by Stacey Goguen
Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), lower-division gen. ed. course: “Ethics”
The Context
I teach at a medium-sized public university (7,000-8,000 students) which caters to a racially and socio-economically diverse population of mostly Chicago-area residents, especially (a) students looking to transfer, either from more expensive nearby schools or community colleges, (b) non-traditional students who are either working part or full time or who had to take a break from completing college, and (c) first-time college students who need a fair amount of academic support and advising, often because they’re first generation college students.
Class sizes for our lower-division classes are capped at 35 students, and since my teaching load is 3/3 and I often have at least one course under 20 students, my grading load is manageable in itself, which means I can assign more writing than I could with a larger grading load. However, because a lot of my students are under constant time-crunches (mostly from working), and they don’t often have experience with writing long papers (5+ pages), I tend to assign shorter writing assignments (usually 1-2 pages, 3-4 pages max).
The Course
I have taught an introduction to ethics course (called “Ethics”) four times over the past two years. Two things I do that are unusual are that (a) the content revolves around applied ethics, though I still incorporate metaethics, and (b) the major writing assignments do not focus on building and critiquing arguments, though students do some of that, too.
Below are my course goals, and I’m going to try something unusual with them, too: breaking them into primary, secondary, and tertiary goals—because I think that will help explain how I think about this course. Primary goals are what I put on my syllabi; they are what I consider absolutely necessary for myself and my students to accomplish. Secondary goals are things I want at least some students in the course to get, especially if they are planning to be majors—but it’s not crucial for all students to meet them. Tertiary goals are ‘frosting on the cake’: it’s great if students meet them, but if not, I don’t consider it a huge problem.
Primary goals:
(a) Expose students to a set of different, complicated ethical issues and how a variety of authors philosophically address these issues, providing a range of premises, arguments, and/or conclusions.
(b) Give students ample opportunity to reflect on these complicated issues and push them to develop a set of reflective skills such as examining their own assumptions, considering others’ positions, and questioning easy or simple answers.
(c) Have students practice talking and writing about complicated, controversial issues in order to help them develop a set of communication and argumentation skills, such as raising difficult questions (including objections) charitably, explaining their own viewpoints clearly, and being more comfortable with uncertainty and disagreement.
Secondary goals:
(a) Learn basic philosophy vocabulary such as: utilitarianism, deontology, contractarianism, autonomy, personhood, well-being, and rights.
(b) Learn how to identify premises, positions, conclusions, objections, and responses in a text, as well as clearly articulating these parts of an argument in one’s own writing.
(c) Learn how to identify philosophical questions and positions (specifically: normative vs. descriptive questions; conceptual vs. definitional; logical vs. empirical).
Tertiary goals:
(a) Improve ability to construct a logically valid argument.
(b) Improve ability to articulate cogent and insightful objections to a position.
(c) Improve ability to articulate relevant and nuanced responses to an objection.
Part A - Using Applied Ethics
I focus on applied ethics in this course because my primary course goals aim to have students apply what they learn in class to other applied issues—be they in other fields of study (law, medicine, business) or other arenas of life (home life, jobs, etc.)
I start with the moral status of non-human animals because I find this is a great issue for introducing students to some basic terminology used throughout the course and for getting them to think about an issue they probably have not have reflected on much before. It’s a nice place to start pushing students to question their own assumptions, consider different viewpoints, and think about the implications certain claims (personhood is tied to rationality; all life has innate value, etc.) have for other ethical issues.
We then tackle physician-assisted suicide, a topic that many student might one day have to make a decision about, and they might already know someone who has made end-of-life decisions for themselves or others. This issue lets students see how some metaethical principles play out (util. vs deon. mostly), and it lets them think about how to make decisions when empirically relevant information (Might someone get better? Can they maintain a certain quality of life?) is uncertain. This unit is also good for having students articulate what the various ethical stakes are: respecting autonomy, promoting well-being, preserving someone’s personhood, etc.
The last unit is punishment and incarceration. I introduce students to several theories about the purpose of punishment and what justifies it, and we continue our conversations about moral responsibility, rights, autonomy, personhood, and equality. This unit always feels like we’re drinking from a fire hose, but I think it’s here that students start to see the progress they’ve made in terms of sorting through a set of complicated issues, assessing different positions, and pushing themselves to question their own thoughts.
Part B - Non-Standard Writing Assignments
The other unusual thing I do is that the three major writing assignments for the course (two papers and a final project) are not standard philosophy papers (i.e., asking students to primarily develop a thesis, argument, and set of objections and responses.)
The two papers give students an option. Either they can do a textual analysis of an author’s argument—which, granted, ends up often looking like a pretty standard philosophy paper. But I require the student to ground the paper by discussing something practically at stake in discussing the author’s position. Also, they need to conclude the paper by raising a further question, which again serves to use philosophical argument in the service of a broader intellectual or practical project. The second paper option is to interview someone they know and talk about an ethical question raised during the unit. This is still a work-in-progress as an assignment, but a lot of students have been excited about it, and it gives them an opportunity to reflect on their own thoughts, engage in charitable disagreement with someone else, and teach someone else a little bit about philosophy. I’m still working on how to give students clear, specific directions beyond just “talk to someone and reflect on this discussion.” Next go around, I’m thinking of having the assignment be, “interview someone who disagrees with you on one of the issues we’ve discussed this unit.” That way, they can practice charitably reconstructing someone’s position.
The final project is a portfolio project. In part one, students pick four pieces of writing they’ve done in the course (a paper, a draft, a one-page reflection, notes they took in class, etc.) They comment on their writing and explain how it was either: something they were proud of, something they found to be difficult, something they found to be interesting, or something that made them think about an issue in a different way. In the second part of the portfolio, students write four one-page papers. I give them a list of a dozen or so prompts to choose from. Two of their papers have to analyze one of the readings from unit 3—either by discussing an objection to a claim, applying a theory of punishment to a specific case, connecting a reading in unit 3 to a reading in a previous unit, etc. The other two papers have the student reflection on something, ranging from: something in college that you’ve struggled with, something in this class that you weren’t originally interested in but now are, the most important thing you’ve learned in this class, how philosophy fits (or doesn’t) with the rest of your education, etc.
In one sense, the final portfolio is an ‘easy’ assignment, because most of what I assess students on is their willingness to reflect, which at this point in the semester, if they’re still in the course, they’re pretty willing to do. But there is some content-based assessment (e.g.: did they raise a cogent objection to a reading in unit 3, etc.) , and I’ve found this to be a really valuable assignment because it tells me a lot about what students have gotten out of the course. And it gives students an opportunity to practice all of the skills that are primary course goals. I’m still working on tightening up this assignment and giving students more specific, challenging reflections instead of giving them fairly open-ended prompts.
As a final note, this portfolio assignment is 1000% more enjoyable to grade than my paper assignments.
The Motivation
My motivation for how I structure this course stems from the function it serves in our department, and thus from seeing this course as playing a very specific role in the department. Ethics is our most popular course, by a very large margin, because it fulfills both a general humanities requirement and a pre-business-major requirement (which is a popular major). This means Ethics is our main gateway class for new majors, and if a non-major only takes one philosophy course at NEIU, it is probably this one. It is often our one chance to expose students to philosophy, to have them reflect on if they’re interested in majoring or minoring, and to show how philosophy might fit into their college education if they’re already majoring in something else.
So while some of the more traditional content-based goals (e.g. knowing specific vocabulary, exposure to more formal and abstract philosophical positions, etc.) are a part of our major, I don’t think they need to be the primary goals for this particular course. Insofar as setting course goals is an exercise in setting priorities, I’ve come to realize that having a student walk out of this course being more comfortable with reflecting on hard issues is more important to me than whether they walk away with any particular philosophical vocabulary, or even being more skilled in identifying arguments or logically constructing them.
Student Reactions:
I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from students, especially through the final portfolio projects. Here are some students’ comments from last year, which represent what I want students to take away from the course:
“I enjoy learning philosophy because it reminds me that not everything has a simple answer, life is filled with complicated, controversial issues that involve many variables.”
“I think that this class has helped me grow so much not only academically but also just as a person.”
“I felt as though I have been [a]sleep to important issues that are going on around me. This class has made me want to get more into advocacy type work in the near future.”
“I think through studying Philosophy, I’ve gained or sharpened a number of skills that are broadly applicable across various other field and aspects of life, both professional and personal; skills like critical thinking and problem solving.”
“Philosophy class has led me to think deeper and more open about many topics that I normally wouldn't think much of.”
“I honestly think this is going to be something that is going to stick with me until I am older. We all seem to have morals and we apply them in our lives mostly but thinking deeper into them is even better. Even as we grow older we still have so much to keep learning from right from wrong when we usually think that is something that only should be applied to little kids.”
My current reading list:
Unit One: The Moral Status of Non-Human Animals
This unit raises the question of what the moral status on non-human animals are and should be: do they have rights? How much moral consideration do they deserve? This unit also introduces students to the question of what makes someone a “person,” what it means to have a “right,” and general debates between utilitarianism, deontology, and contractarianism.
Week 1: Kalhan Rosenblatt, “Do Apes Deserve ‘Personhood’ Rights?”
And Amy Kaufman, “The lawyer fighting for animal rights in 'Unlocking the Cage' asks: 'What kind of being are you?'”
Week 2: Peter Singer, “All Animals Are Equal”*
*For multiple reasons, which would require a whole other discussion, I’m looking to change out this reading for another one, potentially something by Lori Gruen.
Week 3: Mary Ann Warren, “The Rights of the Nonhuman World.”
And/or Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights.”
Week 4: Roger Scruton, “The Moral Status of Animals” and Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, Zoopolis, chapter 2, Oxford University Press.
The Singer, Warren, Regan, and Scruton pieces are from Lewis Vaughn (ed), Contemporary Moral Arguments, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press.
Week 5 – no readings, work on paper #1
Unit Two: Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia
This unit raises the question of whether physician-assisted suicide and/or euthanasia should be legalized in the U.S. It also introduces students to philosophical discussions of autonomy, further debates between utilitarianism and deontology, moral responsibility, and what is means to live a good life.
Week 6 – Robin Marantz Henigmay, “The Last Day of Her Life”
and/or Atul Gawande, “Whose Body Is It, Anyway?”
Week 7 – Intelligence Squared, “Legalize Assisted Suicide,” debate with Peter Singer, Andrew Solomon, Daniel Sulmasy, and Ilora Finley.
Week 8 – James Rachels, “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” Contemporary Moral Arguments.
Week 9 – Gerald Dworkin, “Paternalism,” Contemporary Moral Arguments
Week 10 – no readings, work on paper #2.
*In this unit I would like to also fit in Katharina Heyer, “Rejecting Rights: The Disability Critique of Physician Assisted Suicide.” Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, 54: 77-112. Right now I post it as an optional reading.
Unit Three: Punishment & Incarceration
This unit raises the question of what justifies punishment (by a state or other actors.) I introduce my students to five theories in lecture: retribution, rehabilitation, restoration, protection, and deterrence. We also discuss a sixth theory about the purpose of punishment, which one of the students usually brings up: economic gain and/or social control. This unit furthers discussions about autonomy, moral responsibility, personhood, rights, equality, and well-being.
Week 11 – Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chapter 13: “Cases not right for punishment.”
*Next time I might replace Bentham with Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (Seven Stories Press.) The whole book is great for giving the context of prisons in the U.S., but you could focus on Chapter 1, “Prison Reform or Abolition?,” Chapter 3, “Imprisonment and Reform,” Chapter 5, “Prison Industrial Complex” and/or Chapter 6, “Abolitionist Alternatives.”)
Week 12 – Kant’s retributivism and Igor Primoratz, “A Life for a Life,” Contemporary Moral Arguments.
Week 13 – Chelsea Manning, “Solitary Confinement is ‘no touch’ torture…”
and Shane Bauer, “Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons.”
Week 14 – Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow, chapter 4, “The Cruel Hand.” The New Press.
Week 15 & 16 – no readings; work on final portfolio project.
I find it really cool and also really helpful to read about all the practical and pedagogical considerations that went into the construction of this course, and how the design ended up achieving the goals!
Posted by: Shen-yi Liao | 01/22/2018 at 05:47 PM
I agree with Shen-yi that this seems really thoughtful put together, and I like the idea of having 3 "layers" of goals. My only question is about the order of the layers - it seems very strange to me to give higher priority to the ability to label particular philosophical positions than to the ability to construct a coherent argument. Can students really pass the class without demonstrating any ability to construct an argument that hangs together robustly (your primary goal just includes them practicing this rather than succeeding at it)? For me I think the priorities would flip to 1) your tertiary, 2) your primary, 3) your secondary.
Thanks for offering this up, though: I'm looking forward to the rest of the series if they're all as detailed as this one.
Posted by: Fool | 01/24/2018 at 04:05 AM
Re: Fool
I think that's a important question you're asking.
And though it feels a bit weird saying it (out loud), yes, they can pass the class without "without demonstrating any ability to construct an argument that hangs together robustly."
As it turns out, most of the time when this happens, the student earns a C grade, which is passing, and at my university, means something like "meets minimum satisfactory course goals." Technically, a student is able to get an A by simply achieving my primary goals super well (being amazing at reflection, etc.) without *also* getting better at logically constructing and analyzing arguments...though in practice, that never happens. My A and B students do get better at the logic and conceptual analysis stuff, too (though even when I was focus on that stuff, students wouldn't improve as much as I'd hope).
I'm starting to see what we (philosophers) often think of as 'basic' stuff of (analyzing and building arguments) as really a second-order skill for a lot of people (who haven't taken a philosophy class before, which is 95-99% of students taking this course). It blows their mind to just sit back and think about the different positions on these issues, and the fact that there's not some clear-cut answer that someone's already figured out. I suspect that trying to have them immediately jump into argument construction when they're still trying to get acclimated to a whole different kind of class discussion and dynamic is, at least for some students, going too quickly. And I don't mean primarily in terms of, 'oh poor students they can't keep up,' but more in terms of, we might under-train them in important reflection and discussion skills if we *always* jump immediately to argument construction and analysis. For instance, I've met many very, very intelligent philosophers who can't for the life of them articulate what the stakes of an argument are. ("Truth!" some of them have said, in seriousness.) I'd argue that analyzing the stakes of a discussion (beyond just a simple what-practical-thing-does-this-logically-entail) is a separate skill that philosophy classes don't often spend time developing in an explicit manner.
But I'll acknowledge, there's always a potential danger in being afraid that you're going too fast for your students. I think there's something to the idea that, if set the bar high students will stretch themselves to meet it. So that is something I'm worried about for this class--that I might cut away too much of the challenge that motivates them to push themselves.
Posted by: Stacey Goguen | 01/24/2018 at 05:34 PM