Students work with a faculty mentor on either student-initiated original research or on faculty-initiated original research.

Independent study topics pursued by Applied Ethics students have included:

• “Unit 731: Moral Repair in Imperial Japan’s Human Biological Warfare Experimentation”
• “The Hidden Wounds of War: An Exploration of the Moral Injuries Sustained in Combat”
• “The Ethics of Intranasal Administration of the Hormone Oxytocin”
• “Islamic Applied Ethics: Abortion, Euthanasia, and War”
• “The Ethics of Wikileaks”
• “Posthumous Harm and Treatment of the Deceased: Can a Dead Person be Harmed?
• “The Instability of Mainstream Particularism”
• “Protecting Surrogate Autonomy in Paid Surrogacy”

Two recent students have completed a self-designed applied ethics major.