*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.*

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.

Professor McHose is a great guy and is super knowledgeable. He’s super willing to answer questions in class, is very funny, and cares about his students. While I thought the content was tricky at first, I think he has a really good way of teaching with stories and drawings that help you grasp the concepts. There are three papers in this class, all which you should do well on as long as you put effort in to them. There were also three quizzes which were a little trickier — I spent a lot of time studying for these and still sometimes underperformed. Overall, I think this class is really engaging and shouldn’t be too hard to get a good grade in.

10/10 would recommend if you are even slightly interested in philosophical thought and morality. Looking back, I am so glad I took this class. During fall quarter, I had an extreme love-hate relationship with it, but ultimately this class inspired me to minor in philosophy and I will be forever grateful!
That being said, I really feel anyone can succeed in this class. My biggest advice is take diligent notes on what Brad says, because he doesn't really use slides. He uses "handouts" which are just like multiple pages of his notes on the topics, but he relies HEAVILY on specific examples and scenarios that you will need to know for quizzes and papers. But honestly, even if you miss something, it's likely the TA will explain in section so don't worry about perfect attendance or perfect understanding during lecture.
The professor is really the highlight of this class. Extremely passionate, funny, and helpful. He even allows for two days of extension for papers (which you can choose when and how to use), and offers more on a case by case basis. He would additionally take out quiz questions that he realized weren't very clear after talking with the class, TAs, etc.
Strong warning though to anyone that is taking this class thinking they will learn about political philosophy...it's really about morality, property, and someeeee political thought towards the very end with Rawls. Nonetheless, extremely interesting and thought provoking. Not too hard at all. The quizzes are relatively straightforward, I got A's on all of them just by paying decent attention during lecture and then making a page of notes about an hour before each quiz on the most important topics/scenarios.
Don't be scared of the subject or the prof's slightly unorganized drawings in lecture! Really doesn't require too much effort to succeed in this class.
My greatest piece of advice would be to utilize the Philosophy Writing Center for papers. Book an appointment as soon as Brad mentions a paper is coming up though, because slots fill up super fast. It was super helpful to get feedback and ultimately supported my success in the class greatly.

This particular subject is not my strong suit so I did find myself struggling with some of the concepts. I did have to put in extra work by reading and making sure I started my essays early so that I could make different drafts and revise. Discussion section really helped to clarify concepts and staying engaged/talking with your TA is necessary if you are struggling with concepts.
The professor is what makes this GE worth it. He was very engaging and funny and I think most of the students would agree. Sometimes it would be a little difficult to understand what he meant and I wish the slides were more organized. However, you should always go through the handouts on your own before lecture and pay attention to the examples he uses. The class consisted of 3 quizzes and 3 essays. The quizzes were pretty fair and he would even get rid of questions most people struggled on. The essays were a bit challenging but doable.
If you are looking for a super easy GE this wouldn't be it, but if this is a subject you are interested in or are willingly to put in more work, then I do recommend this professor and class.

HATED THIS CLASS. and unless you have a philopsohy brain you probably will to. the course is super misleading and is basically the philosophy of property rights, not politics, and argues over land ownership for 10 weeks straight. the professor is a classic philosophy stereotype and his notes are scribbled words and pictures that make the content more confusing. It seemed impossible to achieve well in this course and seemed very bias in students performance based on previous philosophy experience, and the professor and TA were not helpful in getting your foot in there, giving no feedback on essays . dont take this class unless you love all philosophy or have a strong affinity for property rights

As an introductory political philosophy class, I wish we had done a more broad survey of different topics instead of spending the entire ten weeks mostly covering distributive justice. Despite the readings, which were for the most part quite dry, I think Brad did a good job of making the lectures as engaging as possible (many, many zoom polls), and illustrated topics well by going over lots of different hypothetical cases. The quizzes were somewhat tricky, but you can do pretty well on them by just relying on the handouts he provides which the lectures are based on. The first paper was far more straightforward than the final paper, which had an 11 page prompt that made writing it kind of a chore.

This was not an easy ge, but i definitely enjoyed it. The professor uses lots of examples and repeats himself a lot so that you understand the material, which is pretty helpful. In regards to the quizzes, they can be pretty tricky but if you go over the lectures and review them a lot you should be fine. In regards to the papers, just make sure you pay attention to what’s going on in class and really use the material you know, because that will help to show that you understand it (and that’s a good portion of the paper grade). The professor has a lot of extra office hours leading to the paper due dates, so take advantage of them if you feel like you’re lost on what to do. Overall, I enjoyed the class but I don’t think it’s for everyone. The professor was pretty funny and I thought he lectured well. We went over distributive justice almost the whole quarter and the papers consisted of explaining certain viewpoints on distributive justice and arguing for a certain type of distributive justice in the context of a health care policy.

Professor McHose took a different approach to political philosophy than I expected, the entire class emphasized exclusively distributive justice, so if you're interested in Nozick, Rawls, and Parfit, you will certainly enjoy the course.
My biggest complaint is the way he structures his quizzes, multiple answers are correct in each question and you're deducted points for not selecting all the correct ones, I averaged a B- on the quizzes despite feeling fairly confident about the material. But he does curve the quizzes so it wasn't two bad. He's certainly not the only professor to do this, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
Grades were made up of 3 papers, 3 quizzes, and participation.
If you haven't written philosophy papers before, listen very closely to his instructions, he helped me with my writing a lot!
Lecture was necessary because your papers had to reflect examples that were given in class. Lectures were recorded and uploaded after.
He was very flexible with the pandemic and meeting students needs, which I appreciated!