Professor DeWitt is an amazing professor who is very knowledgeable about what she teaches and really wants nothing more than for her students to understand and do well. She is very passionate about us gaining useful skills from the class and thinking about advancements in our world ethically. While she lectures, she doesn't use slides, she lectures from her notes and write things down on the board, which I think is a very refreshing teaching style. As a psych major, I was very worried about fulfilling the philosophy requirement, but this class was one that I really enjoyed. There were only three short papers and two multiple choice tests, which in my opinion were easy and not super time consuming/difficult. I would highly recommend this class!

Initially, I took this class because I had to and it was literally the only GE left (we love 11pm enrollment!). But anyways, it ended up being super enjoyable and actually really easy. There's no homework at all except for readings that are usually super short (like 7-12 pages per week). And honestly, even if you don't do the readings/just skim them you'd be fine. Discussion section attendance is pretty much optional, but she recommends going because TAs will keep track of who goes in case you need your grade rounded. There are no "midterms" or "finals". There are just 3 essays and 3 take-home, online multiple-choice tests (less than 30 questions each) which are easy as long as you pay attention in lecture. The only con about this class is that Dewitt doesn't use slides, she just lectures and writes on the board, so the only way to do well in this class is to actually go to lecture and pay attention (lectures are recorded on BruinCast anyways though). Basically, you can easily get an A in this class as long as you take some notes during lecture and are a decent writer.
As for the professor, I LOVED Dewitt. She's relatable, funny, charismatic, and super understanding. She gives out extensions left and right (even if you don't ask for it lol), and she's super flexible with deadlines. This quarter, she was a few lectures behind on material she wanted to cover for the second test/essay (Kant), so instead of trying to catch up by giving us more work like most professors do, she just cut the material on the third section (Bentham) to one week and made the third essay way shorter/graded on completion. She's super chill and funny. Not boring at all. The class was genuinely interesting and the coursework wasn't bad at all. Definitely recommend.

Her lecture style legit made me believe I was developing ADHD. She spends more time talking about her personal life than she does on lecture content. She often rambles on for minutes before writing anything on the board and fails to answer student questions without taking an eternity. 80% of her class is answering questions because she is unclear and 20% is actually her lecturing. Additionally, her grading is not transparent. If you receive a A-/B+ grade on an essay, then she will give you the lower end rather than the middle or the upper end and does not justify why she does not give the middle or the upper end. She is also frequently late to class. Finally, she does not assign A+'s to any assignment. Her cap is an A, which means 96-93, and she gives the lower half, which means that you cannot obtain more than a 93 on any of her assignments even if you deserve a higher grade.

I'm genuinely shocked by the rating on this website about Professor DeWitt. I've taken three classes with her and my experience was beyond amazing. Professor DeWitt does not believe in easy As. If you want an A in her class, you need to put in the work. Although this feels annoying at first because we all love easy As, it has helped me improve my reading and writing dramatically. If you're willing to do all the readings and attend all the lectures, I guarantee that you will receive an A or at least an A-. She allows students to engage with her in lecture which makes it so much more fun to listen to. She's also great at helping you understand VERY hard concepts. Most importantly, she will go above and beyond to be there for her students, whether that be in their personal lives or academically. She is willing to stay 3+ hours over her office hour time to make sure that students understand the concepts. The only caveat is that you need to show her you care about learning and are not just there for an easy A. Most of these comments make me think that the students just didn't put in the work. Please take her class! She's truly the best Professor I have had the pleasure of working with.

Grade distribution:
This is standard for all of the upper div classes I've taken with her.
10% 5 reading responses submitted at your leisure throughout the quarter
40% midterm paper 4-6 pages
50% final paper 5-7 pages

The class's topic is really interesting and actually engaging and thought-provoking. Janelle is a meh professor, like not bad not amazing you know? She's nice and very enthusiastic in class which I liked, Her energy is cool. Essays are also interesting just make sure you listen in class and take notes of everything because you'll need it for your essays and multiple choice exams (they were 2 for us). She is a very accommodating professor that will definitely listen to that you have to say and see you as more than just a graded student which I appreciated, I would take this class again BUT would change my TA which quite frankly SUCKED. Like he was actually useless. I think I could have gotten an A if it wasn't for him but whatever. Take this class, it's very interesting. Just make sure you vibe with your TA first discussion section or change sections. Also I never did the readings. Maybe I should have hahaha. they are not essential but do them if you can.

Professor DeWitt is great at making super complex theories digestible and understandable. As long as you take notes in class, quizzes/tests should be fine, and they are online and open-note. Papers were graded extremely fairly, as long as you explain your reasoning and show understanding of the topic. The one issue I had with the class was that if you are taking it for the contemporary issues, those are only covered in the last few weeks of class. Majority of the class is background on Bentham/Kant.
Also, if you haven't taken a philosophy class (like I hadn't going into this) be prepared for students to want to voice their opinions. Like, a LOT. Normally I wouldn't complain about this, but it was certainly a new experience (that I didn't enjoy but maybe you will), as many people would try to outsmart the philosophers or act as if their own opinion was ground-breaking, or literally just repeat what the professor said without adding anything. People talked so much that it actually delayed our schedule by quite a bit so we had to sort of rush Kant.

This class is super engaging and relevant to any person. It is a pretty easy GE if you know how to write a philosophy paper, but the TAs and the professor don't really prepare you well enough to know how to write one. Basically, you're just showing that you're thinking about the prompt critically and logically using hypothetical examples to support your ideas. It doesn't even have to be conclusive, just... thoughtful enough?

Prof DeWitt is a friendly person and isn't afraid to share her opinions. The class is highly discussion based which can make it sort of slow and boring since she will take literally every question(most of which are not relevant to the content but the example which leads to long tangents) and thus fall behind in content, but that's partly because she does ask a lot of questions to interact with. Lecture can be hard to follow because of how technical it is, especially Kant since it takes a while to get to his important ideas, but she does write almost all the important information for the tests on the whiteboard. She is flexible with deadlines and will always give you a one-two day extension for the paper no questions asked. The texts are incredibly difficult to understand and she is strongly opposed to using online resources because "they're not always accurate" so she wants you to only take the TA's & her interpretation of the text which makes office hours super important to go to.

This was a super easy philosophy GE I would recommend to any new people. I took this as a freshman in the fall quarter and honestly it was barely any work. Just show up to lectures and take notes because the majority of questions on your final are directly said in lectures. We had two papers and there isn't a page limit, but a word limit. I think the first one was like 600-800 words and the second was like 800-1200 which was not that hard to write. Also, I took this during the TA strike which probably accounted for the easiness because Professor DeWitt canceled some assignments towards the end of the quarter. The professor is really nice, but the TAs are the ones that grade your paper, which ultimately determine your grade.

TAKE THIS CLASS! The professor is amazing and engaging and this class was definitely the highlight of my week. The professor does an amazing job of including people and honestly most of our class time was just philosophical debates (the professor is a very good devils advocate). The essays are short (1.5-3 pages) and they are super fun to write. The only reason anyone should avoid this class is if they get easily tiffed since we do debate moral issues.

Ok so I really liked this class, learned a lot from it, came out with a great appreciation for the material. I would recommend anyone with even a slight interest in ethics take this.

That being said I will say it's pretty funny to take an ethics course taught by an anti vaxxer. Not sure if she's trying to hide that fact but that's the truth :)