Teaching applied ethics — surveying the students.

Surely as a teacher you are teaching your students how to approach and navigate problems. In that sense, aren’t you like a lawyer acting for both sides of the argument?

I think you should definitely not state what your view is, or even that you have one. There’s surely a moral hazard in admitting to an opinion in that your students will be tempted to take your side of the argument in discussion to win your approval?

This is terrific Harry, and thanks for this detailed report. I concur that the end-of-term responses you received say in effect that you have achieved much in the course.

I used pre-course anonymous surveys for over 30 years in both my Intro to Ethics and Bioethics courses covering approximately 50+ courses taught, asking some of your same questions, and particularly about abortion. I used a complicated system to assure that, despite having to use paper forms, neither I nor any other student would know how anyone in particular responded (unless they shared responses among them when returned). I felt this was essential to ensure as honest answers as possible. After returning the forms I would request they keep them until the end of the semester in order to do a self-evaluation of their views. (The anonymizing process made it impossible for me to know how they self-reflected unless they happened to mention it on student evaluations, which they sometimes did.) Gathering their responses in the first class, the second was always at least in part devoted to giving a holistic report on how the class responded to each question, involving them to think through why such-and-such an answer was the majority one (they only had three choices for each detailed case which always was resolved by a particular action–moral, not moral, cannot decide; I’d also have them provide a brief defense of each answer they gave). In this way I could help lead them into seeing different sides of issues right away based on common-sense morality, and then throughout the course refer to the scenarios so that they could build a more reflective philosophical sense about the plausibility of answers.

One by-product of surveying students over decades with the same or nearly the same questions about abortion (4 distinct cases) allowed me to see how my student demographic of mostly traditionally aged with about 10% returning-adult students changed over the years. And change it did in some instances. Given a rather generic question about a “choice” abortion (but with a deliberately withheld background on *how* the pregnancy occurred, so students would later have to confront the assumptions they bring into evaluating such cases), in the late 80s people thought that it was moral by about a 2-to-1 margin. By the time I retired in 2018, that response had completely switched, sometimes with as much as a 3-to-1 majority holding it not moral. The switch statistically came about starting in the mid-to-late 90s, first leveling out the replies but then moving slowly toward the not moral reply, and it never swung back. This tells me that for at least my population of students, the anti-abortion movement has been quite effective indeed.

On the other hand a question involving maternal life-or-death has hardly ever budged away from it being held overwhelmingly moral to abort, although the number of “cannot decide” has definitely increased over the years.

I always found using a survey in these courses to be extremely helpful. Again, thanks for the post.

This is interesting, and I’d agree that this looks like successful teaching (although the choice of topics would mean it’s further left than I am–none of those topics don’t have good egalitarian arguments on both sides.)

I am curious in what context Rumspringa came up. (I grew up Amish-Mennonite, so I’m a bit familiar with the institution and the social context.)

When I taught large(ish) introductory business ethics classes to smart undergrad business majors (mostly), the comments saying that they had not realized there were real questions and issues in the area (which were fairly common) were both encouraging (I’d helped them see something important!) and discouraging (rather smart, fairly well educated kids, mostly with a lot of ‘privilege’, to use an over-used term, hadn’t thought about this?) In retrospect, surveys would have been interesting and useful.

When do people (or you, Harry?) think that consent is insufficient to make sex between adults not be morally okay? I can imagine a few cases that are possible, but most of them, on inspection, turn out to be cases where it’s at least dubious that there is consent, assuming we don’t just assume that facial representations of consent imply consent, as of course we should not.

@Harry

Thank you! I can see the discussion making sense in that context. (As a possibly-useful note, it would be interesting to explore whether the same reasoning would hold for someone who could attend school, but for whatever reasons didn’t benefit much from high school. Like most Mennonites, I had a eighth-grade education; when I left in my mid-20’s, I did not find college academics any more challenging than my classmates in most regards–and I don’t think I’m particularly exceptional in that.)

As far as topics–I don’t have any particular ones in mind, and I’m a math/econ person rather than a philosopher. (And please note–this sounds like a course that is valuable and well-taught.) What I had in mind is that I could argue either side of any of the listed topics using utilitarian and egalitarian arguments, which tend to be in general more left-leaning. It would seem to me valuable to have topics that the stronger arguments on both sides are non-egalitarian–based on the good of the group, on social cohesion, on loyalty/exit rather than voice, and so forth. Some topics that might lend themselves to that sort of approach (noting, again, that I don’t have a good sense for what is available in the philosophy literature):
1) Good of the group questions, like hate speech/hostile environment/blasphemy (should you ban XYZ symbols because they are offensive and not conducive to the kind of environment/group you are? Do you have an obligation to avoid participating in a protest where other protesters may have problematic motivations/allegiances? Can you ethically require people to at least pay lip service to “X moral values” as a condition of employment?).
2) Organization questions–something that puts the question of hierarchy in a context where it’s easy to argue for it as hierarchy (not coming up with an easy example here -something military?)
3) “The natural order”–something where some arguments are about telos; this is so central to historical philosophy that it’s hard to think of a clean example–maybe the leader of a charity that wants to focus on something that’s arguably more important, but not the stated goal of the charity?

Orange Watch@10 maybe misled by an unintentionally ambiguous pronoun reference. Scientific creationists are indeed past masters of critical thinking, so much so they test relentlessly every point of detail and every step in logic and every premise of evolutionary theory (and the fact of multiplication of species.) They are far more aware of the difficulties of experimental method in the history of life than most. Being able to recognize when a matter is settled is not the whole thing in critical thinking, if only because recognizing when matters are not genuinely resolved, or realizing that foundational issues may insoluble at present, are also aspects. As to the larger claim that epistemological skepticism leaves so-called common sense untouched, the life of David Hume, who undermined the very principle of induction, then amiably inducted national characters, serves as the best argument. But if you like exotica, epistemological skepticism in Buddhism and Indian philosophies will serve as well.

But, although I agree this is not complete, the rest of my comment does not depend on this premise. For instance, the observation that abstract thinking skills do not transfer was once a key teaching in education classes. (In second thought, do not exist apart from content, is perhaps a better way to put it.) And the observation that the courtroom is not the paragon of reason should be common sense. Most of the rest does not depend on the second for a premise. The last paragraph is a

I would add that a key proposition to effective critical thinking is to give up looking for the essence of a person (aka soul, mind,) that is master, consequently people always do evil but never make mistakes, because the psyche has free will.

In one sense the comment was all commonplaces. But if it seemed somehow contentious perhaps it is because the OP was a little fuzzy on these aspects. As to the supposed idiosyncrasy, if this is truly idiosyncratic by academic standards, so much the worse for the academy. Happily, I’m sure this is just a polite way of saying it’s stupid.

If I may engage Stephen’s concerns a bit–

All moral systems require a commitment to some intrinsic good(s). For deontologists the intrinsic good(s) center around rational beings either as such (think religious traditions of us as created being valued by god) or their essential properties (Kant). But utilitarians require a specific second G in their GGGN–greatest good for the greatest number. Bentham, Mill, Singer, etc. have one really powerful motivation for adhering to a moral system–pleasure as good and pain as evil have an immediate, non-inferential basis for claiming intrinsic value guiding their moral systems, which anyone with any cognizance of life knows. That’s precisely why the transference of our own experience of pleasure and pain to other animals is relatively easy in expanding the moral sphere to them just based on behavioral similarities, while (e.g.) Kant’s insistence that non-human animals have no direct moral worth is counter-intuitive to that, because they are not persons. (That’s what powers the usual chimp-versus-profoundly-mentally-defective-people comparisons, inviting direct comparisons of the intrinsic good of pleasure, which some but not all non-rational humans may experience as well as chimps, versus what it is to be a full-fledged rational being.)

Students know directly the goods of pleasures and pains. But moral systems like Kant’s–which are too susceptible to categorizing not just non-human animals but many humans as well to less-than-intrinsically-valuable if they lack certain essential properties (like, for Kant, apparently being Caucasian). Many students I have found can come to appreciate Singer’s consistency of the application of intrinsic good universally as opposed to looser and often arbitrary ethnocentric applications of the intrinsic value of rational beings.

Singer sure makes me uncomfortable in ways the dark side of 200 year dead philosophers does not. He really shouldnt be taught in an intro class, if at all. You´ll figure out teaching utiltarism without him.

@
and I think I completely agree with Prof. Brighouse if he thinks that in most cases abortion is NOT wrong –
and that parents should be licensed (instead in the other direction) –
and that Sex between consenting adults is sometimes wrong –

(How am I doing?)
– and I understand the ”non-discloser” – but if the result would help out of ”that paradox” – would that help…?

nastywoman: I suspect that the point is less about your conclusions and more about how you got there. Viz, show your working.

That’s where Singer is a fun guy: loosely, his ethics are based on capacity to feel joy/pain, and thus animals deserve protection in proportion to their ability to feel joy/paid, but so do people… if a specific individual can’t feel joy/pain then killing them is no big deal. Which is an uncomfortable conclusion to some people.

In real life the dilemmas tend to be political – in Australia for example the line between “no more immigration because our ecology can’t support the people we have using the social systems we’ve got” and “we must defend the white race against the degenerate darkies” is philosophically obvious but the political parties expressing the former often get treated as though they’re expressing the latter (and there are a lot who purely express the latter). The Science Party had to change their position, and Sustainable Australia is trying the Bonhoffer* but I fear it’s not working. I hear a lot of “oh them they’re racist” dismissals from lefty greeny types.

* viz, patiently explaining their policy in reasonable terms while being willing to go to the wall rather than change their position. The common alternative is Niemoller, or deciding that the conclusion is difficult so you should wait until everything is absolutely proved before reluctantly accepting it. Their mutual subject, BTW, was what is today once again being debated: “Nazism is bad: yes or no”. Urk.

Yan, thank you for your good reflections. Your points about distinguishing philosophies from the (usually) feet-of-clay icons that produce them is very well taken, and may go a long way to expunge Kantianism from Kant’s moral failings.

But–

“Yes, we have to replace his foundation for intrinsic worth in sentience rather than rational self-determination, but we can only protect intrinsic value deontologically, so this is a fairly cosmetic correction.”

I have to disagree with. Sentience is a property of the beings that possess it (as is rationality, but I’ll let that go). B&M&S etc. all commit to the value of a *property* wherever it’s had, and independent to the matter of the creature that has it. This is what’s behind the GGGN. Quantitatively or qualitatively analyzed, the first G maintains maximization of the property, and sacrificing in most cases those not evaluated in the last GN. This automatically results in a de-emphasis on any consideration of the intrinsic moral worth of individuals. I’d argue that consequentialism in general places emphasis on intrinsic good qua properties, even in a case like virtue ethics (which, however, because it requires an individual to cultivate one’s own virtue, introduces that question of individual intrinsic good as part of its methodology).

I’ll just finish with the remark that, in general, one distinguishing mark of consequentialism versus deontology is a respective emphasis on the intrinsic value of properties that individuals can have as against some assumed essential properties that characterize what constitutes an intrinsically valuable individual. That’s just a generalization, but I think it holds true for the most part.

Matt, that was why I named names. Both arguments are used by the far right (notoriously “F off we’re full”), but only one by the environmentalist-but-not-racist ones. My wording should have been clearer, but indeed this is exactly why the Science Party changed their policy (the evidence showed that it was costing them support and votes). People who want to see the distinction can, but people who don’t make the effort find it very easy not to.

Sadly this is one of those difficult ethical issues. The scientific models we have suggest we’re on track for less than a billion people alive in 2100, so to people who accept those models the question is: who dies, and how? But to people who don’t want to think about it, or don’t accept the models, it’s perfectly reasonable to say: how dare you calmly discuss the best way to kill 8-10 billion people? You monster!

But it’s from that discussion that we get the policy: immigration must be drastically cut back. For ethical reasons it seems least awful to say: essential immigrants and refugees only. There’s also the flip side: Australia just physically cannot accept even 100 million refugees a year, so we must focus on not creating those refugees in the first place. How we do that is a huge bundle of difficult subjects, of which the easiest is: zero emissions. Now!

Sex between consenting adults is sometimes wrong

On that one, people might agree on the wrongness of particular scenarios, but disagree as to whether the wrongness of it can be folded into our definition of consent, or is more sensibly treated separately.

To use a example that’s probably too potentially offensive for classroom use, but probably OK here at CT: we might agree that it is morally wrong for a philosophy professor to have sex with one of their students, even if the student is ok with it. Do we fold this into our definition of valid consent (e.g. consent isn’t valid if there is implicit coercion due to the power imbalance between the participants) or do we regard the abuse of a position of authority as a separate kind of wrong, different from absence of consent?

With a nod towards Peter Singer on animal rights: the question of why it is wrong for a philosopher to have sex with a dog ends up on tricky ground if we try to conceptually model it as the dog’s inability to consent, rather than as some other kind of wrongness.

“When do people (or you, Harry?) think that consent is insufficient to make sex between adults not be morally okay? I can imagine a few cases that are possible, but most of them, on inspection, turn out to be cases where it’s at least dubious that there is consent, assuming we don’t just assume that facial representations of consent imply consent, as of course we should not.”

Maybe I’m missing something, but there could be lots of cases where consensual sex would be wrong, depending on one’s moral views about human sexual relations. Some religious conservatives view all non-procreative/contraceptive consensual sex as immoral, and many more believe that all consensual sex outside of marriage is wrong. Even people with more permissive views about sex sometimes believe that love or some type of emotional connection/intimacy/commitment is needed for sex to be morally okay.

The least controversial case I can think of are consensual extramarital affairs. Given the widespread condemnation of most adultery, I’m actually a little surprised anyone would deny that there can be cases of consensual sex that can be wrong. Is this not what the issue is?

Thanks, SA- that’s useful. I’d left out cases where the reason for thinking sex is morally wrong is because Jesus said so because usually even undergraduates, at least when they are in a philosophy class, can tell the difference between what is a reason for someone who believes, and what is a reason more generally, and know that it’s the more general case we are interested in. Of course, lots of people can’t do that, and that’s too bad, but it doesn’t change the general issue. I think that something similar would apply to the “emotional connection” argument – hopefully, once the people at issue think for a bit, they will see that that’s a personal matter for them, not a generally applicable rule.

The case of affairs is interesting, but there it’s the deception or betrayal that’s wrong, not the sex as such, surely. We can bracket off the other conditions easily enough.

The other example discussed above by SusanC at 29 is interesting too (student and teacher), but I think that, if we are going to think it should be prohibited, it either has to be because we don’t think there is real consent (surface consent aside – this is something we think in many areas), or else have to think that it’s an area where it’s just too hard to determine whether there is real consent, and the cost of getting things wrong one way are so much higher than getting them wrong the other way that a general rule is preferable to a more nuanced determination, even if there are some cases where there is nothing morally wrong with the sex, or else ones where there are systematic issues – others outside the relationship are harmed by it, because of questions about favoritism, ways this might promote inequality in other cases, ways that non okay cases might be made more likely, etc. These are side-effect situations, which might justify ruling out some behavior which is not itself morally problematic, but again, this doesn’t show that the sex itself is wrong, only that we can have good reason to regulate it even if it’s not wrong.

Matt and Moz,

Thanks for the replies.

Regarding “consensual extramarital affairs,” I’ll confess I’m such a square that I wasn’t even thinking of polyamorous/open relationship cases. I was just thinking of more standard cases where a person cheats on a spouse without them knowing. I should’ve just left off “consensual” there.

As for what makes standard affairs wrong, I’ll note that we do draw a distinction between non-sexual “emotional” affairs and sexual affairs. I’ve known people involved in the former who weren’t willing to be involved in the latter because they thought it would constitute a more severe wrong. There’s deception/betrayal in both cases, but the sex might constitute a further wrong. That suggests the sex itself might be morally problematic, but there might be another explanation for the wrongness.

As for the more general issue, I guess it depends on what issue you’re trying to resolve. If you are concerned with are criteria for what constitutes rape/sexual misconduct, I totally agree that further issues should be bracketed and the focus should be on issues around consent. If you are concerned with sexual morality more generally, however, I can’t see why these issues should be bracketed. I would think all these types of views should be on the table for assessment.

I’m also skeptical that people’s views about sexual morality can be reduced to personal matters. When Christian ethicists, for instance, present arguments about the wrongness of non-procreative/extramarital sex, the conclusions are supposed to apply to all people, not just members of their groups. I think the same can be said for arguments given by other groups.

Tyler

I think my worry is that many people default to the idea that there are always two valid sides and they don’t now enough to tale a position on some issue, so I guess I feel like this description of this class and its outcomes is maybe just confirming common sense? As one example are forming union at my university any many people are really deeply enamored of neutrality and the idea that the boss must have a valid “side,” so much that simply taking their own side has become extremely hard to grasp even as a possibility.

To me it’s obvious that ‘we should be unionised’ and ‘we should not be unionised’ are two different sides, but it’s not so obvious that there is any sense in which both sides must be ‘valid’. Again, it’s obvious that advocates on both sides deploy arguments in favour of their positions, but it’s not so obvious that both sides must have good arguments. Besides, even if they do, so what? I can understand (some) people choosing to be neutral in the sense that they can’t decide which side has the better arguments and so defer to a choice made by other people, but there’s no neutral outcome: there’s a binary choice between being unionised and not being unionised, there’s no way to choose neither (or both).

Moz@38
The Anti-Science Party’s Mascot in the Oval office recently had a revelation that was frightening enough for (another) flip-flop. To wit: Old Grump figures it time for people to get measles vaccinations.

(He’s been back-and-forth on birtherism so give him another decade to be born again)

Further to the above, there is another kind of consensual sex that even some liberal societies prohibit, namely sex for money, which is illegal for example in Sweden (not to mention most of the US).

Re extramarital sex, it occurs to me that some might argue it is wrong because it breaks a promise. That is a valid point if the person having the affair has indeed promised the spouse sexual exclusivity. But the wrong would not be the sex but the breaking of the promise (if one considers that wrong). And that could apply to many other situations as well.