Introduction to Ethics

Course Description

PHI2600 – Introduction to Ethics is a 3-credit lecture-discussion course providing a systematic introduction to moral philosophy. Students examine the major ethical theories from the Western philosophical tradition (virtue ethics, deontology, utilitarianism, social contract theory, ethical egoism, ethics of care, and contemporary approaches), develop the analytical tools to evaluate moral arguments, and apply these frameworks to a range of contemporary ethical issues — typically including bioethics (abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering), environmental ethics, business ethics, social and political ethics (justice, equality, racism, sexism), and emerging issues such as the ethics of artificial intelligence, automation, and emerging technologies.

The course sits within the Florida Statewide Course Numbering System (SCNS) under Philosophy > Ethics and is offered at approximately 24 Florida public institutions. PHI2600 satisfies the humanities general education requirement at every Florida public institution and is one of the most popular philosophy courses among non-philosophy majors. The course is widely available in face-to-face, hybrid, and fully online formats.

PHI2600 is designated under Florida State Board of Education Rule 6A-10.030 ("Gordon Rule") as a writing-intensive humanities course at most institutions. A grade of C or higher is required for the course to satisfy Gordon Rule requirements at most institutions. The course is required or strongly recommended in many pre-professional programs (pre-medical, pre-law, pre-nursing, business, public administration, engineering — increasingly engineering programs include ethics requirements for ABET accreditation).

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

Upon successful completion of PHI2600, students will be able to:

• Distinguish between descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics; explain what makes an inquiry properly ethical rather than empirical or merely opinion-based.
• Identify and explain the central claims of the major normative ethical theories: virtue ethics (Aristotle); deontology (Kant); consequentialism / utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill); social contract theory (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Rawls); ethical egoism; ethics of care; natural law theory.
• Apply each major ethical theory to selected moral questions; explain what each theory would prescribe and why; recognize the strengths and limitations of each.
• Distinguish moral relativism, moral subjectivism, and moral objectivism; engage critically with arguments for and against each position.
• Distinguish cultural relativism and ethical relativism; understand the distinct empirical and normative claims involved.
• Analyze the structure of moral arguments: identifying premises and conclusions; assessing validity and soundness; recognizing common fallacies in moral reasoning.
• Apply ethical frameworks to contemporary applied ethical issues: at most institutions, this includes selections from bioethics (abortion, euthanasia, end-of-life decisions, genetic engineering), environmental ethics, business and professional ethics, social and political ethics (justice, equality, race, gender, immigration), and emerging-technology ethics (AI, surveillance, autonomous vehicles).
• Construct well-reasoned ethical arguments in writing: stating a clear thesis; supporting it with evidence and reasoning; addressing objections; demonstrating intellectual charity to opposing views.
• Engage thoughtfully with views one disagrees with: representing opposing positions accurately and at their strongest; distinguishing legitimate disagreement from misunderstanding.
• Demonstrate college-level writing through analytical essays, applied-ethics arguments, and (typically) a research paper (typically 6,000+ words across the semester to satisfy Gordon Rule).
• Use discipline-specific vocabulary for moral philosophy and applied ethics.

Optional Outcomes

Depending on instructor approach and institutional emphasis, students may also:

• Engage with non-Western ethical traditions: Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, African ethical frameworks at an introductory level.
• Engage with feminist ethics and care ethics in greater depth.
• Engage with specific applied-ethics fields in greater depth: medical ethics; environmental ethics; business ethics; legal ethics; engineering ethics; computer and AI ethics.
• Engage with moral psychology: research on how moral judgments are actually formed.
• Engage with case studies in professional ethics relevant to students' intended careers.
• Conduct a policy analysis applying ethical frameworks to a current public-policy issue.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Introduction to Ethics: What is ethics? Distinguishing descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics; the relationship between ethics and other normative inquiries (law, etiquette, religion); the structure of moral arguments.
• Moral Relativism, Subjectivism, and Objectivism: The relativist challenge to ethical theory; cultural relativism vs. ethical relativism; arguments for and against moral relativism; moral subjectivism; moral objectivism / moral realism.
• Virtue Ethics: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics; eudaimonia (flourishing); virtues as character dispositions; the doctrine of the mean; practical wisdom (phronesis); contemporary virtue ethics (MacIntyre, Foot, Hursthouse).
• Deontological Ethics: Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals; the categorical imperative (universal law and humanity formulations); duty and the moral law; rights-based ethics; contemporary deontology (Korsgaard, Scanlon).
• Consequentialism and Utilitarianism: Bentham's quantitative hedonistic utilitarianism; Mill's qualitative utilitarianism; the greatest happiness principle; act vs. rule utilitarianism; contemporary consequentialism (Singer); criticisms (justice, integrity).
• Social Contract Theory and Justice: Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau on the social contract; Rawls's A Theory of Justice and the original position; Nozick's libertarianism; contemporary debates about distributive justice.
• Ethical Egoism: Psychological vs. ethical egoism; the egoist's challenge; arguments for and against egoism (Rand, contemporary critics).
• Ethics of Care and Feminist Ethics: Gilligan and Noddings on care; care vs. justice; feminist critiques of traditional ethical theory.
• Applied Ethics — Bioethics: Personhood, abortion (typical readings: Thomson, Marquis, Warren); euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide; end-of-life decisions; genetic engineering and biotechnology.
• Applied Ethics — Environmental Ethics: Anthropocentrism vs. biocentrism; animal rights (Singer, Regan); environmental sustainability; climate change ethics.
• Applied Ethics — Social and Political Ethics: Justice and equality; race and racial justice; sex, gender, and feminism; economic justice; affirmative action; immigration ethics.
• Applied Ethics — Emerging Issues: The ethics of artificial intelligence; algorithmic bias; surveillance and privacy; autonomous vehicles; emerging biotechnology.
• Constructing Ethical Arguments in Writing: The structure of an ethical argument; thesis, evidence, objections, response; intellectual charity; addressing the strongest opposing position.

Optional Topics

• Non-Western Ethical Traditions: Confucian ethics; Buddhist ethics; Hindu dharma; Islamic ethics; African ethical traditions (ubuntu).
• Religion and Ethics: Divine command theory; the Euthyphro problem; secular vs. religious ethics.
• Moral Psychology: Research on how moral judgments are actually formed (Haidt, Greene); the role of emotion in moral reasoning.
• Professional and Engineering Ethics: Codes of professional conduct; engineering ethics case studies (the Challenger disaster, Volkswagen emissions, the Boeing 737 MAX); medical ethics codes.
• Computer and AI Ethics: Algorithmic bias; surveillance capitalism; the ethics of AI development and deployment; large language models and content generation.
• Business Ethics: Corporate social responsibility; whistleblowing; conflicts of interest.

Resources & Tools

• Most-adopted textbooks at Florida institutions: The Elements of Moral Philosophy by James Rachels and Stuart Rachels (McGraw-Hill) — the most widely-used introductory ethics text, both nationally and at Florida institutions; The Right Thing to Do by Rachels and Rachels (companion reader); Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues by Barbara MacKinnon (Cengage); Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong by Pojman and Fieser; Doing Ethics by Lewis Vaughn (W. W. Norton).
• Open-access alternatives: Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics (Rebus Community / open textbook by various authors) — increasingly adopted at Florida community colleges; Introduction to Ethics on Lumen Learning; the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (free) — the gold-standard reference for philosophical concepts; the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (free).
• Primary sources: Most are available free in the public domain or via institution libraries: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics; Kant's Groundwork; Mill's Utilitarianism; Hobbes's Leviathan; Locke's Second Treatise; Rawls's A Theory of Justice; selections from Aquinas, Hume, Nietzsche, Sartre.
• Online learning platforms: McGraw-Hill Connect Philosophy; Cengage MindTap; Norton Achieve; institution Canvas modules; Plato.Stanford.edu (free reference).
• Reference texts: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (plato.stanford.edu) — comprehensive, peer-reviewed, free; the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (iep.utm.edu) — free; The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.
• Tutoring and support: Institution writing centers (essential for analytical philosophy writing); some institutions offer dedicated philosophy tutoring; faculty office hours.

Career Pathways

PHI2600 supports career fields where ethical reasoning and clear analytical thinking are valued:

• Lawyer / Legal Professional — pre-law students often elect philosophy and ethics; PHI2600 supports legal study at Florida law schools (UF, FSU, Florida A&M, FIU, Stetson, Nova Southeastern, Barry, Ave Maria, St. Thomas).
• Healthcare Professional — bioethics is increasingly central to medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health; many pre-medical and pre-health programs require or strongly recommend ethics.
• Engineer — ABET accreditation requires engineering ethics content in engineering programs; PHI2600 supports this requirement at the introductory level. Florida engineering programs (UF, FSU/FAMU, USF, UCF, FIU, FAU, FGCU) typically require ethics either through PHI2600 or a discipline-specific engineering-ethics course.
• Business Professional / Manager — business ethics is increasingly required in business education; PHI2600 supports MBA and business career paths.
• Public Administrator / Government Official — pathway through MPA programs at UF, FSU, USF, UCF, FIU, FAU, FGCU.
• K–12 Teacher (any subject) — ethical reasoning supports professional practice and student mentoring.
• Journalist / Media Professional — media ethics; understanding of moral reasoning supports investigative and analytical journalism.
• Computer Scientist / Software Engineer / AI Practitioner — emerging-technology ethics is central to responsible AI development; Florida tech sector increasingly values ethics-trained engineers.
• Counselor / Social Worker — pathway through Florida MSW and counseling programs.
• Religious Professional / Chaplain — pathway through divinity and seminary programs.
• Philosopher / Academic (long-term) — pathway through MA and PhD philosophy programs.

Special Information

Articulation and Transfer

PHI2600 articulates to all Florida SUS institutions and satisfies the humanities general-education requirement at every Florida public institution. The course is widely accepted as fulfilling the ethics or applied-ethics requirement in many bachelor's programs — particularly engineering (ABET), business, healthcare, and public administration.

The Gordon Rule

PHI2600 is designated as a writing-intensive course under Florida State Board of Education Rule 6A-10.030 at most institutions. The total writing volume across formal essays typically meets or exceeds 6,000 words. Common assignment types include: short analysis papers (500–750 words), applied-ethics arguments (750–1,500 words), and a major final paper (1,500–2,500 words). A grade of C or higher is required for the course to count toward Gordon Rule satisfaction.

Engineering Ethics and ABET

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) requires engineering programs to include "an ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments." Many Florida engineering programs satisfy this through PHI2600, sometimes paired with a discipline-specific engineering-ethics course in the upper-division curriculum. Students considering engineering should confirm with their advisor whether PHI2600 satisfies their program's ethics requirement or whether a specialized course (e.g., EGS3070C — Engineering Ethics) is required.

Other Florida Ethics Courses

Related courses at some Florida institutions include:

• PHI2630 — Contemporary Ethical Issues / Applied Ethics — a more focused applied-ethics course at some institutions.
• PHI3681 — Ethical Issues in Healthcare / Bioethics — upper-division specialized course.
• PHI3682 — Business Ethics — upper-division specialized course.
• PHI2010 — Introduction to Philosophy — broader philosophy survey covering ethics as one component.
• EGS3070C — Engineering Ethics — engineering-specific ethics course.

Course Format and Workload

PHI2600 is typically a lecture-discussion course meeting three hours per week, very widely offered in face-to-face, hybrid, and fully online formats. Expect weekly reading from the textbook plus selected primary sources (typically 30–60 pages per week), regular short response writing, 2–4 major analytical essays, and (often) 2–3 exams (typically essay-based or mixed objective and essay). Discussion participation is heavily emphasized — engaging respectfully with students who disagree is one of the central skills the course aims to develop. Out-of-class workload typically runs 5–8 hours per week.

Course Code Variations

Florida institutions consistently use PHI2600 for this course, titled "Introduction to Ethics," "Ethics," or "Moral Philosophy." The course is consistently 3 credits across institutions. Coverage of theories vs. applied issues varies: some instructors emphasize theory more heavily (Rachels-style); others lead with applied issues and introduce theory as needed. Both approaches satisfy the general-education and Gordon Rule requirements.