Teaching Philosophy, Misc

The purpose of this article is to discuss the concept and the content of courses on “social ethics”. I will present a dilemma that arises in the design of such courses. On the one hand, they may present versions of “applied ethics”; that is, courses in which moral theories are applied to moral and social problems. On the other hand, they may present generalised forms of “occupational ethics”, usually professional ethics, with some business ethics added to expand the range of (...) the course. Is there, then, not some middle ground that is distinctively designated by the term “social ethics”? I will argue that there is such a ground. I will describe that ground as the ethics of “social practices”. I will then illustrate how this approach to the teaching of ethics may be carried out in five domains of social practice: professional ethics, commercial ethics, corporate ethics, governmental ethics, and ethics in the voluntary sector. My aim is to show that “social ethics” courses can have a clear rationale and systematic content. (shrink)

This study aimed to identify the relationship between green human resource management practices and organizational performance. The case study conducted on Gaza University employees in Palestine. The sample of the study was complete census (100) employees using questionnaire as a main tool for primary data collection. Descriptive and quantitative approach used in this article. The general results of the study showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between GHRM practices and organizational performance. According to static analysis, there is no (...) clear vision about the selection steps at Gaza University that take away the environmental considerations of the job vacancy, as well as the steps in training employees a do not depend on the environmental dimension. The study recommended serious and continuous work to increase environmental awareness and the need to encourage the University for more GHRM practices using encouraging compensation plans and incentives develop and sustain environmental achievements. Also the study recommended that environmental performance evaluation must be within the job evaluation, the necessity of incorporating environmental management goals into the university performance evaluation model, and formulating green goals and objectives. (shrink)

La filosofía de la educación ocupa un lugar paradójico en el campo de los saberes. Diversas producciones teóricas - de filósofos y pedagogos - convergen en señalar este carácter problemático. Siendo un área temática propia de la filosofía, resulta un espacio en general poco disputado entre los filósofos, como si la educación no estuviera entre las grandes preocupaciones filosóficas de nuestro tiempo. Por el contrario, suelen ser pedagogos quienes llevan a cabo investigaciones y publicaciones en el área y, más aún, (...) quienes ofrecen la disciplina en universidades e institutos de formación. Por lo menos en la inmensa mayoría de las universidades de América Latina, filosofía de la educación, como disciplina, ya no pertenece a los Departamentos o Facultades de Filosofía sino a los de Ciencias de la Educación o Pedagogía. En filosofía de la educación, el “de” ha pasado de indicar materia y tema, aplicación de la filosofía, a señalar pertenencia a la educación. En los Congresos de Filosofía no suele siquiera conformarse un área de la materia. Con reticencias, algunas veces los filósofos admiten discutir cuestiones de didáctica de la filosofía. (shrink)

Many professional philosophers are hesitant about “public philosophy”—unsure about what it is and how it’s done, and downright pessimistic about whether it is an important and valuable philosophical practice. In response to this hesitancy and in support of public philosophy, I argue that most of these philosophers already find at least one form of public philosophy important and valuable for the discipline and profession: teaching. I offer and defend a broad conception of public philosophy in order support this controversial claim. (...) I continue by briefly offering some reasons to think that public philosophy is of value for society generally (i.e., “the public”), and argue that we, as a profession, need to fully recognize our standing commitment to public-facing philosophical work; and to engage in serious discussion and debate to better examine the various types of public philosophy, clarify the broad range of public-facing activities, and encourage/reward further public work of value. (shrink)

This article aims to map the locations of identity prejudice that occurs in the context of a Community of Inquiry. My claim is that epistemic injustice, which usually originates from seemingly ‘minor’ cases of identity prejudice, can potentially leak into the actual practice of P4wC. Drawing from Fricker, the various forms of epistemic injustice are made explicit when epistemic practices are framed within concrete social circumstances where power, privilege and authority intersect, which is observable in school settings. In connection, despite (...) the pedagogical improvements P4wC offers, some forms of identity prejudice prevalent in traditional classrooms may persist, affecting children who are identified with negatively stereotyped social groups. It is, therefore, important to pay attention to the reality of epistemic injustice and the possible locations where it may potentially surface in the COI. Drawing from my P4wC experience, I show that identity prejudice stems from the intersections of the roles and positionalities of the participants in a philosophical dialogue. These intersections point towards the epistemic relationships of the P4wC teacher, the students, and the P4wC program itself. I conclude that identity prejudice arises circumstantially and/or substantively in P4wC scholarship and practice. (shrink)

The mirror is the metaphor of what produces, together with the unity of our image, also its doubling, openingnt hereby the possibility of moving toward the state of reflection. What role can philosophy have to educate for reflection? Philosophy must "return to the mids of men" and, as J. Dewey suggests, in order to reflexive thinking to be carried out as a particular form of thought, it is necessary to dwell a state of doubt, discomfort, disorientation.

I present a novel approach to teaching ethics to students who are moral relativists. I argue that we should not try to convince students to abandon moral relativism; while we can and should present arguments against the view, we should not try to use these arguments to change students’ minds. Attempts to convince student relativists to change their minds can be disrespectful, and often overlook the reasons why students are relativists. I explain how instead to show moral relativists that their (...) commitment to relativism is also a commitment to studying ethics rigorously and engaging with the views of others. This approach is easier and more respectful than alternatives, and openness to relativism encourages good pedagogy. (shrink)

This is a collection of 13 essays honoring Steven Cahn, presented to him on the occasion of his 25th year as Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. The essays address issues concerning the teaching of philosophy, the responsibilities of professors, and the good life.

How should we design our economic systems? Should we tax the rich at a higher rate than the poor? Should we have a minimum wage? Should the state provide healthcare for all? These and many related questions are the subject of distributive justice, and different theories of distributive justice provide different ways to think about and answer such questions. This book provides a thorough introduction to the main theories of distributive justice and reveals the underlying sources of our disagreements about (...) economic policy. It argues that the universe of theories of distributive justice is surprisingly simple, yet complicated. It is simple in that the main theories of distributive justice are just four in number, and in that these theories each offer a distinct, well-defined theoretical approach to distributive justice; yet it is complicated in that the main theories disagree at several distinct, fundamental levels, and in that it is possible to spin innumerable new theories from the elements of the four main theories. (shrink)

In this MA-thesis in applied ethics a conceptual basis or framework is examined for teaching programs in medicine to be able to enhance strengths of character, skills and virtues – clinical maturity of future healthcare professionals. Concepts of virtue ethics and human understanding are sought from Aristotle‘s rich theory of ethics and applied theories from philosophy, psychology, education and medicine over the last 50 years to construct a conceptual framework of virtue and character education. As input to that construction, a (...) multifactorial quantitative study was done in the form of a questionnaire about strengths of character among medical students and medical doctors. This research revealed those virtues and skills that participants consider most important in the character of the ideal physician and the results were compared to a similar British study of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. The comparison indicated the existence of common human ethical traits which are reflected in the strong correlation of the professionals’ choice of the most important strengths of character and their consequent ranked order, between the two countries. Other parts of this study indicate that virtues and skills merge in functional clusters during the process of decision-making and work of medical professionals aiming for good ends. However, the high frequency of perceived stress at work among Icelandic physicians is reported to partially subdue their moral character at work. In summary, from the structured concepts in the above-mentioned theories and learned outcomes from these two studies, a suggested conceptual framework for virtue and character education in medicine is presented. The major challenges to its implementation are lack of formal education in its conceptual basis among teachers and lack of reliable ways to evaluate results among students. The evidence points to the importance of virtue and character education and that nurturing teaching environment is needed in medical universities and clinical setting of healthcare facilities, for it to flourish. (shrink)

In a multi-study naturalistic quasi-experiment involving 269 students in a semester-long introductory philosophy course, we investigated the effect of teaching argument diagramming on students’ scores on argument analysis tasks. An argument diagram is a visual representation of the content and structure of an argument. In each study, all of the students completed pre- and posttests containing argument analysis tasks. During the semester, the treatment group was taught AD, while the control group was not. The results were that among the different (...) pretest achievement levels, the scores of low-achieving students who were taught AD increased significantly more than the scores of low-achieving students who were not taught AD, while the scores of the intermediate- and high-achieving students did not differ significantly between the treatment and control groups. The implication of these studies is that learning AD significantly improves low-achieving students’ ability to analyze arguments. (shrink)

Philosophy in Education: Questioning and Dialog in K-12 Classrooms is a textbook in the fields of pre-college philosophy and philosophy of education, intended for philosophers and philosophy students, K-12 classroom teachers, administrators and educators, policymakers, and pre-college practitioners of all kinds.

Although much has been written about the nature of philosophy and how the discipline can be defined, little attention has been paid to the ways we develop the facility to reflect philosophically or why cultivating this ability is valuable. This article develops a conception of “philosophical sensitivity,” a perceptual capacity that facilitates our awareness of the philosophical dimension of experience. Based in part on Aristotle's notion of a moral perceptual capacity, philosophical sensitivity starts with most people's natural inclinations as children (...) to reflect about life's fundamental mysteries; when this capacity is cultivated with training over time, our attentiveness to the philosophical features of ordinary life becomes almost second nature. In much the same way an aesthetically sensitive person notices certain qualities of experience not readily perceptible by others, philosophical sensitivity involves the development of a particular way of seeing the world. (shrink)

This paper concentrates on friendship as the best context to philosophize. Although Aristotle says that even alone a person could contemplate the truth, it is possible to argue that a philosophical society is indeed necessary for human beings. In every friendship, it is necessary to share certain activities and, at the same time, notice the presence of the friend. In philosophical friendship, the shared activity is philosophy itself and mutual knowledge among friends acquires a peculiar character, because everyone does not (...) only consider the truth with the friend but also he thinks about it as shared with the friend. To teach philosophy represents a kind of unequal friendship, because teachers give to the disciples the great good of knowledge. Further, the paper argues that Aristotelian friendship could not be understood in a narcissistic way, since friends are loved because of their uniqueness and their personal character. (shrink)

Multiple-choice questions have an undeserved reputation for only being able to test student recall of basic facts. In fact, well-crafted mechanically gradable questions can measure very sophisticated cognitive skills, including those engaged at the highest level of Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of outcomes. In this article, I argue that multiple-choice questions should be a part of the diversified assessment portfolio for most philosophy courses. I present three arguments broadly related to fairness. First, multiple-choice questions allow one to consolidate subjective decision making (...) in a way that makes it easier to manage. Second, multiple-choice questions contribute to the diversity of an evaluation portfolio by balancing out problems with writing-based assessments. Third, by increasing the diversity of evaluations, multiple-choice questions increase the inclusiveness of the course. In the course of this argument I provide examples of multiple-choice questions that measure sophisticated learning and advice for how to write good multiple-choice questions. (shrink)

First Session of Society for Positive Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Studies (SPPIS), Haryana on the theme -/- “The Contribution of Contemporary Indian Philosophy to World Philosophy” -/- 30th June, 2012 -/- Organizes by Centre for Positive Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Studies (CPPIS), Milestone Education Society (Regd), Pehowa,(Kurukshetra)-136128 (HARYANA) -/- Preface -/- Part-I: Contemporary Indian Philosophers -/- Swami Vivekananda’s response towards religious fanaticism -/- Swami Vivekananda philosophises Easts in the West -/- Four Yogas and the Uniqueness of Swami Vivekananda’s Philosophy -/- The Ethics (...) of Work-A study of Swamiji’s Karma-Yoga -/- The Philosophy of Education in the Vision of Swami Vivekananda: A Brief Analysis -/- Swami Vivekananda on Indian Culture -/- Bhagat Singh as a Surefooted Revolutionary and His Verdure: A Foster- son of Colonialism -/- SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SAHEED BHAGAT SINGH -/- Karma as the main way in Gītā : Revisiting Tilak’s contribution to world Philosophy -/- Matter and Spirit: A True Reconciliation of Sri Aurobindo -/- A STUDY OF ECONOMIC IDEAS OF GANDHI AND NEHRU -/- Relevance of Gandhian Concept of Non-Violence in Today’s World -/- Science, Biotechnology and Yoga: An Aurobindian Perspective -/- Tagore’s Philosophy on Humanism -/- Casteism, Social Security and Violation of Human Rights -/- Part-II: General Themes -/- Materialism in the Śāstravārtasamuccaya of Haribhadra Sūri -/- Soul and Its Nature: Its Key Role and Impact in Development of Intellect in Man. -/- Faith and Worship: Two fundamental Human Concepts -/- Right System in Islam -/- Introduction to Theravada Buddhist Meditation -/- Annexures: -/- Programme Organised -/- Publications of the Centre -/- Organizing Committee . (shrink)

The article seeks to present an overview of the history of Byzantine philosophy. It takes its point of departure in the most important factors that influenced and shaped the Patristic thought. Subsequently, the paper considers the relative autonomy of Byzantine philosophy and offers a brief profile of major philosophers that contributed to the stream in the period from 9th to 15th century. From the numerous subjects that were taken into account by the most prominent Byzantine philosophers, the article discusses such (...) issues as: the view of God, the problem of ‘conceptual realism’, the relationship between such ‘disci plines’ as logic, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and philosophical anthro pology. Furthermore, such questions as the place of man in the world, the scope of their freedom and the problem of evil are also touched upon here. The paper concludes with some remarks on the develop ment of Byzantine philosophy after the fall of Byzantium. (shrink)

Philosophy as a way of life (PWOL) places investigations of value, meaning, and the good life at the center of philosophical investigation, especially of one’s own life. I argue PWOL is compatible with general introductory philosophy courses, further arguing that PWOL-based general introductions have several philosophical and pedagogical benefits. These include the ease with which high impact practices, situated skill development, and students’ ability to ‘think like a disciplinarian’ may be incorporated into such courses, relative to more traditional introductory courses, (...) as well as the demonstration of philosophy’s value to students by explicitly tying philosophical investigation to students own lives. (shrink)

The cultivation of intellectual character is an important goal within university education. This article focusses on cultivating intellectual humility. It first explores an account of intellectual humility from recent literature on the intellectual virtues. Then, it considers one recent pedagogical approach – Making Thinking Visible – as a means of teaching intellectual virtue. It assesses one particular technique for cultivating intellectual humility arising from this pedagogical literature, and applies it to the teaching of political philosophy. Finally, there is a discussion (...) concerning how to supplement these techniques to best teach political philosophy generally, and for the purposes of cultivating intellectual humility in particular. It is argued that, by introducing the technique of the Circle of Viewpoints, supplemented by techniques from the Compassion in Education literature, the modules I teach can better cultivate intellectual humility in my students. (shrink)

The high prevalence of brain injury incidents in adolescence and adulthood demands effective models for re-learning lost cognitive abilities. Impairment in brain injury survivors’ higher-level cognitive functions is common and a negative predictor for long-term outcome. We conducted two small-scale interventions (N = 12; 33.33% female) with persons with acquired brain injuries in two municipalities in Sweden. Age ranged from 17 to 65 years (M = 51.17, SD = 14.53). The interventions were dialogic, inquiry-based, and inspired by the Philosophy for (...) Children Programme, a participatory thinking skills approach with documented higher-order cognitive outcomes, such as developed argumentation skills, in other target groups. Philosophical dialogues were conducted once a week in the two groups, totalling 12 dialogues per group. Group argumentation development was measured through compared scores from structured observations of filmed dialogues early and late in the intervention. Large positive changes in mean scores from early to late in the intervention, together with constantly high facilitator quality, suggest argumentation development in the sample due to the intervention. (shrink)

This paper focuses on creating a paradigm shift; looking at how philosophy for and with children can inform philosophy, instead of having philosophy inform philosophy for and with children. My work in doing philosophy with children has shown me the limitations to trying to understand their way of doing philosophy through the lens of how adults understand philosophy and the influence western philosophy has had on the perception of what kids do when they are involved in philosophical group discussions. The (...) paradigm shift is relationally-based and for this I include the work of Martin Buber and David Bohm. Instead of looking at how we can develop critical thinking skills in children through developing their abstract thinking, I am interested in looking at what Bohm calls the tacit, concrete process of thinking. It’s the thinking that underlies thinking, so to speak. It’s the act of thinking underlying the abstract thinking we usually associate with thinking. In doing philosophy with children, I am interested in focusing on the process of thinking in the process of thinking. (shrink)

Some people think that the impulse to philosophise begins in early childhood: Gareth Matthews, for instance, in his Philosophy and the Young Child . His book begins ‘TIM , while busily engaged in licking a pot, asked, “Papa, how can we be sure that everything is not a dream?’” ‘Tim's puzzle,’ he tells us, ‘is quintessentially philosophical. Tim has framed a question that calls into doubt a very ordinary notion in such a way as to make us wonder whether we (...) really know something that most of us unquestioningly assume we know.’. (shrink)

A resume of classical philosophy since Plato and Aristotle until Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine.

In this paper, I present a decision procedure for evaluating arguments expressed in natural language. I think that other instructors of informal logic and critical thinking might find this decision procedure to be a useful addition to their teaching resources.

In this paper, I describe the way in which I introduce arguments for the existence of God to undergraduate students in Introduction to Philosophy.

This essay narrates what I have learned from Søren Kierkegaard & John Dewey about teaching philosophy. It consists of three sections: 1) a Deweyan pragmatist’s translation of Kierkegaard’s religious insights on Christianity, as a way of life, into ethical insights on philosophy, as a way of life; 2) a brief description of the introductory course that I teach most frequently: Ethics, Happiness, & The Good Life; and 3) an exploration of three spiritual exercises from the course: a) self-cultivation by means (...) of writing in an Ethics Notebook, b) an “existential experiment” in which we practice one of Aristotle’s virtues for a week, and c) a 15-hour service-learning component. (shrink)

The importance of enchancing metacognition and encouraging active learning in philosophy teaching has been increasingly recognised in recent years. Yet traditional teaching methods have not always centralised helping students to become reflectively and critically aware of the quality and consistency of their own thinking. This is particularly relevant when teaching moral philosophy, where apparently inconsistent intuitions and responses are common. In this paper I discuss the theoretical basis of the relevance of metacognition and active learning for teaching moral philosophy. Applying (...) recent discussions of metacognition, intuition conflicts and survey-based teaching techniques, I then outline a strategy for encouraging metacognitive awareness of tensions in students’ pretheoretical beliefs, and developing a critical self-awareness of their development as moral thinkers. (shrink)

In this paper I hope to show that the idea of teaching philosophy through teaching computer science is a project worth pursuing. In the first section I will sketch a variety of ways in which philosophy and computer science might interact. Then I will give a brief rationale for teaching philosophy through teaching computer science. Then I will introduce three philosophical issues (among others) that have pedagogically useful analogues in computer science: (i) external world skepticism, (ii) numerical vs. qualitative identity, (...) and (iii) the existence of God. (shrink)

This article argues for the importance of disciplinarity in the education of novice sociologists and considers the impact of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) on opportunities for undergraduate students to achieve a command of the discipline. The promotion of modularization and generic skills integral to establishing the EHEA can be understood as incrementally undermining disciplinarity. Moreover, values enshrined in the EHEA specifically disadvantage sociological disciplinarity by promoting service to the market over mastery of a discipline. This article presents the (...) Republic of Ireland as an example of a national context in which sociology is most commonly taught within multidisciplinary degree programs and argues that the Irish experience may be portentous of more global trends, linking the structural position of sociology in Ireland to the wider European policy context. Finally, the article explores ways in which sociologists teaching in such contexts can nonetheless promote disciplinarity. (shrink)

On the differing practices and assumptions in the academic specialisms of environmental studies and STS.

In philosophy, much attention has rightly been paid to the need to diversify teaching with regard to who teaches, who is taught, and which authors and questions are the focus of study. Less attention, however, has been paid to inclusive pedagogy—the teaching methods that are used, and how they can make or fail to make classes as accessible as possible to the diverse students who enter them. By drawing on experiences from our own teaching as well as research on student-centered, (...) inclusive best practices, we advocate for five principles of inclusive pedagogy: fostering a growth mindset, examining inclusive conceptions of authority, promoting transparency, encouraging flexibility, and, finally, continually promoting self-reflection for both students and teachers. (shrink)

This paper investigates how an introductory philosophy course influences the moral and political development of undergraduate students in a Liberal Arts university in Central Asia. Within a context of rapid changes characteristic of transitional societies—reflected in the organization of higher education—philosophy provides students with the means to reason about moral and political values in a way that overcomes the old ideological tenets as well as contemporary reluctance to theoretical inquiry. Studying philosophy provides a remedy for deficiencies in both secondary and (...) higher education, by improving general reading and reasoning skills, that enable the development of moral reasoning. Furthermore, familiarity with major works of moral and political philosophy can help students comprehend the patterns of social change, as well as surmount the issue of unsatisfactory theoretical foundations for social science. (shrink)

Virgil W. Brower writes that courses based on intense discussions of great works of literature need not be limited to elite institutions.

Este artigo propõe a adoção do método da análise de conceitos conforme apresentada por John Wilson, como metodologia pedagógica e principal conteúdo para a disciplina de filosofia no ensino médio.

This book introduces readers to the many arguments and controversies concerning abortion. While it argues for ethical and legal positions on the issues, it focuses on how to think about the issues, not just what to think about them. It is an ideal resource to improve your understanding of what people think, why they think that and whether their (and your) arguments are good or bad, and why. It's ideal for classroom use, discussion groups, organizational learning, and personal reading. -/- (...) From the Preface -/- To many people, abortion is an issue for which discussions and debates are frustrating and fruitless: it seems like no progress will ever be made towards any understanding, much less resolution or even compromise. -/- Judgments like these, however, are premature because some basic techniques from critical thinking, such as carefully defining words and testing definitions, stating the full structure of arguments so each step of the reasoning can be examined, and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different explanations can help us make progress towards these goals. -/- When emotions run high, we sometimes need to step back and use a passion for calm, cool, critical thinking. This helps us better understand the positions and arguments of people who see things differently from us, as well as our own positions and arguments. And we can use critical thinking skills help to try to figure out which positions are best, in terms of being supported by good arguments: after all, we might have much to learn from other people, sometimes that our own views should change, for the better. -/- Here we use basic critical thinking skills to argue that abortion is typically not morally wrong. We begin with less morally-controversial claims: adults, children and babies are wrong to kill and wrong to kill, fundamentally, because they, we, are conscious, aware and have feelings. We argue that since early fetuses entirely lack these characteristics, they are not inherently wrong to kill and so most abortions are not morally wrong, since most abortions are done early in pregnancy, before consciousness and feeling develop in the fetus. -/- Furthermore, since the right to life is not the right to someone else’s body, fetuses might not have the right to the pregnant woman’s body—which she has the right to—and so she has the right to not allow the fetus use of her body. This further justifies abortion, at least, until technology allows for the removal of fetuses to other wombs. Since morally permissible actions should be legal, abortions should be legal: it is an injustice to criminalizing actions that are not wrong. -/- In the course of arguing for these claims, we: 1. discuss how to best define abortion; 2. dismiss many common “question-begging” arguments that merely assume their conclusions, instead of giving genuine reasons for them; 3. refute some often-heard “everyday arguments” about abortion, on all sides; explain why the most influential philosophical arguments against abortion are unsuccessful; 4. provide some positive arguments that at least early abortions are not wrong; 5. briefly discuss the ethics and legality of later abortions, and more. -/- This essay is not a “how to win an argument” piece or a tract or any kind of apologetics. It is not designed to help anyone “win” debates: everybody “wins” on this issue when we calmly and respectfully engage arguments with care, charity, honesty and humility. This book is merely a reasoned, systematic introduction to the issues that we hope models these skills and virtues. Its discussion should not be taken as absolute “proof” of anything: much more needs to be understood and carefully discussed—always. (shrink)

Collected and edited by Noah Levin -/- Table of Contents: -/- UNIT ONE: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ETHICS: TECHNOLOGY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, AND IMMIGRATION 1 The “Trolley Problem” and Self-Driving Cars: Your Car’s Moral Settings (Noah Levin) 2 What is Ethics and What Makes Something a Problem for Morality? (David Svolba) 3 Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr) 4 A Defense of Affirmative Action (Noah Levin) 5 The Moral Issues of Immigration (B.M. Wooldridge) 6 The Ethics of our (...) Digital Selves (Noah Levin) -/- UNIT TWO: TORTURE, DEATH, AND THE “GREATER GOOD” 7 The Ethics of Torture (Martine Berenpas) 8 What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples? (B.M. Wooldridge) 9 Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing (Nathan Nobis) 10 An Argument Against Capital Punishment (Noah Levin) 11 Common Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) 12 Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) -/- UNIT THREE: PERSONS, AUTONOMY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND RIGHTS 13 Animal Rights (Eduardo Salazar) 14 John Rawls and the “Veil of Ignorance” (Ben Davies) 15 Environmental Ethics: Climate Change (Jonathan Spelman) 16 Rape, Date Rape, and the “Affirmative Consent” Law in California (Noah Levin) 17 The Ethics of Pornography: Deliberating on a Modern Harm (Eduardo Salazar) 18 The Social Contract (Thomas Hobbes) -/- UNIT FOUR: HAPPINESS 19 Is Pleasure all that Matters? Thoughts on the “Experience Machine” (Prabhpal Singh) 20 Utilitarianism (J.S. Mill) 21 Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge) 22 Existentialism, Genetic Engineering, and the Meaning of Life: The Fifths (Noah Levin) 23 The Solitude of the Self (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 24 Game Theory, the Nash Equilibrium, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Douglas E. Hill) -/- UNIT FIVE: RELIGION, LAW, AND ABSOLUTE MORALITY 25 The Myth of Gyges and The Crito (Plato) 26 God, Morality, and Religion (Kristin Seemuth Whaley) 27 The Categorical Imperative (Immanuel Kant) 28 The Virtues (Aristotle) 29 Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche) 30 Other Moral Theories: Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, etc. (Jan F. Jacko). (shrink)

According to Val Plumwood (1995), liberal-democracy is an authoritarian political system that protects privilege but fails to protect nature. A major obstacle, she says, is radical inequality, which has become increasingly far-reaching under liberal-democracy; an indicator of ‘the capacity of its privileged groups to distribute social goods upwards and to create rigidities which hinder the democratic correctiveness of social institutions’ (p. 134). This cautionary tale has repercussions for education, especially civics and citizenship education. To address this, we explore the potential (...) of what Gerard Delanty calls ‘cultural citizenship’ as an alternative to the disciplinary citizenship that permeates Western liberal discourse. Cultural citizenship emphasises citizenship as communication and continual learning processes, rejecting the idea of citizenship as a fixed set of cultural ideals, norms or values defined and enforced by liberal society’s legal, political and cultural institutions, including education and ‘citizenship training’. However, we contend that a critical first step, essential to democratic correctiveness, is to clear away obstacles created by the privileging of a dominant epistemic position. We conclude that Plumwood’s philosophy alongside John Dewey’s work on democracy and education provide a theoretical framework for effective democratic inquiry aimed towards interconnective, deliberative practice and corrective methodology for epistemic accountability. (shrink)

I argue that philosophy must push back against the business model of education in order to achieve its aim to increase diversity and inclusiveness in our discipline.

The goal of this essay is to explain how Wittgenstein's philosophy may be helpful for understanding and addressing challenges to cross-cultural communication in educational contexts. In particular, the notions of “hinge,” “intellectual distance,” and “grounds” from On Certainty will be helpful for identifying cultural differences. Wittgenstein's dialogical conception of philosophy in Philosophical Investigations will be helpful for addressing that cultural difference in conversation. While here can be no panacea to address all potential sources of confusion, Wittgenstein's philosophy has strong resources (...) that are helpful for curbing some of our human tendencies to misunderstand other people. (shrink)

Fourteen philosophers share their experience teaching Peirce to undergraduates in a variety of settings and a variety of courses. The latter include introductory philosophy courses as well as upper-level courses in American philosophy, philosophy of religion, logic, philosophy of science, medieval philosophy, semiotics, metaphysics, etc., and even an upper-level course devoted entirely to Peirce. The project originates in a session devoted to teaching Peirce held at the 2007 annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. The session, (...) organized by James Campbell and Richard Hart, was co-sponsored by the American Association of Philosophy Teachers. (shrink)