Department of
Philosophy

BBB Ethics Scholars bring philosophical analysis to the corporate world

Recent alumni Walker Urban and Molly Moxness applied philosophy to business when they were Ethics Scholars interns for the Better Business Bureau in northern Colorado, helping local businesses with their application for the Torch Awards, and proving that philosophy has very tangible real-world applications. 

Spring 2022

Philosophy + Medicine: Two alumni discover the prescription for a successful career

Ethical questions in the medical field have challenged practitioners since the age of Aristotle. With the focus and training in applied ethics, alumni Eli Weber and Gwendy Reyes-Illg use their graduate philosophy education in their careers as a bioethics director for Kaiser Permanente and a practicing veterinarian.

Winter 2021

Bridging Two Worlds

Inspired by author Gloria Anzaldua’s  advocacy of coalitions and the nurturing of allyship, because “we need to know the history of [others’] struggle and they need to know ours,” philosophy student Maeve interviews philosophy student Weston about Native American life, different ways of knowing, and the interconnections that bind us together. 

Spring 2021

Together, we examine and apply

In the Department of Philosophy, together we lead, connect, and engage. From community marches to community service to better understanding our relationship to the natural world, the students and faculty are applying theory to practice.  

Winter 2020

Finding Purpose: The Discipline of Spiritual Health

Pursuing a monastic, religious, and spiritual life isn’t available to everyone. But for Mac McGoldrick, philosophy instructor, the pursuit of questions about spiritual practice and self inquiry have informed his own life, his teaching, and his consulting with tech companies on mindfulness and resiliency training. 

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

The Value of Place and Space: Two philosophers seek a moral dimension to our current views

Katie McShane is an ethicist; Idris Hamid is a metaphysician. She studies a love of place; he investigates dimensions of space.  She tackles environmental policy discourse; he’s enveloped in Islamic cosmology. Although these thinkers come from different worlds personally and philosophically, they do share a common perspective on what’s lacking in modern conceptions of place and space—a sense of value.

Spring 2019

Healthcare, social media, and a web of moral issues

The Internet has changed the landscape in which we, as humans, relate, and ethicists need to keep pace. With increases in anxiety and depression, the creation of echo chambers of information, and access to tele-medicine for rural communities, bioethicists like Dr. Moti Gorin are now looking at how online technologies affect human health and well-being.