort posts = partial/no credit.

Final Exam: Video Reflection (10-15 Minutes) – 50%

Near the end of Ishmael, the gorilla says the following:

"There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now."

This is the passage your Final Video Reflection will be built around.

Quinn is making a claim here that is as much philosophical as it is ecological: that human behavior is downstream of narrative, that the stories a culture tells about its place in the world shape what its people believe is permissible, natural, even inevitable. He isn't blaming individuals. He's diagnosing a civilization.

Your task is to record a 10-15 minute video reflection in which you take this passage seriously and think through it with the full weight of everything you've studied this semester, along with everything else you bring to serious textual engagement. Where you go, what you bring in, and how you build the reflection is your call.

A strong reflection will open with the passage and a genuine first response to it, move through careful philosophical engagement in the middle, and close with something honest about what the passage has left you thinking about or unsettled by.

Grading Criteria

CCV Letter Grades as outlined in the Evaluation System Policy are assigned according to the following chart:

	High	Low
A+	100	98
A	Less than 98	93
A-	Less than 93	90
B+	Less than 90	88
B	Less than 88	83
B-	Less than 83	80
C+	Less than 80	78
C	Less than 78	73
C-	Less than 73	70
D+	Less than 70	68
D	Less than 68	63
D-	Less than 63	60
F	Less than 60
P	100	60
NP	Less than 60	0

Attendance Policy

Regular attendance and participation in classes are essential for success in and are completion requirements for courses at CCV. A student's failure to meet attendance requirements as specified in course descriptions will normally result in a non-satisfactory grade.

• In general, missing more than 20% of a course due to absences, lateness or early departures may jeopardize a student's ability to earn a satisfactory final grade.
• Attending an on-ground or synchronous course means a student appeared in the live classroom for at least a meaningful portion of a given class meeting. Attending an online course means a student posted a discussion forum response, completed a quiz or attempted some other academically required activity. Simply viewing a course item or module does not count as attendance.
• Meeting the minimum attendance requirement for a course does not mean a student has satisfied the academic requirements for participation, which require students to go above and beyond simply attending a portion of the class. Faculty members will individually determine what constitutes participation in each course they teach and explain in their course descriptions how participation factors into a student's final grade.

Accessibility Services for Students with Disabilities:

1. Provide disability documentation to the Accessibility Coordinator at your academic center. https://ccv.edu/student-support/accessibility-services/
2. Request an appointment to meet with accessibility coordinator to discuss your request and create an accommodation plan.
3. Once created, students will share the accommodation plan with faculty. Please note, faculty cannot make disability accommodations outside of this process.

Academic Integrity

Apply Now for this semester.