Teaching Experience

My Courses

I have taught 25 sections of philosophy over 9 courses, and I have developed two courses on the ethics of emerging technology.

I aim to teach philosophical material in a way that helps students see that it is exciting and that it matters, both to their lives individually and to society at large.

I gear my classes toward concerns that affect the next generation—from genetic engineering to sex robots, the existential threat of artificial intelligence to the negative consequences of social media consumption. Future professionals and politicians will grapple with these issues, and I remind my students that they are the future professionals and politicians.

My Introduction to Philosophy courses focus on modern solutions to classic problems in metaphysics, including mind, free will, personal identity, and the existence of God. We learn philosophy through thought experiments and investigate how scientific advancements are opening up novel solutions to old problems.
My Introduction to Ethics course investigates the connections between ethical theory and the applied ethical issues that currently confront humanity. We discuss the ethics of birth and death, animal ethics, bioethics, and information ethics. We focus specifically on how normative theory building affects, and is affected by, modern moral debates.
In Critical Thinking, students learn how to evaluate beliefs for truth and arguments for soundness. Rather than looking at what we believe or why we believe it, our guiding inquiry is whether we should believe it. Students learn how to adjudicate between contradictory claims, determine which are more likely to be true and thus which we should believe. We also investigate our information ecosystems, the nature of expertise, and fake news.
Contemporary Social Problems is a survey of the most controversial and impactful moral debates currently confronting humanity. We discuss our treatment of animals and the environment, sex work and sex robots, abortion and designers babies. I focus on new ethical dilemmas, particularly those surrounding information and biomedical technologies. We also look at racial bias, policing, and affirmative action.
Philosophy and The Sciences is an introduction to contemporary philosophy of science. We investigate the nature of the scientific method, the relationship between philosophy and science, and the social structures that make science successful. We look at deep philosophical issues about the nature of reality and knowledge, and we pay special attention to how racial and gender bias threatens empirical objectivity.
My Bioethics course is an introduction to the moral issues that confront healthcare, medicine, and biotech. We look at controversial new technologies, such as gene drives and genetic engineering. The course also focuses on our response to the Covid-19 global pandemic. How should we be rationing resources? Why do minority communities suffer more? Are we ready for the next pandemic?
Ethics and Information Technologies looks at the likely ethical consequences of a range of new information-communication technologies, including sex robots, driverless cars, autonomous weapons, algorithmic bias, virtual reality, and mass surveillance.
This course investigates the moral import of AI technology and the connections between practical ethical questions (what robots should we build?) and metaphysical and epistemic debates concerning the nature of machine intelligence. We discuss algorithmic bias, the value-alignment and moral machine approaches to AI safety, and the existential threat of superintelligence.

“Best class I have ever had.”

“I don’t think I liked philosophy until I took my first class with Erich. Erich is always enthusiastic about the material during class and I really like that lecture is more of a discussion and not so much of a lecture. The topics are very interesting, and he does a very good job at narrowing down and explaining what philosophers are writing about. This is my third class I have taken with Erich, and I now have a philosophy minor because of my interest for the content. Overall, Erich has to be one of the better instructors I have ever had in college, and I am glad to have taken his classes.”

“Erich was by far my favorite professor this semester. Not only does he express genuine interest in the material he’s teaching, but he also values his students. I really appreciated that he put in the effort to learn each and every one of his student’s names.

“This is the most organized class I have ever taken. All assignments, all grading criteria, and all the readings were explicitly explained and available. I seriously never had such a structured and well thought out class.”

Teaching Experience

My Courses

I have taught 25 sections of philosophy over 9 courses, and I have developed two courses on the ethics of emerging technology.

I aim to teach philosophical material in a way that helps students see that it is exciting and that it matters, both to their lives individually and to society at large.

Introduction to Philosophy

Introduction to Ethics

Critical Thinking

Contemporary Social Problems

Philosophy and The Sciences

Bioethics

Ethics and Information Technologies

Philosophy and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

“Best class I have ever had.”

“Erich was by far my favorite professor this semester. Not only does he express genuine interest in the material he’s teaching, but he also values his students. I really appreciated that he put in the effort to learn each and every one of his student’s names.

“This is the most organized class I have ever taken. All assignments, all grading criteria, and all the readings were explicitly explained and available. I seriously never had such a structured and well thought out class.”