The author explores the connection between morality and principles of critical thinking as a way to encourage students to take ethic and moral concepts seriously in introductory courses. The skeptical attitude of students in introductory courses often hampers students critically engaging with questions of morality. Moral values and judgments are only valid for students if contextualized in historical epochs or cultures, and often are conceived as opinions. The author examines Bishop Butler's moral theory and argues for its incorporation into the introductory philosophy curriculum. Butler’s moral theory introduces students to philosophical method and moral reasoning, which the author argues counteracts students’ initial skeptical responses to ethical and moral theory. Butler’s theory demonstrates the importance of the clarification of terms, connections between thought and truth, and the overall importance of philosophical argumentation in moral theory.

This paper offers insights into various methods and approaches to teaching an entry level ethics courses to students who adhere to a biblical morality. Such students tend to take on the view that morality is not to be reasoned because all morality is derived from an authoritative source, scripture. Biblical morality holds a false perception of morality in general. Moral reasoning is essential to the creation of a foundation for the interpretation, extraction, and derivation of moral laws and morality from the Bible. The author suggests the use of the Euthyphro dilemma to introduce students to various ways to reason through religious moral issues and to realize its metaphysical value. The author encourages educators to familiarize themselves with scripture so they are able to engage with students of a biblical morality. The goal is not to change students’ views concerning morality, but only to show them that it is not opposed to rationality.

This paper recounts the pedagogical benefits of the Hobbes Game to introduce students to Hobbes' social contract theory. The author introduces a modified version of John Immerwahr's Hobbes Game and organizes the activities according David Kolb's typology of learning styles. The game provides students with a concrete experience of thought experiments from the text and encourages reflective observation of the theory itself. Since the game mimics the experience of the Hobbesian state of nature students are able to see Hobbes' arguments from different points of view along with abstract conceptualization in an active experimentation.

This paper is a play script composed by the author. The play is a compilation of biographical depictions of Socrates, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.

This paper outlines an introductory lecture of a philosophy of science course that is composed of excerpts from John Summerville's article, "Umbrellaology." The lecture serves as an opening discussion and facilitates students’ engagement with the concept of Umbrellaology as an informal foundational introduction for students to engage in relevant issues and classical readings of philosophy of science. The author argues that is also a proven vehicle for confronting student assumptions and presuppositions about the nature of science.