This class was a super easy GE and fairly interesting. For someone who has no back round in philosophy, this class was pretty interesting. She gives screen shares which are super important to study for the tests and the TAs are super helpful too. Id def rec going to the TAs office hours and conversing about essay structure and clarification on topic comprehension. I believe this class is super TA dependent. I would rec this class.

Prof Dewitt just reads off of "screenshares" during lecture, which are just long documents that lay out information you need to know. Attending lecture isn't necessary as long as you go over the screenshares. You'll have to write a few papers during this class but they're pretty short and not bad as long as you do the readings. TAs are not super hard graders and leave loads of constructive criticism so if you do bad on the first paper you can improve. They also offer automatic 2-day extensions upon request. Definitely attend discussion as most learning will occur then. Dewitt is nice, but boring in lecture because she just reads off the page. She sent a class-wide email at the end of the quarter saying she would not be changing/rounding anyone's grade though. Overall I'm glad I took this class as it fulfilled a GE req and it wasn't very difficult. My TA was awesome so I looked forward to discussion every week (shoutout Josh).

I took this class online in the Fall quarter of 2021.

Prof DeWitt is unfortunately not a great lecturer. She uses these things she calls 'screenshares', which are basically philosophy word vomit on a .txt file, and just reads over them over Zoom. I stopped going to her lectures around week 3, and my test grades didn't suffer for it at all. But, the screenshares are helpful once you edit out all of the fluff she puts in. That was how I studied for the midterm and final, and I did well, so I guess it balances out.

Honestly, my main complaint with this class is the essay grading and weight. DeWitt makes the papers on Bentham and Kant 15% and 20% respectively, and the TA's are brutal. I got points off on things that didn't really seem to make sense––conflicting comments like, 'beautiful writing, don't use it', and 'paper fits rubric, but could have been more wow' from the same grader... both of which were not constructive and contradict the other. I got a B- on the Bentham paper, an A- on the Kant paper, and a B+ on the final paper, and I felt like my writing was pretty consistent on all three. The fact that the Bentham paper was weighted SO high yet was due in like week 2 or 3 was really difficult, as there were very few resources to get help, and being so new to the class we had no idea what she was looking for. I was kind of confused as to what the prompts were asking most of the time, as well, and DeWitt's office hours weren't helpful either time that I went.

Not sure how the class will work in future quarters, but our midterm and final were both 25-30 mult choice questions that were straight from the screenshares. I got high A's on both with minimal effort. Some of the questions were extra credit, so our midterm ended up having a possible score of 106/100 (not sure about the final, she didn't release it for some reason, which was annoying).

The weird thing was that she had mentioned that she would be adjusting the grades to fit effort and participation, but nobody really saw any evidence of that. After the final grades were released, she sent out an email saying that she would not be changing them regardless of appeals or participation and that she thought they were fair. I think taking a hard stance on grades is a valid way to run your class, but not after leading students to think that you wouldn't be doing that (especially since we can't see our live grade tallies, so nobody really knew what grades they had until she put the final ones out.)

Just so you know, this class is barely about moral contemporary issues (which is basically why I took it). The first half before the midterm is all on Bentham and Kant (old philosophers) and then the three weeks before the final are rushed screenshares on contemporary issues like abortion and gun control. I didn't find it interesting from a current events perspective, so if that's what you're looking for (like I was) I would not take this class.

I probably wouldn't take a class with her again, mostly because I don't find philosophy interesting in the slightest, but also because a lot of her prompts, tests, and comments were confusing. If you want an easy A, I think it's possible (like I said, I literally didn't go to lectures at all and got an A-) but it all comes down to your essay scores, to be honest, and the TA's seemed similarly harsh to me.

Hope this was helpful! :)

Professor DeWitt is a sweet and helpful professor! There is no attendance requirement and when I took the class online, the lectures were all pre-recorded. Her lectures can be dry (if it was in-person, I can see how some people would fall asleep), but she is genuinely passionate about her subject. It consisted mainly of her talking over screen-recordings of her notes. There are no PPT slides you can annotate, and her notes were not posted to encourage students to watch the lectures.
Also most of her lectures went over the allotted time, which she made up for by cancelling some lectures at the end of the quarter.
She's very friendly and approachable during office hours so don't be afraid to go in even if you're the only student there! Her midterm and final were both very reasonable as long as you watched the lectures and took notes. The midterm consisted of two essay questions, and the final consisted of around 50 MCQs. There was also a 3-4 paper written with a moral perspective on the issue of our choice. She also provided an extra credit opportunity in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and BLM movement, which was very understanding of her.
The first half of the quarter focused mainly on Kant and Bentham's moral theories, and the second half was moral applications to issues (like abortion, death penalty, etc). It's often easy to pinpoint where she stands on certain issues but she emphasizes that each student should learn to form their own educated opinion on the subject.
There are many long readings but I honestly didn't read all of them, just the ones relevant to my paper (and I also read parts of Bentham and Kant). Don't feel pressured to read through all of them because she goes over the important parts of the text during lecture.
It's a good idea to find a study buddy to split readings with if you're planning on writing the paper on the same subject.
Last note: She takes plagiarism seriously, and the paper isn't even that much writing, so try not to be tempted to take content directly from online resources without citing it. The professor emphasizes that she wants us to take content only from the lecture notes and the assigned text, because often the Internet is "wrong" in their interpretations of certain topics.

I took this class spring quarter 2020 (remotely) and received an A. Professor Dewitt 's class is straight forward and if you watch all the lectures, listen in discussion, and pay attention, you'll be fine. I did read the readings, but to be honest, I think the lectures are sufficient. Our midterm was a 3 page essay. The final was multiple choice and another essay. The prompts are fair and the multiple choice final was fairly easy if you took good notes from lectures. While her lectures could have been better (they were screenrecordings of a word document with notes that she read off of), it was her first time remotely teaching so it's understandable. The topics we go over are relevant to issues today and Professor Dewitt does a decent job at explaining their moral theory without her own biases. We went over abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, gun control, ect. While I did have a previous interest in philosophy, this was a good introductory class that I would recommend.

Although this class is somewhat interesting, it was much harder than it needed to be because of the professor and TA. The lectures were so confusing and the Professor read verbatim off of the notes so attending lecture gave no further insight or help. The TA I had was also super unhelpful and the grading between TA's was very inconsistent. Overall I would choose a different philosophy class if you can and would not recommend this class.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PHILOSOPHY. lectures were very hard to pay attention to since she just read off the slides. and there were students who asked very theoretical questions during lecture. my ta was joshua and graded very hard and was mean during office hours/discussion so I got low scores on all the writing pieces. the prof was very nice tho during office hours.

Overall, Professor DeWitt is a nice person but her lectures were kinda unclear and this was a pretty light-workload class. If you're gonna do the readings, I'd take this class.

During lecture, she went over screenshares of a word doc with notes on it about the topic (Bentham, Kant, abortion, death penalty, gun control, etc.) Some parts were helpful, but when she tried to explain things in further detail, she'd repeat things but not concisely so they didn't make sense; it was like she was trying to explain it well by talking more but it didn't help that much.

The weighting sucked, I wish we had more padding assignments and that the final paper wasn't weighted 35% of the grade because philosophy is a hard class. TBH I didn't do any of the readings beforehand like we were supposed to so that may factor into why I was confused during lecture all the time. The mcq tests were also super easy because they were open note.

What I like about Professor DeWitt is that she was very clear that we could just email our TA for extensions on the papers, stating that in emails and in the prompt documents, and you don't really need a good excuse either, so I used all the 1-2 day extension opportunities. I got B- average on my papers, but to be honest I did them all last minute and I didn't really understand the concepts as well as I could've.

There was no collaboration in lectures, and only once or twice did we have to collaborate with others during discussion section.

Concepts were pretty vague and subjective, so it was hard to wrap my mind around things. I took this class as a pre-major req and because I wanted to find a good framework of morality for me to use in life, but I don't think it was that helpful in the latter aspect. I still managed to get a B+ even though I didn't prioritize this class, so I guess take this class if you are interested in learning about old philosophy ideas and their application on modern topics.

Overall, the class was fairly interesting and a good intro-level philosophy class. I don't really have any complaints, except that a lot of the readings were concentrated at the end of the quarter. That being said, I was able to do fine on the final exam and paper without thoroughly reading through everything. Just make sure to be familiar with the content on the prof's screen shares, which contain both the main points of the assigned readings and her takes on those points.

I don’t know if I would consider this class an “easy GE,” but it is definitely manageable! Your main homework consists of reading moral theories (which can be long & confusing at times) and different philosophers’ takes on moral issues. We wrote a total of three essays, and they’re pretty well spaced out so it doesn’t feel like a crushing amount of work. If the tests weren’t open note there would be a fair bit of studying, so that may change as the class moves back to being in person. Overall was an interesting class that I would definitely take again!