I took this class online in the Fall quarter of 2021.

Prof DeWitt is unfortunately not a great lecturer. She uses these things she calls 'screenshares', which are basically philosophy word vomit on a .txt file, and just reads over them over Zoom. I stopped going to her lectures around week 3, and my test grades didn't suffer for it at all. But, the screenshares are helpful once you edit out all of the fluff she puts in. That was how I studied for the midterm and final, and I did well, so I guess it balances out.

Honestly, my main complaint with this class is the essay grading and weight. DeWitt makes the papers on Bentham and Kant 15% and 20% respectively, and the TA's are brutal. I got points off on things that didn't really seem to make sense––conflicting comments like, 'beautiful writing, don't use it', and 'paper fits rubric, but could have been more wow' from the same grader... both of which were not constructive and contradict the other. I got a B- on the Bentham paper, an A- on the Kant paper, and a B+ on the final paper, and I felt like my writing was pretty consistent on all three. The fact that the Bentham paper was weighted SO high yet was due in like week 2 or 3 was really difficult, as there were very few resources to get help, and being so new to the class we had no idea what she was looking for. I was kind of confused as to what the prompts were asking most of the time, as well, and DeWitt's office hours weren't helpful either time that I went.

Not sure how the class will work in future quarters, but our midterm and final were both 25-30 mult choice questions that were straight from the screenshares. I got high A's on both with minimal effort. Some of the questions were extra credit, so our midterm ended up having a possible score of 106/100 (not sure about the final, she didn't release it for some reason, which was annoying).

The weird thing was that she had mentioned that she would be adjusting the grades to fit effort and participation, but nobody really saw any evidence of that. After the final grades were released, she sent out an email saying that she would not be changing them regardless of appeals or participation and that she thought they were fair. I think taking a hard stance on grades is a valid way to run your class, but not after leading students to think that you wouldn't be doing that (especially since we can't see our live grade tallies, so nobody really knew what grades they had until she put the final ones out.)

Just so you know, this class is barely about moral contemporary issues (which is basically why I took it). The first half before the midterm is all on Bentham and Kant (old philosophers) and then the three weeks before the final are rushed screenshares on contemporary issues like abortion and gun control. I didn't find it interesting from a current events perspective, so if that's what you're looking for (like I was) I would not take this class.

I probably wouldn't take a class with her again, mostly because I don't find philosophy interesting in the slightest, but also because a lot of her prompts, tests, and comments were confusing. If you want an easy A, I think it's possible (like I said, I literally didn't go to lectures at all and got an A-) but it all comes down to your essay scores, to be honest, and the TA's seemed similarly harsh to me.

Hope this was helpful! :)

This class was a super easy GE and fairly interesting. For someone who has no back round in philosophy, this class was pretty interesting. She gives screen shares which are super important to study for the tests and the TAs are super helpful too. Id def rec going to the TAs office hours and conversing about essay structure and clarification on topic comprehension. I believe this class is super TA dependent. I would rec this class.

Your mileage will definitely vary for this class, depending on your how good your TA is at teaching and how they grade. My TA Esther was amazing. You could pretty much skip the main lectures because her explanations about concepts that taught in lecture were so good, and she was super effective at prepping the class for the papers by going over the prompts and possible ways you could respond to them. Unfortunately, the TA strike meant the end of discussions, but the professor was really accommodating and pretty much gave everyone As for the rest of the quarter. Expect the grade distribution for this quarter to be pretty skewed.
Unless you have a really good TA, I think this would be a pretty hard class. However, I found the concepts that were covered super interesting (especially Kant), and I would take another course like this one again.

She is a great person and professor. Because of the strike, she changed some things around. She definitely was generous because we didn't have to write an actual final paper, but it bothers me that we didn't get to see what score she gave us on the paper. Overall, the class workload was manageable, even if you don't go to class the lectures are recorded and watching them/taking notes will help on the midterm and final. For the papers go to OH and get help from your TA because each TA grades differently.

Prof Dewitt just reads off of "screenshares" during lecture, which are just long documents that lay out information you need to know. Attending lecture isn't necessary as long as you go over the screenshares. You'll have to write a few papers during this class but they're pretty short and not bad as long as you do the readings. TAs are not super hard graders and leave loads of constructive criticism so if you do bad on the first paper you can improve. They also offer automatic 2-day extensions upon request. Definitely attend discussion as most learning will occur then. Dewitt is nice, but boring in lecture because she just reads off the page. She sent a class-wide email at the end of the quarter saying she would not be changing/rounding anyone's grade though. Overall I'm glad I took this class as it fulfilled a GE req and it wasn't very difficult. My TA was awesome so I looked forward to discussion every week (shoutout Josh).

Professor DeWitt is a sweet and helpful professor! There is no attendance requirement and when I took the class online, the lectures were all pre-recorded. Her lectures can be dry (if it was in-person, I can see how some people would fall asleep), but she is genuinely passionate about her subject. It consisted mainly of her talking over screen-recordings of her notes. There are no PPT slides you can annotate, and her notes were not posted to encourage students to watch the lectures.
Also most of her lectures went over the allotted time, which she made up for by cancelling some lectures at the end of the quarter.
She's very friendly and approachable during office hours so don't be afraid to go in even if you're the only student there! Her midterm and final were both very reasonable as long as you watched the lectures and took notes. The midterm consisted of two essay questions, and the final consisted of around 50 MCQs. There was also a 3-4 paper written with a moral perspective on the issue of our choice. She also provided an extra credit opportunity in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and BLM movement, which was very understanding of her.
The first half of the quarter focused mainly on Kant and Bentham's moral theories, and the second half was moral applications to issues (like abortion, death penalty, etc). It's often easy to pinpoint where she stands on certain issues but she emphasizes that each student should learn to form their own educated opinion on the subject.
There are many long readings but I honestly didn't read all of them, just the ones relevant to my paper (and I also read parts of Bentham and Kant). Don't feel pressured to read through all of them because she goes over the important parts of the text during lecture.
It's a good idea to find a study buddy to split readings with if you're planning on writing the paper on the same subject.
Last note: She takes plagiarism seriously, and the paper isn't even that much writing, so try not to be tempted to take content directly from online resources without citing it. The professor emphasizes that she wants us to take content only from the lecture notes and the assigned text, because often the Internet is "wrong" in their interpretations of certain topics.

I LOVED Professor DeWitt. She is such an interesting person and gives engaging lectures, and is extremely fun to talk to during office hours. I took this class remotely, and while I think this class would be 1000x better taken in person, she did the best she could given the circumstances. My main grievances with the class was that she went over the allotted lecture time almost every class period, but she recorded all the lectures and kept them up for the whole quarter so its not as though I was time constrained by her taking them down a week later. The second half of the class is super interesting, talking about abortion and the death penalty and gun control, and you get to choose what you write about for the final paper. Her midterm and final were slightly challenging, but only if you didn't watch and write notes for her lectures. I made sure I took meticulous notes for each lecture since the exams were open note and I was a fine. Definitely would recommend this class!

I took this class spring quarter 2020 (remotely) and received an A. Professor Dewitt 's class is straight forward and if you watch all the lectures, listen in discussion, and pay attention, you'll be fine. I did read the readings, but to be honest, I think the lectures are sufficient. Our midterm was a 3 page essay. The final was multiple choice and another essay. The prompts are fair and the multiple choice final was fairly easy if you took good notes from lectures. While her lectures could have been better (they were screenrecordings of a word document with notes that she read off of), it was her first time remotely teaching so it's understandable. The topics we go over are relevant to issues today and Professor Dewitt does a decent job at explaining their moral theory without her own biases. We went over abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, gun control, ect. While I did have a previous interest in philosophy, this was a good introductory class that I would recommend.

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!

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.