DePauw’s Ethics in Society minor is designed to foster the discernment, reflection, empathy, and critical thinking students need to respond to moral quandaries in any domain or profession. Students who declare the minor develop real-world ethical competence tailored to their particular interests and life goals.

Program Structure:

• Core courses address the norms and values that may be at stake in any domain.
• Focus courses add a depth of knowledge about a particular topic or field.
• The senior capstone synthesizes and publicly articulates your understanding of the ethical issues you have prepared to confront.

Learning Goals:

Students minoring in Ethics in Society can expect coursework and co-curricular opportunities that foster habits of mind necessary for good leadership and decision-making:

1. Ethical self-awareness, self-scrutiny, and openness to criticism

2. Comfort with ambiguity and ability to frame and tackle complex questions that bridge multiple disciplines

3. Critical thinking and information literacy (logical argumentation, media literacy, competency with data and textual analysis, interpretation, etc.)

4. Intercultural and transcultural competency and ability to view oneself and the world from multiple perspectives, empathetic skills

5. Comprehension of a variety of ethical frameworks, theories, and concepts

6. Recognition of specifically evaluative or normative dimensions of practical problems

7. Comprehension of empirical details pertinent to ethical quandaries within your focus area

8. Teamwork, effective communication and collaboration, exercise of personal responsibility

9. Civic engagement, participation in civic life and the public sphere, commitment to a collective good or purpose greater than oneself

10. Courage - intellectual (courage to be wrong), emotional (courage to feel), social (courage to be different), and/or moral (courage to stand for something)