PEA Soup

An open text in moral theory?

I'd be curious to know if some of our contributors and readers would be interested in collaborating with me on creating an open online textbook in moral theory. Open source textbooks hold promise in reducing costs to students and making scholarly knowledge more publicly available. There are quite a lot of open resources in philosophy (particularly in logic, it seems) but not a high quality textbook on normative moral theory. I'll admit to not knowing all that much about some of the likely technical issues (the design and layout, how best to disseminate such works, etc.) we would face, but my thought is that a team of 3-5 with the right technical knowhow, a strong publishing history in moral theory, and some pedagogical flair could create a great resource.

Please contact me if you're interested - thanks!

Metaethics Flowchart

I am teaching a graduate-level metaethics survey course this semester and would like to give my students a flowchart to help them keep track of the field. I've seen a couple around but none were quite what I was looking for. So I'm making my own. I'm posting it here in the hopes that (selfishly) I get feedback and (somewhat less selfishly) others will be able to make use of it. The current draft is here:

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/faraci/metaethics.pdf

Should better teachers give higher grades?

THIS POST IS BY DOUG PORTMORE, NOT DAVID SOBEL.

We haven’t had a post on professional issues lately, but I hope that readers won’t mind a bit of light reading. In any case, here it goes:

Suppose that I’ve become a better teacher. Suppose, for instance, that I’ve used the same bank of test questions over the years and that, due to implementing certain non-substantive changes in my PHI X course, students taking that course from me this year are doing a better job answering those questions than students who took the same course from me in previous years. So the material that I’m trying to get the students to learn and the technique that I’ve been using for assessing whether they’ve learned it hasn’t change, but I’ve become more effective in that my current students are, on average, leaving the course with a better understanding of the material than students who took the same course from me in previous years.

The question, then, is: Should I (A) adopt higher standards with respect to what level of understanding I expect from them so as to earn certain grades or (B) keep the same standards and give higher grades on average than I had been giving in previous years?

Survey: Teaching Contemporary Moral Issues and Problems

Nathan Nobis writes:

I have created a survey to try to identify which topics are most commonly addressed in introductory ethics courses that have a contemporary moral issues or problems component. If (and only if) you teach a course that focuses on practical issues (with little to no discussion of moral theory) or has a mix of theory and problems (either a unit on theory and then problems or a mix of theory and problems throughout), please fill out this survey below:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ethics-course-survey

Results will be posted here:

https://sites.google.com/site/nobisphilosophy/ethics-course-survey 

Student Involvement in Social Ethics Courses

After teaching mostly theoretical ethics and narrowly focused applied ethics courses for a number of years, I'm now considering developing a syllabus for a course in "Social Ethics."  The standard practice in such courses, and the approach I'm considering adopting, is to pick a number of different issues of social controversy such as abortion, sweatshop labor, etc., and have the students read articles 'pro' and 'con.'  

Such a course seems to present a lot of opportunities for student involvement.  The issues are interesting to them, and the readings tend to be more accessible than, say, Kant's Groundwork.  But what's the best way to incorporate such involvement into the syllabus?  One possibility is to structure the week so that we read a 'pro' article on Monday, a 'con' article on Wednesday, and then have some kind of student discussion or debate on Friday.  Perhaps certain students can even be in charge of presenting the 'pro' and 'con' arguments on Monday and Wednesday.  

I'm curious to hear what other people have tried in a course like this.  What's worked well, and what hasn't?  I'm especially interested in the question of how to get students involved in classroom activity in a pedagogically useful way, but as a secondary matter I'd also be interested in particular topics/articles that have worked well or poorly for you in such a course.

The ethics of the faculty furlough

Let's get a little down to earth here at PEA Soup: I may have to confront an actual ethical quandary in a few months, and I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts about how I ought to respond.

Budget woes in the California State University system are severe.  One possibility being considered for the fall is to reduce personnel costs by imposing 'furloughs' on all CSU employees, faculty included.  This would mandate that faculty take 1-2 days off per month and take about a 5% cut in their gross pay. Now, as I gather most people understand, I don't actually teach, attend meetings or even come to my campus 5 days a week. The norm is that I come three or four days a week, and often spend the other weekdays, my evenings, and my weekends doing much of the work that constitutes my job (preparing class meeting, grading papers, doing my philosophical research and writing). There's definitely five days per week of work, just not five days per week at work.

The issue is: Should I respond to the furlough mandate by working less, the equivalent of 1-2 days per month? And if so, where should I reduce my efforts? Some possibilities:

 

The Early Modern Philosophy Curriculum

Many philosophy departments require a course in the history of (usually early) modern philosophy for their majors.  My impression of the way such courses are usually taught is that they focus on metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind:  the metaphysics of substances; the epistemology of empiricism versus rationalism, both of which are classically foundationalist; ideas, impressions, and other varieties of sense data in the philosophy of mind. I imagine that this curriculum was set back in the mid-twentieth century, when M&E was considered “real” philosophy.  But nowadays, it strikes me as bizarre.

Journalism Ethics bleg

I need to help develop an undergraduate course on ethics in journalism and the media, to be taken primarily by aspiring TV/film writers and producers.  Have any of our readers ever taught such a course?  Anyone willing to share syllabi, advice about texts, etc.?  Thanks!

Virtue Bleg

Yes, well, I realize that the genuine article is not transferable. 

I am teaching a 400-level course on virtue ethics next spring.  I’m looking for reading-list suggestions.  They need to be relatively short, readable, accessible to majors.  I’d ideally like a broad selection of ancient/modern/contemporary, East/West, religious/secular.  I’m also a fan of intro-level hand-holding kinds of texts for students, so any suggestions on that front would be welcome as well.  Thanks! 

The Bowl is more than half full

<Cross-posted at In Socrates' Wake>

I wanted to put in a plug for what is certainly one of the best pedagogical developments in philosophy over the past decade: Ethics Bowl. I'm sure many of our readers are familiar with this competition and its value as a teaching tool. I'll only add my own observations here about the value of Ethics Bowl as a teaching tool and invite others to discuss their experiences with it. (I also have some tips for those interested in getting Ethics Bowl started on their campus, so please contact me if you're interested.)

As I see it, Ethics Bowl provides three things that are very hard to come by in traditional philosophy classroom settings: