There are numerous ethical theories from which faculty may choose to teach in undergraduate philo... more There are numerous ethical theories from which faculty may choose to teach in undergraduate philosophical ethics courses. Whether learning such theories results in ethical behavior change remains an open question. If one of the goals of teaching ethics is to support ethical behavior, then alternative approaches are merited. Within the past decades, there has been a growing emphasis on mindfulness and compassion-based practices in particular, as applied to psychotherapy in the field of psychology. Such findings have bearing on ways in which compassion-based practices might be fruitful in the philosophical ethics classroom. This article will identify issues with the dominant approach to teaching philosophical ethics, focusing on the need for a bridge between theory and action. It will also explore the potential benefits of utilizing mindfulness in the classroom, with a focus on compassion-based practices such as loving-kindness, to contribute to meeting this need to enhance the teaching of undergraduate philosophical ethics.
This paper is situated at the intersection of ethics, pedagogy, and bias. Various challenges for ... more This paper is situated at the intersection of ethics, pedagogy, and bias. Various challenges for pedagogy that are posed by explicit and implicit bias are discussed. Potential solutions to such challenges are then explored. These include practices such as enhanced thought experiments, interviews, research projects, in-depth role-playing, action projects, and appropriately morally deferential experiential service-learning. Moral imagination can be beneficially stretched through adopting differing moral lenses and engaging and encouraging multiple empathizing; art and literary narrative provide helpful tools to this end. Also recommended is critical scrutiny focused on personal biases (including teacher bias) and developing curriculum focused on moral literacy. Such moves of necessity span from individual to public action given the environmental components of the operations of bias. Shaping ourselves through intentional environment construction and avoidance of undesirable environments is therefore identified as a valuable technique. Finally, the potential contribution of loving-kindness meditation is addressed. Although we may be unable at present to eradicate problematic forms of bias, there are multiple methods available to begin to ameliorate the harms associated with those forms of bias.
The neoliberal ideology that is hijacking educational institutions entails an atomistic, individu... more The neoliberal ideology that is hijacking educational institutions entails an atomistic, individualistic, and Western vision of self. Students are understood as competitive, economic, homogenous entities. Interpreted as information stockpiles, students collect the data necessary for the regurgitation that enables assuming their role in the marketplace. Alternatively, the ecological conception of self is relational, cooperative, embraces community relations, and reflects the insights of ecology. Students are recognized as diverse in terms of their particular learning needs, interests, strengths, and relevant personal history. The vision of the self that serves as the foundation to neoliberal shifts in education is, I argue, unhealthy, epistemically untenable, and problematically contradictory. Nurturing students’ ecological selfhood is one way to subvert the neoliberal conceptualization of self and its attendant ideological constructions and assumptions.
‘This class is so [insert expletive] depressing.’ I overheard a student
communicating this to a ... more ‘This class is so [insert expletive] depressing.’ I overheard a student
communicating this to a friend upon exiting one of my ethics courses and I wondered how my classes could generate a sense of empowerment rather than depression, a sense of hope rather than despair. Drawing from David Hume’s and Martin Hoffman’s work on the psychology of empathy and sympathy, I contend that dominant Western philosophical pedagogy is inadequate for facilitating morally empowered students. Moreover, I stipulate that an adequate analysis of the role emotion should play in pedagogy requires tending to the politics of emotional expression and how oppression functions. I argue that ethical educators have a moral responsibility to facilitate not only critical moral thinking but critical moral agency. Part of ethical education should involve the provision of tools for effective citizen engagement, and reasoning alone is insufficient for this goal. The role of emotion in ethical decision-making and action remains devalued and under-analyzed. Approaches that fail to adequately recognize the role of emotion in ethical education are to the detriment of effective ethical pedagogy. I recommend a number of methods for remedying
this omission so as to provide tools for moral action.
This article gives a broad sense of existing debate about Global Citizenship Education (GCE) to h... more This article gives a broad sense of existing debate about Global Citizenship Education (GCE) to help situate and contextualize a novel case study. Scholars for Syria originated at a small university in southern Indiana. This grassroots response to the turmoil in Syria bridges the gap between a seemingly distant crisis and a midwestern city in the United States. The unique pedagogical and curricular dimensions of the case study work as a helpful framing device for facilitating exploration of debates about the shape of GCE, as well as providing new ways in which to imagine GCE curriculum, pedagogy, and embedding ethics into wider university initiatives.
There are numerous ethical theories from which faculty may choose to teach in undergraduate philo... more There are numerous ethical theories from which faculty may choose to teach in undergraduate philosophical ethics courses. Whether learning such theories results in ethical behavior change remains an open question. If one of the goals of teaching ethics is to support ethical behavior, then alternative approaches are merited. Within the past decades, there has been a growing emphasis on mindfulness and compassion-based practices in particular, as applied to psychotherapy in the field of psychology. Such findings have bearing on ways in which compassion-based practices might be fruitful in the philosophical ethics classroom. This article will identify issues with the dominant approach to teaching philosophical ethics, focusing on the need for a bridge between theory and action. It will also explore the potential benefits of utilizing mindfulness in the classroom, with a focus on compassion-based practices such as loving-kindness, to contribute to meeting this need to enhance the teaching of undergraduate philosophical ethics.
This paper is situated at the intersection of ethics, pedagogy, and bias. Various challenges for ... more This paper is situated at the intersection of ethics, pedagogy, and bias. Various challenges for pedagogy that are posed by explicit and implicit bias are discussed. Potential solutions to such challenges are then explored. These include practices such as enhanced thought experiments, interviews, research projects, in-depth role-playing, action projects, and appropriately morally deferential experiential service-learning. Moral imagination can be beneficially stretched through adopting differing moral lenses and engaging and encouraging multiple empathizing; art and literary narrative provide helpful tools to this end. Also recommended is critical scrutiny focused on personal biases (including teacher bias) and developing curriculum focused on moral literacy. Such moves of necessity span from individual to public action given the environmental components of the operations of bias. Shaping ourselves through intentional environment construction and avoidance of undesirable environments is therefore identified as a valuable technique. Finally, the potential contribution of loving-kindness meditation is addressed. Although we may be unable at present to eradicate problematic forms of bias, there are multiple methods available to begin to ameliorate the harms associated with those forms of bias.
The neoliberal ideology that is hijacking educational institutions entails an atomistic, individu... more The neoliberal ideology that is hijacking educational institutions entails an atomistic, individualistic, and Western vision of self. Students are understood as competitive, economic, homogenous entities. Interpreted as information stockpiles, students collect the data necessary for the regurgitation that enables assuming their role in the marketplace. Alternatively, the ecological conception of self is relational, cooperative, embraces community relations, and reflects the insights of ecology. Students are recognized as diverse in terms of their particular learning needs, interests, strengths, and relevant personal history. The vision of the self that serves as the foundation to neoliberal shifts in education is, I argue, unhealthy, epistemically untenable, and problematically contradictory. Nurturing students’ ecological selfhood is one way to subvert the neoliberal conceptualization of self and its attendant ideological constructions and assumptions.
‘This class is so [insert expletive] depressing.’ I overheard a student
communicating this to a ... more ‘This class is so [insert expletive] depressing.’ I overheard a student
communicating this to a friend upon exiting one of my ethics courses and I wondered how my classes could generate a sense of empowerment rather than depression, a sense of hope rather than despair. Drawing from David Hume’s and Martin Hoffman’s work on the psychology of empathy and sympathy, I contend that dominant Western philosophical pedagogy is inadequate for facilitating morally empowered students. Moreover, I stipulate that an adequate analysis of the role emotion should play in pedagogy requires tending to the politics of emotional expression and how oppression functions. I argue that ethical educators have a moral responsibility to facilitate not only critical moral thinking but critical moral agency. Part of ethical education should involve the provision of tools for effective citizen engagement, and reasoning alone is insufficient for this goal. The role of emotion in ethical decision-making and action remains devalued and under-analyzed. Approaches that fail to adequately recognize the role of emotion in ethical education are to the detriment of effective ethical pedagogy. I recommend a number of methods for remedying
this omission so as to provide tools for moral action.
This article gives a broad sense of existing debate about Global Citizenship Education (GCE) to h... more This article gives a broad sense of existing debate about Global Citizenship Education (GCE) to help situate and contextualize a novel case study. Scholars for Syria originated at a small university in southern Indiana. This grassroots response to the turmoil in Syria bridges the gap between a seemingly distant crisis and a midwestern city in the United States. The unique pedagogical and curricular dimensions of the case study work as a helpful framing device for facilitating exploration of debates about the shape of GCE, as well as providing new ways in which to imagine GCE curriculum, pedagogy, and embedding ethics into wider university initiatives.
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communicating this to a friend upon exiting one of my ethics courses and I wondered how my classes could generate a sense of empowerment rather than depression, a sense of hope rather than despair. Drawing from David Hume’s and Martin Hoffman’s work on the psychology of empathy and sympathy, I contend that dominant Western philosophical pedagogy is inadequate for facilitating morally empowered students. Moreover, I stipulate that an adequate analysis of the role emotion should play in pedagogy requires tending to the politics of emotional expression and how oppression functions. I argue that ethical educators have a moral responsibility to facilitate not only critical moral thinking but critical moral agency. Part of ethical education should involve the provision of tools for effective citizen engagement, and reasoning alone is insufficient for this goal. The role of emotion in ethical decision-making and action remains devalued and under-analyzed. Approaches that fail to adequately recognize the role of emotion in ethical education are to the detriment of effective ethical pedagogy. I recommend a number of methods for remedying
this omission so as to provide tools for moral action.
communicating this to a friend upon exiting one of my ethics courses and I wondered how my classes could generate a sense of empowerment rather than depression, a sense of hope rather than despair. Drawing from David Hume’s and Martin Hoffman’s work on the psychology of empathy and sympathy, I contend that dominant Western philosophical pedagogy is inadequate for facilitating morally empowered students. Moreover, I stipulate that an adequate analysis of the role emotion should play in pedagogy requires tending to the politics of emotional expression and how oppression functions. I argue that ethical educators have a moral responsibility to facilitate not only critical moral thinking but critical moral agency. Part of ethical education should involve the provision of tools for effective citizen engagement, and reasoning alone is insufficient for this goal. The role of emotion in ethical decision-making and action remains devalued and under-analyzed. Approaches that fail to adequately recognize the role of emotion in ethical education are to the detriment of effective ethical pedagogy. I recommend a number of methods for remedying
this omission so as to provide tools for moral action.