Faculty Advisor: Associate at a top law firm; Juris Doctor, Yale Law School

Research Practicum Introduction

Should you sacrifice one person to save a dozen? Is a drunk driver who hits someone morally worse than a drunk driver who gets lucky and has a clear route? Our answers to these questions say a lot about us and our values, yet it is easy to go through life without thinking about what matters.

This program will help students learn how to think through challenging philosophical and legal questions that impact how we live our lives and how we interact with the world around us. In each session, students will consider—and attempt to solve—a different legal or philosophical quandary. Using the socratic method, we will break each problem down to its core values and determine what matters—and what should matter—in our lives and in the law. The critical thinking skills learned in this program will change how students think about the world, and will prepare them for more advanced studies in law or philosophy.

Most discussions will be facilitated by interesting and engaging hypotheticals that implicate some of life’s biggest questions and that we can use to challenge and understand the legal rules that govern our lives. How do we tell right from wrong? What moral obligations do we have to others versus ourselves? What is the value of experience, versus memory? How much should we value money, prestige, friendship, or love?

In parallel to group discussions, students will research philosophical and legal quandaries of their own and will prepare a paper that attempts to explain and solve those problems.

Possible Topics For Final Project:

• Modified Trolley Problem: Should our answer change if we have a personal connection to someone on the trolley?  What if we have a connection to someone on the track?

• The Value of Citizenship: Do we have a higher moral obligation to fellow citizens? Why or why not?

• The Clone Wars: Would it be wrong to murder a clone of yourself?  Why or why not?

• Can’t Buy Me Love: Should wealth matter in choosing a potential mate? If so, when and why?  Should it be illegal to cheat?

• Back to the Future: Do we owe anything to our descendants?  Why or why not?  Does it matter if they are born yet?

• Tribute to the Dead: Do we owe anything to the dead?  Why or why not?

• Or other topics in this subject area that you are interested in, and that your professor approves after discussing it with you.

Program Detail

• Cohort Size: 3-5 students

• Duration: 12 weeks

• Workload: Around 4 hours per week (including class time and homework time)

• Target Students: 9-12th grade students interested in Law, Philosophy, Debate, Ethics, Economics, English and/or Humanities in general.