Teaching meta-ethics to students in Ukraine

Meta-ethics, with a focus on moral relativism, has historically been absent from academia in Ukraine. Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Philosophy James Harold has introduced a groundbreaking meta-ethics curriculum to young researchers in Ukraine. Harold is part of a growing international effort to support Ukraine’s next generation of thinkers despite the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war.

Kyiv Center for Practical Ethics (KCPE) has a new initiative that aims to move Ukrainian philosophy toward “practical philosophy” that addresses contemporary moral and political issues. “This discipline is not really present in the Ukrainian academic field, so it was crucial for us to change that,” noted Vsevolod Khoma, a Ph.D. candidate and organizer at the center. Khoma noted that only one known article on meta-ethics exists in Ukrainian.

Harold’s involvement was facilitated by a partnership with Flying University for Ukrainian Students (FUUS), an American–Ukrainian institution established in 2022 to provide educational stability for students during the full-scale invasion. Khoma and former Mount Holyoke College professor Eric Barnes had both been supporters of FUUS, which is how they met. Barnes taught a utilitarianism course for KCPE. Barnes invited American scholars, including specialists in virtue ethics and deontology, to create a comprehensive online course in moral philosophy. The course ran from August through December 2025, and Harold taught meta-ethics.

“These students are doing something incredible, in the middle of a war, no less: crafting a curriculum grounded in the liberal arts to help them think through the problems of civil society,” said Harold. “It’s inspiring to teach students who are only in class to learn, not for a grade, a degree or any other purpose.”

The impact of such global academic support is already visible. In 2025, a KCPE student wrote the country’s first bachelor’s thesis on meta-ethics, focusing on the work of G.E. Moore.

Khoma believes that the participation of professors like Harold is essential to transforming the center into a global institution and building scholarly ties between Ukraine and other countries. He said, “It is vital that we continue our work in spite of the Russian invasion. Many American philosophers answered our call, and their show of solidarity has given us the motivation to press on — we hope to return the favor in kind. Such reciprocity feels deeply native to the spirit of philosophy itself. The students were deeply grateful to all the professors, especially Professor Harold.”

By bringing specialized expertise to Kyiv, Harold is helping ensure that, even during a time of daily attacks on civil infrastructure, power outages, water shortages and heating failures, the pursuit of complex ethical inquiry will thrive.