Stunningly fantastic class. Hands down, I can confidently say that Brad is one of the best professors at UCLA. Great clarity in lecture, despite the convoluted concepts we wrangle with throughout this course. Extremely engaging and often displays his concern for students' learning. Never harsh or judgemental when students participate, ask questions, or even challenge the material!

There are two exams (one midterm, one final) and two papers. A very manageable workload, with lots of time and material provided to prepare. Both the TAs and Brad often host extra hours in the week(s) leading up to exam dates and paper due dates. They are extremely helpful and really get you to practice philosophy and increase your understanding.

There were no materials students needed to purchase. Brad would upload chapters and articles for us when necessary. Read them! Lectures often center around the arguments provided in those chapters, and Brad helps clarify and organize them to better suit learning.

Brad also uploads (nearly) weekly handouts that contain the specific wording of certain concepts and moral arguments. Extremely helpful and important! Most of the exam material can be sourced from the handouts as well as the lecture explanations regarding them.

Waner was my TA, and she is fantastic! Very willing to meet up for extra office hours, and provides easily understandable clarifications on the course material. Also, the most fashionable philosophy TA :))

Please take this class. I've had an amazing time in it; it really expands your understanding of moral issues today. During this quarter, we discussed obligations of aid towards people in need, abortion, as well as the issues regarding medical experimentation. If you thought you were informed on your stances before, think again. Put in the effort to learn in this class; you'll find that you'll get a lot more out of this than you initially thought!

I really enjoyed this class. The material itself is very interesting to me. Workload is really doable. I really like the professor. He is really engaging in the class, and explains concepts with a lot of interesting examples. He is extremely helpful in OH as well. If you listen to his class carefully, and finish what he asks, you will be set in the class. This is my favorite GE so far. Highly recommend!

This is my first time writing review because this class is so above my expectation. This is my first (and probably last) philosophy class. I have absolutely no former background or intensive interest towards philosophy. However, I would say prof McHose really made me interested in it. To be frank, I did struggle in this class for weeks (partly credit to the 12:30 class time), but I have to admit the professor did an excellent job in explaining all these concepts and arguments with examples. The grade is consisted of two papers and two exams. The time for the second paper is a bit tight so start preparing ahead! As for the exams, make sure you go to professor's office hour because that will help A LOT. Also, definitely recommend choosing Waner as your TA! She is super nice and structured for section. Definitely a doable philosophy class. The takeaway will be bigger than you thought.

I took this class as a GE and I loved it. I definitely want to try to study philosophy on my own after taking this course. Dr. McHose gives such engaging and comprehensive lectures. I didn’t really take notes during lecture but lectures were interesting so I was able to retain the information well. The handouts are also helpful in understanding the material. There were two quizzes which are a little bit tricky because of the wording but they are not too bad because they are open note and you have access to the handouts and readings. There are 2 papers which I actually enjoyed writing. It was different than what I am used to but it is not difficult to catch onto the style of writing. I happily attended lectures for this class and I was really excited about the material. Also, the workload is not high. I would highly recommend

Light workload BUT be warned, this is NOT an easy class where you can bullshit your way through the content without really knowing it. If you want to succeed, you will have to pay attention in lectures and understand the material really well.

*COVID-19 Review, be aware that this may differ from in-person classes*

Grading:
10% Quiz 1, 10% Quiz 2, 15% Quiz 3, 30% Paper 1, 35% Final Paper

I'm a STEM major and was just taking this class as a GE, so philosophy isn't really my forte. That said, Professor McHose made this class a fairly decent experience. He used interesting examples to illustrate concepts and broke things down in ways that made the material a bit easier to digest. There was no additional work apart from some readings and the assignments stated above. He makes his notes on the material available to view after each lecture which was very helpful.

Quizzes were all multiple choice and weren't awfully difficult, though some questions were worded in a way that was slightly trickier to get. He said that the MC aspect was for ease of grading while online, so things may not remain that way. The first paper prompt explicitly told us what was expected and didn't feel too difficult. The final paper prompt seemed a little vaguer and harder to understand in my opinion, and I wish we had either slightly more preparation for it or had an easier prompt. This may just be my STEM bias talking though. The TAs used discussion time to review the material, allow students to discuss and ask questions about it, and sometimes give tips on how to express our ideas on our papers. In general, both the professor and the TAs were kind and helpful.

TLDR: While philosophy isn't my personal favorite subject as a south campus major, professor Mchose's teaching style and the helpful TAs made this class still feel like a decent experience overall.

*To start I am a Philosophy major so take what I say with a grain of salt.* Personally I loved this class, like even thought it is a catfish (its not even about actual politics only moral theories that could possibly influence policies). This class is a little challenging but not GPA busting challenging. Its challenging in the sense of you actually have to learn and connect the dots in your head. Everything is logical but, for example, each moral theory is its own type of logical. Also there is not textbooks to purchase as the class is centered on short 20 page excerpts by major philosophers and Prof. Brad explanatory handouts. He is super chill in general like many of his analogy were about Lebron James. Prof. Brad and his handouts can be confusing but once you understand him and those neurons start clicking you'll realize he's a huge help making all the information easy to process and digest. The grade is determined by 3 papers and 3 quizzes but the papers are a max of 1000 words and the quizzes are like no more than 15 questions each. *The material in this class was very confusing at times and you do need a little bit of a philosophy brain or else this class will be a struggle. For many people I know in the class this will be their first and last philosophy class they will take.*

the class material is interesting and McHose is a great prof. our class was split into 2 topics, the first half being on medical research ethics and the second half on abortion. by the end of each topic you’re kinda sick of it but they were still interesting. McHose is funny, but lectures can feel tiring and I often skipped to watch the recording on 2x instead. course is 10% participation, 20% quizzes (there were 2), 30% first paper, and 40% final paper. papers were kinda difficult because they couldn't be written then same way you write an english paper, but he was very helpful in OH with how to construct them.
that said, carlos gutierrez is THE WORST TA i have ever had at UCLA. every discussion section felt like another lecture and I only actually talked to other students once. any time i emailed asking about something, he took his sweet time to answer and was entirely unhelpful. he made detailed slides for every discussion but refused to post them online and said we have to email him asking for them after class. I had work during week 10 and couldn’t make his OH to discuss my paper outline, and when I asked him if he could meet at any other time, he was inflexible. i got an A on both quizzes and the first paper, and did all the participation assignments but got a B+ on the final paper and ended with an A-. overall, he was just so callous and constantly seemed so uninterested that it made me hate the class even tho the prof was great.

This was a really interesting class and easily the best GE that I have taken. His quizzes were a little challenging (due to the pandemic, they were asynchronous multiple choice where you had to apply the material we learned to analyze a moral argument), but he curved them so the distribution was fair. The essays were fairly easy because we received heavy guidance on writing them. The lectures were compelling and the content was enjoyable to think about even outside of class. I think it helped me shape my arguments in my daily life, reconsider opinions that I took for granted, and changed the way I approach big questions. Also his mini unit on formal logic was useful for my other subjects.

Highly recommend this class. It's not just some easy A, but it's a class where you won't mind putting the effort in to understand it.

Firstly, professor McHose is amazing. His lectures are superb. They are clear, concise, and super easy to follow. My favorite thing about Professor McHose is that he tells you what he is looking for in the assigned essays. It makes for a relatively straight forward writing process. Philosophy essays are not easy, and most people taking this class have not written one before, so it is difficult to score top marks on the first and second essays which makes it difficult to get an A in the class. In addition to this, there is not much graded work outside of the essays. There are a few small quizzes and some short response questions but other than that, you grade is largely determined by how you do on the essays. This class is not an easy A, but it is certainly doable if you are willing to go to office hours to improve your essay drafts. Basically, you can do pretty well without putting much effort into the class or you can take a little extra time and go above and beyond to finish at the top of the class.