I had to cancel class yesterday, at nearly the last minute. Symptoms from Ménière's came on, over a one-hour period, and I was unable to stand much sound or understand much speech. I wrote up a prompt for an online threaded discussion, based on the structure I had set up for the class session. Then I drove up to a fruit stand and bought some stuff.
That afternoon, we took a bike ride. I had intended to ride around 20 miles or so that afternoon anyway, but the loss of good hearing, and especially the differential head pressure from one side to the other, made it seem like that was a bad idea.
This morning, I have canceled my face-to-face class sessions for the day. I've again posted online discussions for the classes. My head is more evenly pressured and my ears are more equally hearingless, and that makes a longer bike ride more viable.
Cycling is the best thing I do for my physical and mental health. It reduces anxiety and depression -- a lot. Even when I have some symptoms, the change in my blood pressure while I'm on the bike reduces them, and usually for at least an hour or so afterwards. I am also trying to get stronger and faster. All good reasons to go.
I have a serious qualm about going, which is that a student in one of my classes might happen to see me, zooming by, apparently healthy. I might appear to be malingering.
In fact, I am struggling with an internal accusation that I am malingering. I'm not "sick" in a typical sense, after all. I'm not bed-ridden, debilitated by a vertigo attack. I believe I'm thinking fairly clearly. I can write and read -- hell, I've just read about 40 pages of Ernesto Laclau's On Populist Reason. If my mood wasn't so sour, I'd probably be capable of making jokes.
Yet, I am disabled, in the sense that my job normally requires vocal/aural interaction, or at least physical presence in a place where I am subject to people talking to me, crowd noise, and the various sounds of HVAC plants, landscapers' equipment, vehicles, and so on. (In fact, yesterday it was the HVAC system on top of the building housing our natural science departments that told me I wasn't teaching face-to-face. What is usually an obnoxious squeal and rattle was a screaming, percussive detonation.)
I've asked for, and have been granted, having my classes scheduled as "hybrid" in person/online courses, in order to inform students enrolling that this is part of what they'll be dealing with. And by posting the assignments and setting up the discussion fora I'll be reading and commenting on for hours later, I'm doing my job. Still, nagging at me, is the wonder about how this will be perceived.
Is that going to stop me getting on the bike? Not today.
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Friday, September 08, 2017
Thursday, September 07, 2017
setting limits
Faculty work is open-ended, and difficult to quantify. This creates a number of tensions in labor relations between faculty and administration, and where there are labor relations tensions, you can bet there are ethical issues as well.
The work faculty do is mostly invisible to most people, because it is outside the classroom. Scholarly work happens in any place that it makes sense: the field of study determines that it might be a library, or one's living room chair, or a literal field. The work can arise in odd hours, and some faculty also choose to work in odd hours, and most of us work on weekends during the academic year.
We could measure faculty work by simply counting up all the hours, but I believe that would miss an important feature of the kind of work faculty do. Because much of it is intellectual work, and because we have our brains with us most of the time, faculty work can happen when faculty are not expressly working. When I'm riding my bike, my mind wanders all over the place, but often splurts out stuff I need to do with classes or something scholarly I'm writing.
Faculty also usually do committee work in their departments, colleges, and the university at large, and work in professional or community organizations. Faculty are often assigned work that is atypical of what we think is faculty work, e.g., directing a program, designing a course, or facilitating an internship. These tasks seem to generate more than their share of conflicts between faculty and administration over the limits of faculty work. I want to argue that a key reason for this is because of a faculty ethic of caring or of donation.
If faculty are expected to work during the academic year, but not required to work during the summer, it might seem obvious that they cannot be called on to perform a task for their university employer during the summer. They are "off contract." Yet frequently enough, faculty give their time and energy to the university even then, or during the academic year, add to their workload by assuming additional tasks, committee responsibilities, etc. Faculty tend to identify very strongly with and care a great deal for their disciplines, their departments, their colleagues, and their universities. They give a lot of themselves, even within the minimum required work of teaching, research, and service. When the call comes to do even more, we tend to do it, if sometimes begrudgingly, because of that identity and caring.
When a faculty member says "no" to the administration, or to fellow faculty, this is a claim to setting a limit to work. It's difficult to understand the claim, though, because of the open-endedness of faculty work in general and because of the faculty ethic of caring and donation. In fact, "no" seems to require justification, even "off contract."
At their worst, the tensions this provokes become serious conflicts. For instance, someone with an academic-year "director" position may be called upon by the administration to do that work during the summer, under the presumption that the "director" gig implies being on-call--even if the job description explicitly says it is an academic-year only position.
Some administrators may take cynical advantage of the faculty ethic of caring and donation, and manipulate faculty into volunteering work without pay. Some fellow faculty may do this as well. But when it isn't cynical, the problem can still arise, which tells me that the ethic itself is part of the problem.
Faculty are not generally very good at saying "no," and not very good at understanding the limits of what they can do. The faculty who have arrived in their positions by way of being successful undergraduate and graduate students have developed capacities to work tremendous amounts under high levels of stress. Some of us may be hooked on it. Some of us use it as an escape. Some of us may take it as a point of pride. Saying "no" seems to be an admission that one is not superhuman after all.
What I think is called for is articulating the ethic of caring and donation, trying to distinguish it from some of the behaviors that lead to the attitude that saying "no" is somehow wrong, and using this articulated ethic to consider the problem of limits. So, more on this to come, I guess.
The work faculty do is mostly invisible to most people, because it is outside the classroom. Scholarly work happens in any place that it makes sense: the field of study determines that it might be a library, or one's living room chair, or a literal field. The work can arise in odd hours, and some faculty also choose to work in odd hours, and most of us work on weekends during the academic year.
We could measure faculty work by simply counting up all the hours, but I believe that would miss an important feature of the kind of work faculty do. Because much of it is intellectual work, and because we have our brains with us most of the time, faculty work can happen when faculty are not expressly working. When I'm riding my bike, my mind wanders all over the place, but often splurts out stuff I need to do with classes or something scholarly I'm writing.
Faculty also usually do committee work in their departments, colleges, and the university at large, and work in professional or community organizations. Faculty are often assigned work that is atypical of what we think is faculty work, e.g., directing a program, designing a course, or facilitating an internship. These tasks seem to generate more than their share of conflicts between faculty and administration over the limits of faculty work. I want to argue that a key reason for this is because of a faculty ethic of caring or of donation.
If faculty are expected to work during the academic year, but not required to work during the summer, it might seem obvious that they cannot be called on to perform a task for their university employer during the summer. They are "off contract." Yet frequently enough, faculty give their time and energy to the university even then, or during the academic year, add to their workload by assuming additional tasks, committee responsibilities, etc. Faculty tend to identify very strongly with and care a great deal for their disciplines, their departments, their colleagues, and their universities. They give a lot of themselves, even within the minimum required work of teaching, research, and service. When the call comes to do even more, we tend to do it, if sometimes begrudgingly, because of that identity and caring.
When a faculty member says "no" to the administration, or to fellow faculty, this is a claim to setting a limit to work. It's difficult to understand the claim, though, because of the open-endedness of faculty work in general and because of the faculty ethic of caring and donation. In fact, "no" seems to require justification, even "off contract."
At their worst, the tensions this provokes become serious conflicts. For instance, someone with an academic-year "director" position may be called upon by the administration to do that work during the summer, under the presumption that the "director" gig implies being on-call--even if the job description explicitly says it is an academic-year only position.
Some administrators may take cynical advantage of the faculty ethic of caring and donation, and manipulate faculty into volunteering work without pay. Some fellow faculty may do this as well. But when it isn't cynical, the problem can still arise, which tells me that the ethic itself is part of the problem.
Faculty are not generally very good at saying "no," and not very good at understanding the limits of what they can do. The faculty who have arrived in their positions by way of being successful undergraduate and graduate students have developed capacities to work tremendous amounts under high levels of stress. Some of us may be hooked on it. Some of us use it as an escape. Some of us may take it as a point of pride. Saying "no" seems to be an admission that one is not superhuman after all.
What I think is called for is articulating the ethic of caring and donation, trying to distinguish it from some of the behaviors that lead to the attitude that saying "no" is somehow wrong, and using this articulated ethic to consider the problem of limits. So, more on this to come, I guess.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
care
From the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, the ethics of care was a predominant theme in feminist ethics. Based ultimately on an essentialist view of femininity, the ethics of care focused on human relationship, need, and care responses, as an alternative to the Western philosophical tradition's rights and law based approaches.
It might be expected that, raised masculine in a patriarchal society, I would think about ethical responsibility in terms of my autonomy and authority, and I do. But for me, this is not entirely a matter of gender. I was raised also to think of care as an alarmed response to an abnormal situation, rather than an ongoing, basic response to the ordinary human condition of need and interdependence. Seeking care, that is, admitting need, initiated a conflict or crisis, and the response was to that immediate emergency. Once resolved, the moment passed, both need and the care response were considered settled and finished.
While this may be underlying the patriarchal masculine notion of autonomy and independence, I also know that my own upbringing was profoundly lacking in ordinary and ongoing care. It was always better to remain in need than to ask for care. Admitting need is, for me, admitting pathology and vulnerability. Need exposes me to harm, terror, and chaos. Metaphorically speaking, sirens would blare, everything would need to come to a halt, until the care was provided.
My response to need is similar. Although I am better at caring than being cared for, my caring is still based on sensing the situation as abnormal. I worry over making sure I have provided the proper care for the particular need of the moment. I am driven to reach the point when care is done.
Of course, the feminist ethics of care tells us that care is never done, because care and need are ordinary, everyday, and fundamental to the human condition. It took reading Susan Wendell's chapter on care and disability in The Rejected Body for me to realize this about myself, and about what I had not really understood about the ethics of care.
It's really awfully sad, isn't it? Oh well.
(By the way, The Rejected Body is very good, and although the care discussion makes it rather dated, I plan to use it in Bioethics next year. My undergrad students won't have read any feminist ethics, so it won't be dated for them.)
It might be expected that, raised masculine in a patriarchal society, I would think about ethical responsibility in terms of my autonomy and authority, and I do. But for me, this is not entirely a matter of gender. I was raised also to think of care as an alarmed response to an abnormal situation, rather than an ongoing, basic response to the ordinary human condition of need and interdependence. Seeking care, that is, admitting need, initiated a conflict or crisis, and the response was to that immediate emergency. Once resolved, the moment passed, both need and the care response were considered settled and finished.
While this may be underlying the patriarchal masculine notion of autonomy and independence, I also know that my own upbringing was profoundly lacking in ordinary and ongoing care. It was always better to remain in need than to ask for care. Admitting need is, for me, admitting pathology and vulnerability. Need exposes me to harm, terror, and chaos. Metaphorically speaking, sirens would blare, everything would need to come to a halt, until the care was provided.
My response to need is similar. Although I am better at caring than being cared for, my caring is still based on sensing the situation as abnormal. I worry over making sure I have provided the proper care for the particular need of the moment. I am driven to reach the point when care is done.
Of course, the feminist ethics of care tells us that care is never done, because care and need are ordinary, everyday, and fundamental to the human condition. It took reading Susan Wendell's chapter on care and disability in The Rejected Body for me to realize this about myself, and about what I had not really understood about the ethics of care.
It's really awfully sad, isn't it? Oh well.
(By the way, The Rejected Body is very good, and although the care discussion makes it rather dated, I plan to use it in Bioethics next year. My undergrad students won't have read any feminist ethics, so it won't be dated for them.)
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
faculty moral responsibility for education fraud
Between 1999 and 2011, student loan debt increased 511%. College graduate unemployment is a little under 9%. The largest single employment sector in the US economy is retail sales. The largest sector of employment growth in the last two years is in temporary, low-skilled work.
The knowledge-based and expertise-based legitimations of college education are long dead. College degrees as credentials for entry into information-processing jobs are nearly dead. There is some reason to think college education provides relevant training that can be useful in various careers -- largely indirectly, through the development of "hidden curriculum" skills and attributes like perseverance, rule-following, mastering encrypted forms of communication like academic prose, etc. But these careers have lost a lot of their prestige and power, and are losing stability and security rapidly.
Under these conditions, getting a college education has to appear much less like a shrewd investment, and more like an expensive gamble. The basic economic function of colleges and universities -- non-profit and "public" as well as private and for-profit -- is to transfer wealth from poor laboring classes to rich capitalists who leech from the system at every pore. (Contemporary capitalism is called by several colorful names: disaster capitalism, predatory capitalism, casino capitalism. I think I like parasite capitalism.)
At some point, I imagine, the economic behavior of people will change to reflect this, and people will stop going to college. I fantasize how people might hold higher education to account for this economic arrangement, and for what could be called fraud.
What is my moral responsibility for this, as a college faculty member, given that I benefit (though modestly, especially compared to parasite capitalists)? Should I discourage people from going to college, despite the potential ramifications to my gainful employment? Should I try to show this perspective to current students, despite the potential ramifications to the teacher-student relationship? Can I "teach" a class, without excessive irony, after I have exposed this arrangement?
Let's see.
The knowledge-based and expertise-based legitimations of college education are long dead. College degrees as credentials for entry into information-processing jobs are nearly dead. There is some reason to think college education provides relevant training that can be useful in various careers -- largely indirectly, through the development of "hidden curriculum" skills and attributes like perseverance, rule-following, mastering encrypted forms of communication like academic prose, etc. But these careers have lost a lot of their prestige and power, and are losing stability and security rapidly.
Under these conditions, getting a college education has to appear much less like a shrewd investment, and more like an expensive gamble. The basic economic function of colleges and universities -- non-profit and "public" as well as private and for-profit -- is to transfer wealth from poor laboring classes to rich capitalists who leech from the system at every pore. (Contemporary capitalism is called by several colorful names: disaster capitalism, predatory capitalism, casino capitalism. I think I like parasite capitalism.)
At some point, I imagine, the economic behavior of people will change to reflect this, and people will stop going to college. I fantasize how people might hold higher education to account for this economic arrangement, and for what could be called fraud.
What is my moral responsibility for this, as a college faculty member, given that I benefit (though modestly, especially compared to parasite capitalists)? Should I discourage people from going to college, despite the potential ramifications to my gainful employment? Should I try to show this perspective to current students, despite the potential ramifications to the teacher-student relationship? Can I "teach" a class, without excessive irony, after I have exposed this arrangement?
Let's see.
Thursday, February 07, 2013
something is rotten
For [Adorno], the question of how to live a good life in a bad life, how to persist subjectively in a good life when the world is poorly organized, is but a different way of claiming that moral worth cannot be considered apart from its conditions and consequences. In his words, "anything that we can call morality today merges into the question of the organization of the world. We might even say that the quest for the good life is the quest for the right form of politics, if indeed such a right form of politics lay within the realm of what can be achieved today." -- Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself, p. 133Butler states the fairly obvious connection between Adorno and Foucault to what she calls "the critical tradition," meaning the tradition skeptical of Enlightenment conceptions of Reason as ultimate principle and savior of subjective agency, responsibility, universal morality, and political ends. I like very much the phrase "how to live a good life in a bad life," because of its simplistic expression of a basic urge of "the critical tradition," namely, that ethical reflection begins with the intuition that something is wrong.
I spend a lot of time and energy focused on what is wrong. From my standpoint, there appears to be a lot that is wrong: social inequity and discrimination, exploitation, hypocrisy, domination of individuals, the public, and the polity by extremely wealthy people, etc. This is not a pretty world.
One could chalk this tendency up to a reactive habit of anxiety instilled prior to any memory. This would be dismissive and reductive. I would not deny that a pre-reflective and pre-rational outlook on the world subtends every observation and interpretation we each make. There are, on the other hand, objectivities to observe. Ultimately, I think it's futile to try to separate and correct completely for the pre-thetic sensibilities through which we observe the world.
Besides, such a reductive view would miss a fundamental point. To the extent that my habitual self is pre-thetically oriented toward the world as "poorly organized," that orientation is the condition of my habitus (the condition that subjected me to the "bad life"), and thus of my having any moral outlook whatsoever. The world I find myself always to have inhabited is "poorly organized."
The ethical question is not about assigning blame for this "bad life;" neither is it about my responsibility for fixing it (which would seem to be both an impossible task and a performative contradiction, if you dig that). By "right form of politics," Adorno can't mean that those in this situation know precisely what is wrong and how to fix it, because that isn't politics at all, but the dissolution of politics. Politics would be, instead, the ethical discourse concerning how worlds can and ought to be organized, and how subjects in those worlds could act ethically and responsibly in them.
The critical approach thus asserts that the world and ourselves are out of joint, that ethics and ethical responsibility for an individual do not gear into the world as presently constructed. The task of ethics is not to make the world conform to my subjective conception of what is right, nor to make my subjective conception conform to the world as I find it. The task is to respond to that condition of being out-of-joint.
Friday, January 25, 2013
ethics and ethical subjects
In short, for an action to be “moral,” it must not be reducible to an act or a series of acts conforming to a rule, a law, or a value. Of course all moral action involves a relationship with the reality in which it is carried out, and a relationship with the self. The latter is not simply “self-awareness” but self-formation as an “ethical subject,” a process in which the individual delimits that part of himself that will form the object of his moral practice, defines his position relative to the precept he will follow, and decides on a certain mode of being that will serve as his moral goal. And this requires him to act upon himself, to monitor, test, improve, and transform himself. (Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, p. 28)
These lines crystallized the paper on faculty ethical responsibilities in the era of precariousness. I took the 4700 words I had yesterday, cut about 600, rearranged everything in the last 7 pages after inserting this quotation and some discussion of Foucault's ethics, wrote an additional 800 words, then cut 400 more. So, after 5 hours of work on this thing today, I've now got 4400 words. Sometimes it feels like I'm writing backwards.
Here's a weird thought: if Foucault were at all committed to Enlightenment notions of Reason, one could take this "ethical subject" stuff to mean something closely approximating Kohlberg's rational stage of moral development -- the one he found so little evidence anybody ever actually achieved. After all, Foucault is suggesting that ethics is a matter of deliberately, and in everyday practice, forming oneself as a certain kind of moral subject, and not rule-following.
(By the way, music cue: Queen, "I Want to Break Free.")
In the paper I argue that tenuous-track faculty can do, and do, exactly this, through the very active groups that form the nucleus of the contingent faculty movement in North America: COCAL and New Faculty Majority being two of the most prominent. I do not argue, but I think I could, that many or most tenure-track faculty typically do not engage in the work of ethics. This makes sense to me, because if your identity is in line with the prevailing regime of power, your identity is not problematic. By this, I think I mean something very insulting like white male professors aren't good candidates to be ethical faculty. And I'm okay with that, especially since I'm not a professor.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
ethics and tenuous-track faculty
One problem I have with writing about the experience of contingent academic labor is that I seem unable to avoid writing about my own experience, and I am concerned that what I write may seem to be special pleading, or worse, a call for pity. From my own experience, I can attest to the general degraded working conditions and forms of humiliation that tenuous faculty face on a daily basis (as compared with most tenure-track faculty, that is). What I need is some way to make a claim to knowledge about this experience, that is not merely subjective.
I also have a problem writing about Foucault's ethics as a way of understanding the situation of tenuous-track faculty. I have what I think is a very strong argument to demonstrate that official statements of faculty ethics like AAUP's Statement on Professional Ethics can't apply to most faculty (it addresses "professors," after all, and not anybody with any other title). That opens the issue of what ethics could mean for tenuous faculty, and that's what leads me to Foucault's notion of ethics as freedom, the conduct of oneself, and one's own subjectivization: tenuous-track faculty have to make shift for themselves, both practically and ethically, because of their bizarre institutional status.
Foucault can't provide any prescription for how tenuous-track faculty (or anybody else, for that matter) ought to conduct oneself, because that would close the door to the very freedom of self-conduct. So, what can I say, in an affirmative voice, about tenuous faculty ethics?
It seems to me a basic step in Foucauldian ethics is to acknowledge that freedom, to acknowledge our subjection and our subjectivization -- to acknowledge that regimes of power make determinations of shapes of life and ways of acting morally, but that we can and do resist these regimes. The prevailing regime of academic work links ethical responsibility to the ideology of the professoriate so eloquently stated by the AAUP, and is very differentially deployed by administration through compliance apparatus. These apparatus affect tenure-track and tenuous-track faculty, as I said, very differently. (I once attended a brief meeting regarding a complaint by a student of sexual harassment against a lecturer. He was offered the choice to resign, and the university would not tell prospective employers why he resigned unless they asked; or fight the charge, and the university would fire him and offer the information to all prospective employers whether they asked or not. During that same semester, a tenured faculty member was similarly accused of sexual harassment, and was required to complete an online sexual harassment training.)
It occurred to me that the first problem is addressed by dealing with the second problem. What I can say about the ethical conduct of self by tenuous-track faculty is that the contingent faculty movement in North America has developed a large counter-discourse about our experience, expertise, roles in our institutions, and the missions of the institutions themselves. This counter-discourse is both the basis upon which I can make not-merely-subjective claims to know the situation of tenuous faculty, and also an initial step of conduct of self. In a way, it is the kind of ascetic writing Foucault calls for, as well.
My new problem is finding a way to write this in less than about 5000 words (right now I'm at 4000, and haven't quite put the argument together like I have here), for a conference presentation that should be around 3000 words.
Warning to Foucauldian friends of mine: I'm going to be bugging you with this.
Oh, and the other thing that came up today is that I could write this entire thing a different way by interrogating the concept of academic freedom.
I also have a problem writing about Foucault's ethics as a way of understanding the situation of tenuous-track faculty. I have what I think is a very strong argument to demonstrate that official statements of faculty ethics like AAUP's Statement on Professional Ethics can't apply to most faculty (it addresses "professors," after all, and not anybody with any other title). That opens the issue of what ethics could mean for tenuous faculty, and that's what leads me to Foucault's notion of ethics as freedom, the conduct of oneself, and one's own subjectivization: tenuous-track faculty have to make shift for themselves, both practically and ethically, because of their bizarre institutional status.
Foucault can't provide any prescription for how tenuous-track faculty (or anybody else, for that matter) ought to conduct oneself, because that would close the door to the very freedom of self-conduct. So, what can I say, in an affirmative voice, about tenuous faculty ethics?
It seems to me a basic step in Foucauldian ethics is to acknowledge that freedom, to acknowledge our subjection and our subjectivization -- to acknowledge that regimes of power make determinations of shapes of life and ways of acting morally, but that we can and do resist these regimes. The prevailing regime of academic work links ethical responsibility to the ideology of the professoriate so eloquently stated by the AAUP, and is very differentially deployed by administration through compliance apparatus. These apparatus affect tenure-track and tenuous-track faculty, as I said, very differently. (I once attended a brief meeting regarding a complaint by a student of sexual harassment against a lecturer. He was offered the choice to resign, and the university would not tell prospective employers why he resigned unless they asked; or fight the charge, and the university would fire him and offer the information to all prospective employers whether they asked or not. During that same semester, a tenured faculty member was similarly accused of sexual harassment, and was required to complete an online sexual harassment training.)
It occurred to me that the first problem is addressed by dealing with the second problem. What I can say about the ethical conduct of self by tenuous-track faculty is that the contingent faculty movement in North America has developed a large counter-discourse about our experience, expertise, roles in our institutions, and the missions of the institutions themselves. This counter-discourse is both the basis upon which I can make not-merely-subjective claims to know the situation of tenuous faculty, and also an initial step of conduct of self. In a way, it is the kind of ascetic writing Foucault calls for, as well.
My new problem is finding a way to write this in less than about 5000 words (right now I'm at 4000, and haven't quite put the argument together like I have here), for a conference presentation that should be around 3000 words.
Warning to Foucauldian friends of mine: I'm going to be bugging you with this.
Oh, and the other thing that came up today is that I could write this entire thing a different way by interrogating the concept of academic freedom.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
where the hell have I been?
I might explain where I've been, one day.
I'm working on a paper on the constitution of faculty subjectivities and faculty ethical responsibilities. It's based on two aspects of the philosophy of Michel Foucault.
From the earlier work on regimes of power and panopticism, particularly from Discipline and Punish, I'm writing about the formation of faculty subjectivities, focusing on how faculty work defines what one is and what one can do. Like a prison, a school, or the military, the institution in which one works deploys technologies of power to constitute members as "docile bodies" that are ultimately predictable, controllable, and interchangeable.
I'm sketching out the different kinds of subjectivities, the different kinds of docile bodies, that higher ed institutions form as "professors" and as that larger group of faculty who have no proper name ("adjuncts," "lecturers," "contingents," etc.), whom I prefer to call tenuous-track faculty. Some of the differences are obvious, but what I'm hoping to get at beyond the obvious is the way that professors, who are presumed to have great privilege, are also docile. (As I've argued in this space before, I often think professors are less free than tenuous-track faculty.)
That's all setting up a brief version of the argument that the official statements of the ethics of faculty, notably the AAUP Statement on Professional Ethics, do not meaningfully apply to the majority of faculty -- an argument I've made before. If I'm right (and I am), then what does ethics mean for tenuous faculty?
To respond, I turn to Foucault's work on ethics, which begins from the premise that ethics is about determining who one is, and engaging in continuous self-invention. Ultimately, I'm going to argue that resistance, self-invention, and critique are the key ethical tasks for tenuous faculty, and the only way tenuous faculty can take responsibility for their academic work -- especially given that the institutions where we work systematically deny us other ways of taking responsibility.
More broadly, this addresses a very interesting argument made by ethics bigshot Michael Davis in the last chapter of Engineering Ethics, that overly bureaucratized professional work denies engineers the possibility of taking responsibility for their work. Intriguing claim, and, in as much as ethical responsibility could be defined strictly in terms of the ideology of the profession, precisely correct. But Davis begs the question, and, if I'm right (and I am), Foucault's work on ethics answers it. There are more things in heaven and earth, Mikey.
I'm working on a paper on the constitution of faculty subjectivities and faculty ethical responsibilities. It's based on two aspects of the philosophy of Michel Foucault.
From the earlier work on regimes of power and panopticism, particularly from Discipline and Punish, I'm writing about the formation of faculty subjectivities, focusing on how faculty work defines what one is and what one can do. Like a prison, a school, or the military, the institution in which one works deploys technologies of power to constitute members as "docile bodies" that are ultimately predictable, controllable, and interchangeable.
I'm sketching out the different kinds of subjectivities, the different kinds of docile bodies, that higher ed institutions form as "professors" and as that larger group of faculty who have no proper name ("adjuncts," "lecturers," "contingents," etc.), whom I prefer to call tenuous-track faculty. Some of the differences are obvious, but what I'm hoping to get at beyond the obvious is the way that professors, who are presumed to have great privilege, are also docile. (As I've argued in this space before, I often think professors are less free than tenuous-track faculty.)
That's all setting up a brief version of the argument that the official statements of the ethics of faculty, notably the AAUP Statement on Professional Ethics, do not meaningfully apply to the majority of faculty -- an argument I've made before. If I'm right (and I am), then what does ethics mean for tenuous faculty?
To respond, I turn to Foucault's work on ethics, which begins from the premise that ethics is about determining who one is, and engaging in continuous self-invention. Ultimately, I'm going to argue that resistance, self-invention, and critique are the key ethical tasks for tenuous faculty, and the only way tenuous faculty can take responsibility for their academic work -- especially given that the institutions where we work systematically deny us other ways of taking responsibility.
More broadly, this addresses a very interesting argument made by ethics bigshot Michael Davis in the last chapter of Engineering Ethics, that overly bureaucratized professional work denies engineers the possibility of taking responsibility for their work. Intriguing claim, and, in as much as ethical responsibility could be defined strictly in terms of the ideology of the profession, precisely correct. But Davis begs the question, and, if I'm right (and I am), Foucault's work on ethics answers it. There are more things in heaven and earth, Mikey.
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
are students weird? -- an inquiry
Yes.
I believe most faculty teach more than one section of a course in any given semester. This semester, I have had two sections of Bioethics and two sections of Professional Ethics. The two sections of each course are markedly different. Contrasting, you might say. Almost entirely unalike would not be overly hyperbolic.
One section of one of these courses has been among the very most open, receptive, and engaged I've ever had. The students took the material and issues all over the place, practically every class session. They were happy, I'd say, to be in the philosophically delicious state of mind of perplexity. Almost every class session someone raised a question that stumped us all. It is clear from class discussions that these students are seriously engaged with the themes and texts, and are genuinely facing the central struggle of ethics (for purposes of this discussion, I shall stipulate that the "central struggle of ethics" is "Shit! Now what?!").
Not the best writers, however. Somehow this serious play hasn't been translated into text.
Another section of the same course is, in a word, reticent. I have sometimes felt as if I've walked into a poker game, their faces are so inscrutable. A small group of sometimes unreliably-attending students carries the conversation. When one is missing, the class has slowed. When two are missing, the class has sometimes stopped in its tracks. I have let long moments of uncomfortable silence pass, hoping the awkwardness would provoke some hesitant comment. I have cajoled. I have joked.
And yet, their papers are pretty good. Somehow their grasp of the ideas and texts in the course hasn't prompted them to raise questions, or respond to questions.
Is one class thinking philosophically, and the other not? How shall I correlate the verbal engagement of one class with the clear writing of the other? Should I give more weight to the strength of each class? Why?
Shit! Now what?!
In the other course, the differences are somewhat less acute, and the less verbal class has become much more active in just the last third of the semester. It's just as puzzling, though. What's so different about the classes, the student population, or perhaps my own approach, in each class? Does a more reserved kind of student tend to select one particular time slot for a class? Given the impaction of our schedule and the difficulty students have getting into classes (or enough classes, i.e., to qualify for financial aid), is it even plausible that students pick a class time?
Excuse me, but I'm inclined to believe that I do not have sufficient power over my students or the classroom environment to be the main determinant of these differences. I am but one man, after all. Unless a faculty member treats every class the same way, by standing up and lecturing to them every session, the students have a great deal of responsibility for what we might call the class ethos. It develops very much as a habit, and I guess that the first half-dozen class sessions more or less ingrain this habit. In those sessions, tacit consensus is built regarding who speaks and when, about the tone of discourse. Roles become defined and assigned through this process.
The habits become a template of expectations for each session. If a contrarian or devil's advocate arises, it becomes part of the script of the class that the person in that role reliably and predictably does his/her (usually his) thing at some point in each session. Often a co-teacher sort arises, who either has or imagines he/she (usually she) has superior understanding of course material and provides it when the moment comes.
From time to time, a monkey-wrencher arises, whose role is to cause breakdowns in a discussion that make some issue problematic at another level than the class had expected. Rarely, someone like a sage arises, who is able, at certain moments, to crystalize an entire concept, and place it in front of us.
I place an arbitrary value of 10% of overall grade on class participation. Almost every semester I have a class whose participation demands far more weight, because they have taken over the class, made it their own, and gone in directions I could scarcely have anticipated. Are those classes "better"?
In short, this is one of the things I most hate about grading. It's repulsive to take a set of experiences like these and turn them into a score.
I believe most faculty teach more than one section of a course in any given semester. This semester, I have had two sections of Bioethics and two sections of Professional Ethics. The two sections of each course are markedly different. Contrasting, you might say. Almost entirely unalike would not be overly hyperbolic.
One section of one of these courses has been among the very most open, receptive, and engaged I've ever had. The students took the material and issues all over the place, practically every class session. They were happy, I'd say, to be in the philosophically delicious state of mind of perplexity. Almost every class session someone raised a question that stumped us all. It is clear from class discussions that these students are seriously engaged with the themes and texts, and are genuinely facing the central struggle of ethics (for purposes of this discussion, I shall stipulate that the "central struggle of ethics" is "Shit! Now what?!").
Not the best writers, however. Somehow this serious play hasn't been translated into text.
Another section of the same course is, in a word, reticent. I have sometimes felt as if I've walked into a poker game, their faces are so inscrutable. A small group of sometimes unreliably-attending students carries the conversation. When one is missing, the class has slowed. When two are missing, the class has sometimes stopped in its tracks. I have let long moments of uncomfortable silence pass, hoping the awkwardness would provoke some hesitant comment. I have cajoled. I have joked.
And yet, their papers are pretty good. Somehow their grasp of the ideas and texts in the course hasn't prompted them to raise questions, or respond to questions.
Is one class thinking philosophically, and the other not? How shall I correlate the verbal engagement of one class with the clear writing of the other? Should I give more weight to the strength of each class? Why?
Shit! Now what?!
In the other course, the differences are somewhat less acute, and the less verbal class has become much more active in just the last third of the semester. It's just as puzzling, though. What's so different about the classes, the student population, or perhaps my own approach, in each class? Does a more reserved kind of student tend to select one particular time slot for a class? Given the impaction of our schedule and the difficulty students have getting into classes (or enough classes, i.e., to qualify for financial aid), is it even plausible that students pick a class time?
Excuse me, but I'm inclined to believe that I do not have sufficient power over my students or the classroom environment to be the main determinant of these differences. I am but one man, after all. Unless a faculty member treats every class the same way, by standing up and lecturing to them every session, the students have a great deal of responsibility for what we might call the class ethos. It develops very much as a habit, and I guess that the first half-dozen class sessions more or less ingrain this habit. In those sessions, tacit consensus is built regarding who speaks and when, about the tone of discourse. Roles become defined and assigned through this process.
The habits become a template of expectations for each session. If a contrarian or devil's advocate arises, it becomes part of the script of the class that the person in that role reliably and predictably does his/her (usually his) thing at some point in each session. Often a co-teacher sort arises, who either has or imagines he/she (usually she) has superior understanding of course material and provides it when the moment comes.
From time to time, a monkey-wrencher arises, whose role is to cause breakdowns in a discussion that make some issue problematic at another level than the class had expected. Rarely, someone like a sage arises, who is able, at certain moments, to crystalize an entire concept, and place it in front of us.
I place an arbitrary value of 10% of overall grade on class participation. Almost every semester I have a class whose participation demands far more weight, because they have taken over the class, made it their own, and gone in directions I could scarcely have anticipated. Are those classes "better"?
In short, this is one of the things I most hate about grading. It's repulsive to take a set of experiences like these and turn them into a score.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
ethics, education, empathy
In my Professional Ethics course, I have my students read an
essay by a community college English instructor who is unsure how to deal with
the confessional personal essays his students write in composition classes. His
students go through all sorts of hell, tell him in their essays all sorts of
private information, including details of their lives they’ve never told anyone
else. His dilemma is that he can’t tell where to draw the line between
responding to the essays as a composition teacher, and responding to them as a
person.
I use this essay to get at a dilemma that I believe
professionals in many fields face (though likely more often in education and
caring professions) – negotiating the boundary between the professional-client
relationship and a person-to-person relationship. I started using the essay
because I was getting so many liberal studies majors (i.e., students preparing
to be primary school teachers), but now that I’m getting practically none of
them any more, I try to relate it to the nursing and other health-related
professions students. It’s easy to imagine a physical therapist working with a
patient, who suddenly blurts out information about some kind of harm or danger
the patient is exposed to. What are the therapist’s responsibilities? Suppose
the situation is ambiguous legally, ethically, or factually?
As I’m reading it this afternoon to prep for class tomorrow,
I’m finding myself wondering why I’m so drawn to this essay. It’s good, and I
think the issues it raises are real and important, but I don’t know why I think
it’s all that important. I have affection for the essay and empathy for the
author that go beyond my pedagogical purpose in using it in class. This is
partly because I don’t think education is reducible to training, but I’m sure
it’s also because of my own experience of caring teachers I had, in high school
especially, who crossed that boundary, and likely (in one case at least)
violated their own ethics rules, out of that empathy and care.
So here’s my confession: I love it when this happens to me.
It’s impossible for me not to feel empathy and affection for my students, and
impossible for me not to care about them as human beings, beyond being
students. I want them to do well, to be well, and I want to help when that’s
not happening. I feel like I have a responsibility not only for their learning,
but also, when it comes up, for their being – in fact, their being is more
important to me than their learning.
Of course, my Loveliest had been a student in a class I
taught. But it would be a cheap dismissal to say I’m concerned about my
students’ being because I have some sort of fascination with illicitly crossing
that boundary. I’ve crossed that boundary numerous times, in mostly very minor
interactions. I have listened many times to students talk about their history
of mental illness. I had a student confide in me about her crisis of religious
faith, brought about by a conflict over a relationship she had. I had a student
come to ask for advice about what she and her girlfriend could do to form a
legal marriage, in case Proposition 8 passed.
I had a colleague a few years ago who used to refer to her
students as her “babies” or her “children” very often, and I think that’s going
overboard. On the other hand, I do not see any reason the state of their souls
shouldn’t matter to me.
(Warning: cheap punchline to come.)
This is why I am ineligible to serve in administrative
positions at the CSU.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
crash course
Students in my Professional Ethics and Bioethics classes confront issues of social justice very early in the semester. Professional Ethics begins with outlining what professionalism consists of, and how the claims to professional status of many occupational groups are undermined by Friedmanism, bureaucracy, and technocracy. Bioethics begins with the issue of allocation of healthcare, and I frame the issue alternate as a matter of deciding how much they are willing to contribute for certain kinds of healthcare, what principle(s) of distribution are to be followed, and who deserves healthcare.
It has to be pretty heady stuff for my students who are paying attention and being reflective. (By the way, at least this semester, that's looking to be around 33% so far - a very promising start.) The very idea of cooperative social arrangements or a common good is, I would argue, ruled out by the dominant neoliberal individualistic ideology in US politics. It's an implausible ideology, to say the least. The hardline libertarian view of social justice essentially ignores that practically everything we need for survival is produced through social cooperation that no single individual has a strong incentive to contribute to.
In any case, I think I'm becoming more direct about this, more willing to challenge any knee-jerk view. For instance, today in Bioethics I asked "who deserves healthcare?" One student responded with what is basically the hard libertarian line on this: nobody deserves healthcare; those who can afford it through their own resources can acquire it. I asked why this was an appealing position for this student, and the student replied that people should be self-supporting and that no one has any obligation to provide for anyone else. I responded that this was a peculiar position for someone in a publicly supported institution to take, and noted that the public is contributing (around) 49% of the cost of a CSU education. I also noted that when I started teaching here 14 years ago, the public provided closer to 70% of the cost of a student's education.
(On the flip side, there is a libertarian faculty member on campus who asserts that all taxation is theft and that the state should not be in any way in the business of "redistributing wealth" from the haves to the have-nots.* I always want to ask whether this person has, therefore, renounced the portion of salary provided by taxation, since, obviously, it's theft. I'm sure, not. "So," I would want to reply, are you a liar, or a hypocrite? Take your time.")
I am an equal-opportunity gadfly, I hasten to point out. Today another student took a stance as opposed to the libertarian as one might be, suggesting that a broad program of social and cultural change could lead us to make compassion a core value. If scarcity of resources (in this case, healthcare) is the result of decisions to distribute on the basis of what is profitable, then scarcity could be undone to some extent by taking away the profit motive and seeing people as in need of care. Great, I responded, only, this doesn't mean we'll have significantly more resources to distribute -- so we'll still have to make decisions about rationing, about "cutting off" access to healthcare (as we say, charmingly).
I suppose from my tone and arguments today it was clear I regard the hard-core libertarian position as unspeakably inhumane, socially implausible, inconsistent, and ultimately immoral. I hope that it was also clear that I regard compassion and empathy to be useless as bases for social policy.
I will say, though, that the libertarian view is more pernicious, more prevalent, and more lacking in humanity. I don't think there's anything wrong with my saying so in class. I say so because, unless and until a student complains enough to get me investigated, nobody really cares what I do in my classes except me, some of my students, my Loveliest, and a few of my friends.
--
* Never mind the myriad ways that the state has actively redistributed wealth from the have-nots to the haves, e.g., Mitt Romney's effective tax rate, the amount Wal-Mart's employment practices cost in welfare and other forms of assistance without which their employees could not live even on Wal-Mart's famed low prices, subsidies to industries, etc.
Monday, July 30, 2012
the value of human life -- some offhand phenomenological musing
It's odd I ended up writing about this. I went on a bit of a walk to try to solve a problem about whether I could meaningfully say I am or have a body, and just what that sense of a unifying whole, apparently delimited notion of lived experience would mean. Instead.....
**
We think rather highly of consciousness. We presume that it
is the most significant — not to say the most valuable — trait of ours.
There is a massive ongoing problem in ethics related to
this, concering the moral value of human and non-human life. Every attempt I
have seen to distinguish these two on the morality scale has involved a
commitment either to a humanist or theological position. In other words, it is
under the presumption of the specialness of human being, and of human beings,
that all this ethical discussion takes place. For now, I’m going to let ethics
off easy, for instance on the point that, for most world religions, the
sacredness of individual human lives has proved “negotiable” (as George Carlin
put it): a human life is valuable pending certain qualifications.
In phenomenological philosophy, the certitude of the
centrality of consciousness is also taken for granted. This appears to be so even when phenomenologists are trying to
account for something more basic, like affectivity, or desire, or being
vulnerable. In From Affectivity to Subjectivity*, Christian Lotz argues that the basic ethical value is connected to this kind of affect
and vulnerability. [Think a minute how this plays out in terms of Carlin's jab: if chickens can be vulnerable (to pain, e.g.), then what exactly is our negotiation? Do they somehow deserve it? Are chickens secretly commies? Or do they deserve it just because of their irritating clucking and flapping-wings behavior, and because they happen to be tasty and nutritious? Talk about negotiation!]
Where does that affect come from? How is it that we can be
affected? Lots argues that for anything to affect our senses and draw us to
attend to it, there must be, prior to that attention, some valuing of what
draws us. He says that attention is directed by a structure of “being-able-to,”
meaning, I would say, a core valuing-activity: attention is directed by some
subjective determination of what is valuable — ultimately calling on Levinas’
notion that every experience is held together by the equation of life and
happiness. “Being-able-to,” as a source of valuing, implies intentionality, hence
consciousness in the way we’re accustomed to considering it, to wit: human consciousness. (The reference to
Levinas — a deeply theological thinker — is a giveaway.)
It’s a terrible argument, but leaving that aside, there’s nothing obviously related to consciousness, intentionality, or our being human, that we can demonstrate is the final source of moral value. Without the presupposition that affectivity is connected to intentionality we also cannot finally deny that vulnerability as an attribute of non-human life, especially non-human animals. If it matters that we are vulnerable, then how can consciousness be our definitive characteristic, at least, as it comes to moral value?
It’s a terrible argument, but leaving that aside, there’s nothing obviously related to consciousness, intentionality, or our being human, that we can demonstrate is the final source of moral value. Without the presupposition that affectivity is connected to intentionality we also cannot finally deny that vulnerability as an attribute of non-human life, especially non-human animals. If it matters that we are vulnerable, then how can consciousness be our definitive characteristic, at least, as it comes to moral value?
*The original title was not From Here to Eternity. I looked it up.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
pregnant drug-users and other fun ethics topics
Today with my classes I'm reading a 2003-ish article about public policy and ethical responses to pregnant women who use illegal drugs and alcohol. The main line of argument is what the author deems a feminist approach, focusing on the experience of the women instead of applying abstract rationalistic ethical principles on their cases. What this reveals, she argues, is the states of oppression the women undergo.
This morning, what struck me particularly was an example of a prosecution of a woman for failing to get adequate bed rest and to refrain from intercourse during her pregnancy. The author makes the point very succinctly: these are not actions totally under the control of women. Moreover, these kinds of prosecutions are directed more toward minority and poor women, who often lack social support networks, or are undergoing various conditions of instability and deprivation, and, oh yes, are also being discriminated against in the law.
Then she says something splendid: blaming the drugs, or worse, blaming the women who use the drugs, is a convenient way to hide the conditions of oppression under which these women turn to drugs. I sometimes ask my classes, "what kind of pregnant woman suddenly decides to use drugs?" to point out how bizarre it is to consider the drug use a simple, straightforward, totally rational, perfectly free "choice."
This morning, I'm remembering one of the experiences I've had that has made me more sympathetic to this than a lot of my students say that they are. In my senior year of high school, I quit my Spanish class (for reasons I won't pursue here), and started to have a Study Hall during that period instead. I spent the hour in the library reading absolutely anything - though mostly religious texts, Freud, Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, and Tom Stoppard. One day - for some reason I remember I was reading the Koran - another student approached me and asked if I knew where he could get some drugs. He was a skinny, twerpy black kid, I was a skinny, long-haired white kid, so I guess he figured, the dude in the ripped jeans and the flannel shirt will know. I didn't, because I wasn't interested in drugs, and I told him so.
We got into a long conversation about drugs, poverty, hopelessness, and the future. We were on more or less opposite sides of the educational spectrum of that school. He was one of the ghettoized black students in my nominally desegregated Southeastern high school, and I was one of the ghettoized white honors students (roughly 95% of all the black students took all their academic classes in one wing of the school, and roughly 90% of all the white students took all their academic classes in another wing; the school also basically policed the honors program such that only a handful of token non-white students were part of it). We had both learned some terrible lessons in social justice by then. But we shared two attributes: we were both hopeless about the future, and we were both very bright.
I tried to argue with him that it would be stupid for him to escape into drugs, as he wanted to do, because he was smart and could do something better with his life. I think that's valid, to this day. He argued back by referring to our social situation, the inherent injustice and oppression he was experiencing, and made the case that, objectively, there wasn't a lot for him to hope for. Damn if I don't think that's valid, too.
We didn't reach any consensus. Eventually he gave up on the argument, because it wasn't getting him any closer to his goal, and asked what I was reading. I showed him the book's spine, and he said he read it, or large parts of it, and he liked it better than the Bible. Then he turned and walked back over to the table occupied by his friends, and I noticed they'd been snickering at us, and they laughed and jostled him when he reached them.
This morning, what struck me particularly was an example of a prosecution of a woman for failing to get adequate bed rest and to refrain from intercourse during her pregnancy. The author makes the point very succinctly: these are not actions totally under the control of women. Moreover, these kinds of prosecutions are directed more toward minority and poor women, who often lack social support networks, or are undergoing various conditions of instability and deprivation, and, oh yes, are also being discriminated against in the law.
Then she says something splendid: blaming the drugs, or worse, blaming the women who use the drugs, is a convenient way to hide the conditions of oppression under which these women turn to drugs. I sometimes ask my classes, "what kind of pregnant woman suddenly decides to use drugs?" to point out how bizarre it is to consider the drug use a simple, straightforward, totally rational, perfectly free "choice."
This morning, I'm remembering one of the experiences I've had that has made me more sympathetic to this than a lot of my students say that they are. In my senior year of high school, I quit my Spanish class (for reasons I won't pursue here), and started to have a Study Hall during that period instead. I spent the hour in the library reading absolutely anything - though mostly religious texts, Freud, Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, and Tom Stoppard. One day - for some reason I remember I was reading the Koran - another student approached me and asked if I knew where he could get some drugs. He was a skinny, twerpy black kid, I was a skinny, long-haired white kid, so I guess he figured, the dude in the ripped jeans and the flannel shirt will know. I didn't, because I wasn't interested in drugs, and I told him so.
We got into a long conversation about drugs, poverty, hopelessness, and the future. We were on more or less opposite sides of the educational spectrum of that school. He was one of the ghettoized black students in my nominally desegregated Southeastern high school, and I was one of the ghettoized white honors students (roughly 95% of all the black students took all their academic classes in one wing of the school, and roughly 90% of all the white students took all their academic classes in another wing; the school also basically policed the honors program such that only a handful of token non-white students were part of it). We had both learned some terrible lessons in social justice by then. But we shared two attributes: we were both hopeless about the future, and we were both very bright.
I tried to argue with him that it would be stupid for him to escape into drugs, as he wanted to do, because he was smart and could do something better with his life. I think that's valid, to this day. He argued back by referring to our social situation, the inherent injustice and oppression he was experiencing, and made the case that, objectively, there wasn't a lot for him to hope for. Damn if I don't think that's valid, too.
We didn't reach any consensus. Eventually he gave up on the argument, because it wasn't getting him any closer to his goal, and asked what I was reading. I showed him the book's spine, and he said he read it, or large parts of it, and he liked it better than the Bible. Then he turned and walked back over to the table occupied by his friends, and I noticed they'd been snickering at us, and they laughed and jostled him when he reached them.
Friday, September 16, 2011
intentional consuming
Jackson asked me what my ethical position is, in relation to the practice of consuming the flesh of non-human animals. I realized that it wasn't something I'd taken up and thought about in a while, so I asked my loveliest why it's okay for us to eat animal flesh. She laid out what we regard as our position, and I think she's more accepting of it than I am on the whole.
It goes like this.
Humans evolved as omnivores, and we continue to live, as a species, as omnivores. Obviously, we're not biologically determined to eat animal flesh any more than to eat, I don't know, rutabagas. Just as obviously, when there were a few thousand humans trying desperately to avoid starving to death, being an omnivore was useful, rather than the problem it has become. Yet this evolutionary history has predisposed us to be delighted by the taste of meaty things.
That's important because we believe that living well, happily, and pleasurably is practically a commandment (if there were commandments). Lauren often articulates this as a form of responsible hedonism. Not to enjoy life, for the sake of an abstract moral commitment or political aim, seems wrong to her. As she put it this afternoon, if you mean to live in a completely unharmful way in our society, you must run naked and eat nothing, and that won't last long or be very enjoyable.
We limit how much animal flesh we consume, because we recognize that its primary role in our lives is for delectation, rather than sustenance. We tend, as far as possible, to eat the flesh of animals that have lived better lives than many in the US food chain. We avoid eating feedlot beef or caged chickens, for instance. (We also think this meat is healthier for us, and firmly believe that it's more delicious, so it better serves our hedonistic mission, and our intentional ingestion of meat for the purpose of delight instead of mere sustenance.) We literally never buy chicken that is not free range. Until recently we only ate range-fed, grass-fed beef.
We're concerned about the sustainability of our consumption habits, and try to find more-sustainable options, which is another factor driving our limited consumption of animal flesh. We eat fish and seafood that is more sustainable and really strictly avoid poorly fished, over-fished, or poorly farmed fish (like that disgusting stuff they call Atlantic salmon).
After talking about it, we realized we have slipped in our habits, and we've decided to be more conscientious about what we consume.
I notice that I haven't said anything about sentience, and only alluded to suffering. Here, our positions definitely differ. My position, for now, is that sentience and suffering are important ethical considerations for any decision, but that they aren't the final and absolute considerations. I can't say it's immoral for lions to eat a yak, even though the yak is sentient, and the method of killing the yak employed by lions is probably going to cause the yak to suffer. It probably doesn't enter the minds of lions to be concerned about it, and it does enter my mind, and so it's a consideration. That's why the way animals that I eat are raised matters to me.
This may seem like a strange analogy, but I feel about eating animal flesh somewhat the same way I do about driving a car. Driving a car makes a lot of things much more comfortable and feasible, and in that way makes life more pleasant for us. Clearly, the US consumption of gasoline, like the US consumption of most kinds of food, is not ultimately sustainable, for the planet or for us. We two can't do a lot to change that, but we can choose to reduce how much we consume, and to be attentive to how and why we consume. I'm calling that "intentional consuming," to imply that the consuming I do is still self-conscious and reflected-upon.
That means, it's always open to change. I said earlier I'm less accepting of our current practice and thought about eating animal flesh than Lauren is. It's fraught. I'm not satisfied with our reasoning. But I think it's good that we do reason about it.
It goes like this.
Humans evolved as omnivores, and we continue to live, as a species, as omnivores. Obviously, we're not biologically determined to eat animal flesh any more than to eat, I don't know, rutabagas. Just as obviously, when there were a few thousand humans trying desperately to avoid starving to death, being an omnivore was useful, rather than the problem it has become. Yet this evolutionary history has predisposed us to be delighted by the taste of meaty things.
That's important because we believe that living well, happily, and pleasurably is practically a commandment (if there were commandments). Lauren often articulates this as a form of responsible hedonism. Not to enjoy life, for the sake of an abstract moral commitment or political aim, seems wrong to her. As she put it this afternoon, if you mean to live in a completely unharmful way in our society, you must run naked and eat nothing, and that won't last long or be very enjoyable.
We limit how much animal flesh we consume, because we recognize that its primary role in our lives is for delectation, rather than sustenance. We tend, as far as possible, to eat the flesh of animals that have lived better lives than many in the US food chain. We avoid eating feedlot beef or caged chickens, for instance. (We also think this meat is healthier for us, and firmly believe that it's more delicious, so it better serves our hedonistic mission, and our intentional ingestion of meat for the purpose of delight instead of mere sustenance.) We literally never buy chicken that is not free range. Until recently we only ate range-fed, grass-fed beef.
We're concerned about the sustainability of our consumption habits, and try to find more-sustainable options, which is another factor driving our limited consumption of animal flesh. We eat fish and seafood that is more sustainable and really strictly avoid poorly fished, over-fished, or poorly farmed fish (like that disgusting stuff they call Atlantic salmon).
After talking about it, we realized we have slipped in our habits, and we've decided to be more conscientious about what we consume.
I notice that I haven't said anything about sentience, and only alluded to suffering. Here, our positions definitely differ. My position, for now, is that sentience and suffering are important ethical considerations for any decision, but that they aren't the final and absolute considerations. I can't say it's immoral for lions to eat a yak, even though the yak is sentient, and the method of killing the yak employed by lions is probably going to cause the yak to suffer. It probably doesn't enter the minds of lions to be concerned about it, and it does enter my mind, and so it's a consideration. That's why the way animals that I eat are raised matters to me.
This may seem like a strange analogy, but I feel about eating animal flesh somewhat the same way I do about driving a car. Driving a car makes a lot of things much more comfortable and feasible, and in that way makes life more pleasant for us. Clearly, the US consumption of gasoline, like the US consumption of most kinds of food, is not ultimately sustainable, for the planet or for us. We two can't do a lot to change that, but we can choose to reduce how much we consume, and to be attentive to how and why we consume. I'm calling that "intentional consuming," to imply that the consuming I do is still self-conscious and reflected-upon.
That means, it's always open to change. I said earlier I'm less accepting of our current practice and thought about eating animal flesh than Lauren is. It's fraught. I'm not satisfied with our reasoning. But I think it's good that we do reason about it.
Monday, September 05, 2011
well, here goes nuthin
Today I submitted an article to an actual, honest-to-Pete peer-reviewed academic journal, something I haven't done in nearly a decade, for a variety of highly complicated reasons.
A main reason I haven't done is a main reason I finally did. (If you are already having trouble with the logic, or indeed the syntax, of that sentence, then the actual article might not be your cup of tea.) The paper is this thing I've been working on for a couple years now about how contingent academic appointments undermine the ethical responsibilities of "lecturers," because lecturers are not provided any of the professional opportunities that would enable us to act responsibly. It's a cruel, terrible, catastrophically destructive argument, and it happens to be right.
So, I sent that fucker off to the Journal of Academic Ethics, whose reputation I know not (it's a Springer Verlag joint, which means it's at least prohibitively expensive!). I have such mixed feelings about this.
I make the case in the paper that academic ethical responsibilities and the social contract of the "academic profession" has been voided by the bureaucratization of faculty work. I sincerely believe that. But one way this manifests itself is that faculty submit articles and books for publication always under a conflict of interest, because of the doctrine of "publish or perish."
The unremitting irony of the sitch is that I've sent this out for consideration because I need to get on the job market. I have a conflict of interest: I want to get something published. That obviates against my AAUP-articulated duty to "seek and state the truth as I see it." I've tried to do that, no doubt, but my main reason for trying to publish my results is not about an ethical obligation to state the truth, but entirely about an economic motivation to seek ongoing gainful employment in a profession I have just argued (and I hope to argue in print) has become ethically bankrupt.
My brain hurts, and I wrote the damn thing.
A main reason I haven't done is a main reason I finally did. (If you are already having trouble with the logic, or indeed the syntax, of that sentence, then the actual article might not be your cup of tea.) The paper is this thing I've been working on for a couple years now about how contingent academic appointments undermine the ethical responsibilities of "lecturers," because lecturers are not provided any of the professional opportunities that would enable us to act responsibly. It's a cruel, terrible, catastrophically destructive argument, and it happens to be right.
So, I sent that fucker off to the Journal of Academic Ethics, whose reputation I know not (it's a Springer Verlag joint, which means it's at least prohibitively expensive!). I have such mixed feelings about this.
I make the case in the paper that academic ethical responsibilities and the social contract of the "academic profession" has been voided by the bureaucratization of faculty work. I sincerely believe that. But one way this manifests itself is that faculty submit articles and books for publication always under a conflict of interest, because of the doctrine of "publish or perish."
The unremitting irony of the sitch is that I've sent this out for consideration because I need to get on the job market. I have a conflict of interest: I want to get something published. That obviates against my AAUP-articulated duty to "seek and state the truth as I see it." I've tried to do that, no doubt, but my main reason for trying to publish my results is not about an ethical obligation to state the truth, but entirely about an economic motivation to seek ongoing gainful employment in a profession I have just argued (and I hope to argue in print) has become ethically bankrupt.
My brain hurts, and I wrote the damn thing.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
the ethics of teaching ethics
I had an interesting, brief conversation with one of the proprietors of the horse trail ride outfit we patronized in Sonoma County yesterday, about what I do for a living. He said he thought everyone should take a course in ethics, that people needed it, he said, in order to understand that what they do matters and that they should always be thoughtful about what they do. That sounds about right to me, I said. I mentioned my great experiences with nursing students in Professional Ethics and Bioethics, and he mentioned his own great experiences at UCSF hospital.
That got me thinking about the conclusion of The University in Ruins and my feeling that Bill Readings' postmodern excesses needed to be amended with something more substantive, more concrete, even - dare I say it - more practical. (Afflicted as he was with the 1990s pomo academic disease, he wasn't able to come out and say anything for fear of being accused of having said one thing to the exclusion of the other thing, or, still worse, of having pretended to have said everything! Lawd, help us! I digress.)
Readings says, as I mentioned before, that under the regime of "excellence," that is, in ruined universities, teachers have an ethical obligation to students, something related to justice, but which cannot be determined in advance. Removing the pomo posturing, what I think this boils down to is: college faculty, as teachers, have ethical obligations to our students. What exactly is the nature of these ethical obligations?
I think I know what it can't be.
(1) It can't be an obligation to prepare students for a career. Many folks in higher ed, especially in administration, and most folks who form public higher ed policy (most often, in blissful ignorance), would be absolutely scandalized by that remark. I remember well the radio program we heard once on a trip somewhere. A high-tech industry bigwig and a CSU exec were both on, talking about the way higher ed serves or fails to serve industry needs. The exec said that by the time skills and knowledge bases are taught at universities, they're outmoded, but that wasn't the problem. The company will train employees in the new stuff. But what they really need from the universities are to educate students in how to think for themselves, how to interact and communicate clearly with others, and in particular, how to communicate with non-experts. In turn, the CSU exec said he felt that industry needed the CSU to train future employees in the most up-to-date skills and knowledge bases, so they could jump right into the front lines.
The broader lesson, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that university education is not reducible to, and not even an appropriate place, for career training. Not even my PhD program trained me to be a faculty member. It credentialed me, but I learned how to be a faculty member on the job, the way everybody else learns to do a job, by doing it.
(2) It can't be an obligation to lead students to become specialized experts in a field of knowledge. Many students seem to expect this, and some (especially first and second year students) think they are wasting any minute of time outside of major courses. There's two reasons university education should not make people experts in a field of knowledge. First of all, any reasonably complex field of knowledge is too immense and evolving for four years (or so) to make anyone an expert. Second, I think it's naïve to the point of preposterousness to imagine that an expert should or can know only one narrow field - not out of some "well-rounded person" silliness, but because it's epistemologically naïve.
(3) It can't be an obligation to serve humankind.
(4) It can't be an obligation to serve the good of the nation.
(5) It can't be an obligation to serve Truth.
I won't comment further on these three. They're the subject of Lyotard's and of Readings' critiques.
(6) It can't be an obligation to liberate students. This would scandalize bell hooks and other Freireans, I suppose, and it hurts my soul a bit to say so, too, but I think it's the truth. First of all, as Readings actually pointed out nicely, taking this stance is just a leeeetle bit messianic, eh? Professor with a Christ-complex? I've slipped into this now and then, and it's embarrassing in retrospect. First of all, 99% of my students would have to be hit over the head with a club and dragged by their hair toward liberation. Secondly, the remaining 1% generally don't need my help to be liberated, and of the few who might be helped along in their own project of liberation by my teaching, I can't say I benefit any of them by giving them help.
(7) It can't be an obligation to model, and to provide opportunities, for virtue, or for citizenship. Who the hell am I to present myself as a paragon of anything - virtue or vice? Most of the time, I have to ask my students what day it is. (Okay, that's exaggerated for comic effect: 40% of the time, I have to ask my students what day it is.)
Okay, that's fairly complete. So, what's the content of the ethical obligation teachers have to students? The terms I want to use strike me as overly aesthetic, and I'm deeply suspicious of aestheticized politics, so with that caveat . . .
Meeting classes. The Cow State Santa Claus faculty handbook actually specifies that faculty have an obligation to meet classes. This is a policy initiated by a 1969 Chancellor's Office Executive Order (really! You can look it up!). But I'm taking it in an extended sense: we have an obligation to meet our students in the sense of acknowledging them, acknowledging their humanity, their difference from us, that they are not us, but them; we have an obligation to be present in a full sense in class, for reasons I may cash out in a later post; we have an obligation to be there.
Challenging students. By "challenge," I don't mean "make the class hard." I also don't mean "make the class intellectually demanding," at least, not to the exclusion of other challenges. We can, and should, challenge assumptions, challenge beliefs, and especially to challenge comforts - of all kinds. This is extremely difficult, in my opinion, for both students and faculty, and it can only happen if faculty abide by the obligation to . . .
Honesty. Here, I don't mean "telling the truth." In fact, you can be more honest while lying, sometimes. I mean honesty with regard to what we know and don't know, what we think and what we think no one should think, even if we don't have very good reasons for it. If you challenge students without honesty, you're bullshitting them, and yourself, and you're doing tremendous damage to everyone involved. I can't think of anything that shuts students down more than dishonesty.
Humility/Compassion/Not Being An Asshole. You'd think this would go without saying, unless you've been to college. The title of expert conveys a sense of self-importance that academia encourages academics to deploy in every arena as a weapon. A classroom is no place for a weapon. More than that, though, teaching, as I am trying to articulate it, can't happen in the context of the presumption that what the teacher is saying or doing is the most important thing in the room, let alone the world. What I do is far less important than what my students do, if what I want to do is teach. This is also hard, because ego defenses are just that. Between this obligation and honesty, I prescribe a lot of exposure to potentially painful experiences as the key to teaching and learning. (Oh, did I mention students have the same obligations? Cuz they do.)
Surprising. This might simply follow from challenging. Surprise here means saying or doing the instructively unexpected. You can't just spring out from behind a lectern yelling "Surprise!" - it has to offer something to think about. The surprise can't be dismissible as your insanity or quirkiness; it has to lead to wonder beyond that.
**
Is there some overall purpose to all this? It certainly makes life more interesting, which might mean it makes life more fulfilling. It might help people develop mental and emotional flexibility and strength. But I don't have a grand narrative to organize and give a foundation to this. I don't know where it leads, necessarily, since, for instance, surprise is essentially open-ended, and not being an asshole doesn't have a direct object. I'm also short on argument here. I just think I'm right.
That got me thinking about the conclusion of The University in Ruins and my feeling that Bill Readings' postmodern excesses needed to be amended with something more substantive, more concrete, even - dare I say it - more practical. (Afflicted as he was with the 1990s pomo academic disease, he wasn't able to come out and say anything for fear of being accused of having said one thing to the exclusion of the other thing, or, still worse, of having pretended to have said everything! Lawd, help us! I digress.)
Readings says, as I mentioned before, that under the regime of "excellence," that is, in ruined universities, teachers have an ethical obligation to students, something related to justice, but which cannot be determined in advance. Removing the pomo posturing, what I think this boils down to is: college faculty, as teachers, have ethical obligations to our students. What exactly is the nature of these ethical obligations?
I think I know what it can't be.
(1) It can't be an obligation to prepare students for a career. Many folks in higher ed, especially in administration, and most folks who form public higher ed policy (most often, in blissful ignorance), would be absolutely scandalized by that remark. I remember well the radio program we heard once on a trip somewhere. A high-tech industry bigwig and a CSU exec were both on, talking about the way higher ed serves or fails to serve industry needs. The exec said that by the time skills and knowledge bases are taught at universities, they're outmoded, but that wasn't the problem. The company will train employees in the new stuff. But what they really need from the universities are to educate students in how to think for themselves, how to interact and communicate clearly with others, and in particular, how to communicate with non-experts. In turn, the CSU exec said he felt that industry needed the CSU to train future employees in the most up-to-date skills and knowledge bases, so they could jump right into the front lines.
The broader lesson, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that university education is not reducible to, and not even an appropriate place, for career training. Not even my PhD program trained me to be a faculty member. It credentialed me, but I learned how to be a faculty member on the job, the way everybody else learns to do a job, by doing it.
(2) It can't be an obligation to lead students to become specialized experts in a field of knowledge. Many students seem to expect this, and some (especially first and second year students) think they are wasting any minute of time outside of major courses. There's two reasons university education should not make people experts in a field of knowledge. First of all, any reasonably complex field of knowledge is too immense and evolving for four years (or so) to make anyone an expert. Second, I think it's naïve to the point of preposterousness to imagine that an expert should or can know only one narrow field - not out of some "well-rounded person" silliness, but because it's epistemologically naïve.
(3) It can't be an obligation to serve humankind.
(4) It can't be an obligation to serve the good of the nation.
(5) It can't be an obligation to serve Truth.
I won't comment further on these three. They're the subject of Lyotard's and of Readings' critiques.
(6) It can't be an obligation to liberate students. This would scandalize bell hooks and other Freireans, I suppose, and it hurts my soul a bit to say so, too, but I think it's the truth. First of all, as Readings actually pointed out nicely, taking this stance is just a leeeetle bit messianic, eh? Professor with a Christ-complex? I've slipped into this now and then, and it's embarrassing in retrospect. First of all, 99% of my students would have to be hit over the head with a club and dragged by their hair toward liberation. Secondly, the remaining 1% generally don't need my help to be liberated, and of the few who might be helped along in their own project of liberation by my teaching, I can't say I benefit any of them by giving them help.
(7) It can't be an obligation to model, and to provide opportunities, for virtue, or for citizenship. Who the hell am I to present myself as a paragon of anything - virtue or vice? Most of the time, I have to ask my students what day it is. (Okay, that's exaggerated for comic effect: 40% of the time, I have to ask my students what day it is.)
Okay, that's fairly complete. So, what's the content of the ethical obligation teachers have to students? The terms I want to use strike me as overly aesthetic, and I'm deeply suspicious of aestheticized politics, so with that caveat . . .
Meeting classes. The Cow State Santa Claus faculty handbook actually specifies that faculty have an obligation to meet classes. This is a policy initiated by a 1969 Chancellor's Office Executive Order (really! You can look it up!). But I'm taking it in an extended sense: we have an obligation to meet our students in the sense of acknowledging them, acknowledging their humanity, their difference from us, that they are not us, but them; we have an obligation to be present in a full sense in class, for reasons I may cash out in a later post; we have an obligation to be there.
Challenging students. By "challenge," I don't mean "make the class hard." I also don't mean "make the class intellectually demanding," at least, not to the exclusion of other challenges. We can, and should, challenge assumptions, challenge beliefs, and especially to challenge comforts - of all kinds. This is extremely difficult, in my opinion, for both students and faculty, and it can only happen if faculty abide by the obligation to . . .
Honesty. Here, I don't mean "telling the truth." In fact, you can be more honest while lying, sometimes. I mean honesty with regard to what we know and don't know, what we think and what we think no one should think, even if we don't have very good reasons for it. If you challenge students without honesty, you're bullshitting them, and yourself, and you're doing tremendous damage to everyone involved. I can't think of anything that shuts students down more than dishonesty.
Humility/Compassion/Not Being An Asshole. You'd think this would go without saying, unless you've been to college. The title of expert conveys a sense of self-importance that academia encourages academics to deploy in every arena as a weapon. A classroom is no place for a weapon. More than that, though, teaching, as I am trying to articulate it, can't happen in the context of the presumption that what the teacher is saying or doing is the most important thing in the room, let alone the world. What I do is far less important than what my students do, if what I want to do is teach. This is also hard, because ego defenses are just that. Between this obligation and honesty, I prescribe a lot of exposure to potentially painful experiences as the key to teaching and learning. (Oh, did I mention students have the same obligations? Cuz they do.)
Surprising. This might simply follow from challenging. Surprise here means saying or doing the instructively unexpected. You can't just spring out from behind a lectern yelling "Surprise!" - it has to offer something to think about. The surprise can't be dismissible as your insanity or quirkiness; it has to lead to wonder beyond that.
**
Is there some overall purpose to all this? It certainly makes life more interesting, which might mean it makes life more fulfilling. It might help people develop mental and emotional flexibility and strength. But I don't have a grand narrative to organize and give a foundation to this. I don't know where it leads, necessarily, since, for instance, surprise is essentially open-ended, and not being an asshole doesn't have a direct object. I'm also short on argument here. I just think I'm right.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
phenomenological ethics
Today I've been reading Ideas II, on the constitution of the world of nature and of the human world. It led to some probably not terribly novel thoughts about ethics, of all things, in relation to what Husserl was doing on the general question of world-constitution.
So, three quotations from Husserl that frame my thoughts.
Posit: A fundamental problem in ethics is the incompleteness of our ethical regard and acknowledgment. That is, a basic motivation for acting unethically is our failure to acknowledge someone or something’s ethical claim on us.
The instance I have in mind is the rejection of the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, in particular on the basis of religious dogma. In my opinion, a person who denies that same-sex couples should have the opportunity to marry on the basis of one’s own religious belief is doing something unethical. It’s difficult to think of it as motivated by anything other than blind hatred or fear, and I suppose, in many cases, that is as far as it goes. But perhaps there are people who believe sincerely that it’s perfectly good of them to do this unethical thing – that they have good reasons for it, that it’s the right thing to do, etc. They have as little doubt about their rectitude as I have in their blameworthiness.
The world of such persons is, as Husserl puts it, simply the world for them, the surrounding world of just those Ego-subjects, and is therefore relative to their position, their constitution of the world, etc. The sincere denial of the right of same-sex couples to marry on the basis of religious dogma makes sense in a world in which a certain sense-content of ethics is missing. Dogmatism rules out the limitation of one’s own perspective, it denies that one’s perspective is a perspective. The dogmatist takes his or her own world, the world for his or her own Ego-subject, to be the world in itself.
Now, there’s at least two ways we could go about ethical discourse. One, the most common, is to engage ethical discourse as a contest of arguments. Understood that way, we could deal with our religious zealot by demonstrating the circularity of the argument based on religious dogma, or by pointing to the obvious question-begging. We could also marshal a better argument in favor of the right of same-sex marriage. (At least, that’s how I see things, because in my opinion, if we held this contest, the pro-same-sex-marriage-right argument would be objectively superior, given that we live in a pluralistic, democratic society under a republican form of government and a system of law that holds, as a fundamental principle, the separation of church and state.)
It seems fairly obvious that the religious zealot, even upon losing the argument, will not concede. Very often, the fallback position taken is that permitting same-sex marriage is somehow violating the rights of religious dogmatists to be religious dogmatists – a position that requires, as part of its defense, that it is somehow inherent to the free practice of religious dogmatism that the dogmatic religious faith of this particular individual person become public policy.
This is a slightly exaggerated example by which I intended to show that ethical beliefs, especially false ethical beliefs, are not strictly rational in the sense we take to be at issue in logical arguments. They are more fundamental than logically fixed beliefs – which makes sense to me, given that for the most part our ethical conduct in the world does not follow from logical processes but is, precisely, ethical conduct, habituated ways of addressing the world and others and acting. Ethical conduct arises in our fundamental attitudes, which means, following Husserl somewhat loosely here, that ethics is constituted within the Ego-subject’s own relative world – as though that world had been built to correspond to the Ego-subject’s own ethical perspective. The problem of dogmatism is that, for the dogmatist, the everyday world constantly addresses that dogma, because that dogma is constitutive of that everyday world. The dogmatist on this issue is like the person who has no knowledge of physics, in Husserl’s example. The sense-content of ethical regard and acknowledgement of the full personhood of same-sex couples is just not part of the world of the dogmatist.
My everyday world is no less relative to my own Ego-subject, of course. At that level, everyone is, if not a dogmatist, at least someone who has faith in one’s own world and the attitudes and sense-contents that have constituted that world. No one’s ethical regard and acknowledgement is perfect.
This leads me to a second way to go about ethical discourse, a phenomenological way. Instead of arguments, we would learn how to bracket the general ethical positings we make that are constitutive of our everyday ethical life-worlds. (I know, I’m mixing my Husserl terminology. I don’t care.) I’m not suggesting this will magically convince anyone of anything. But a genuine insight into the constitution of ethical worlds, and a genuine understanding of the relativity of those worlds to each Ego-subject, should convince someone not only that dogmatism can never be right, and that dogmatic intolerance can never be an ethical orientation to take toward others. It should also show that logical arguments about ethics are not the complete story. Perhaps, as Husserl claims, it will teach us to be sensitive to grasping other attitudes, and therefore to understanding ethical perspectives, including our own, as perspectives.
So, three quotations from Husserl that frame my thoughts.
What is educational in the phenomenological reduction… is also this: it henceforth makes us in general sensitive toward grasping other attitudes, whose rank is equal to that of the natural attitude … and which, therefore, just like that latter, constitute only relative and restricted correlates of being and sense. (§ 49 (d), p. 189)
[For a person who knows nothing of physics, the] sense-content of physics does not belong to his actual surrounding world (p. 195f).
Speaking quite universally, the surrounding world is not a world “in itself” but is rather a world “for me,” precisely the surrounding world of its Ego-subject, a world experienced by the subject in his intentional lived experiences with the sense-content of the moment. (§50, p. 196)
Posit: A fundamental problem in ethics is the incompleteness of our ethical regard and acknowledgment. That is, a basic motivation for acting unethically is our failure to acknowledge someone or something’s ethical claim on us.
The instance I have in mind is the rejection of the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, in particular on the basis of religious dogma. In my opinion, a person who denies that same-sex couples should have the opportunity to marry on the basis of one’s own religious belief is doing something unethical. It’s difficult to think of it as motivated by anything other than blind hatred or fear, and I suppose, in many cases, that is as far as it goes. But perhaps there are people who believe sincerely that it’s perfectly good of them to do this unethical thing – that they have good reasons for it, that it’s the right thing to do, etc. They have as little doubt about their rectitude as I have in their blameworthiness.
The world of such persons is, as Husserl puts it, simply the world for them, the surrounding world of just those Ego-subjects, and is therefore relative to their position, their constitution of the world, etc. The sincere denial of the right of same-sex couples to marry on the basis of religious dogma makes sense in a world in which a certain sense-content of ethics is missing. Dogmatism rules out the limitation of one’s own perspective, it denies that one’s perspective is a perspective. The dogmatist takes his or her own world, the world for his or her own Ego-subject, to be the world in itself.
Now, there’s at least two ways we could go about ethical discourse. One, the most common, is to engage ethical discourse as a contest of arguments. Understood that way, we could deal with our religious zealot by demonstrating the circularity of the argument based on religious dogma, or by pointing to the obvious question-begging. We could also marshal a better argument in favor of the right of same-sex marriage. (At least, that’s how I see things, because in my opinion, if we held this contest, the pro-same-sex-marriage-right argument would be objectively superior, given that we live in a pluralistic, democratic society under a republican form of government and a system of law that holds, as a fundamental principle, the separation of church and state.)
It seems fairly obvious that the religious zealot, even upon losing the argument, will not concede. Very often, the fallback position taken is that permitting same-sex marriage is somehow violating the rights of religious dogmatists to be religious dogmatists – a position that requires, as part of its defense, that it is somehow inherent to the free practice of religious dogmatism that the dogmatic religious faith of this particular individual person become public policy.
This is a slightly exaggerated example by which I intended to show that ethical beliefs, especially false ethical beliefs, are not strictly rational in the sense we take to be at issue in logical arguments. They are more fundamental than logically fixed beliefs – which makes sense to me, given that for the most part our ethical conduct in the world does not follow from logical processes but is, precisely, ethical conduct, habituated ways of addressing the world and others and acting. Ethical conduct arises in our fundamental attitudes, which means, following Husserl somewhat loosely here, that ethics is constituted within the Ego-subject’s own relative world – as though that world had been built to correspond to the Ego-subject’s own ethical perspective. The problem of dogmatism is that, for the dogmatist, the everyday world constantly addresses that dogma, because that dogma is constitutive of that everyday world. The dogmatist on this issue is like the person who has no knowledge of physics, in Husserl’s example. The sense-content of ethical regard and acknowledgement of the full personhood of same-sex couples is just not part of the world of the dogmatist.
My everyday world is no less relative to my own Ego-subject, of course. At that level, everyone is, if not a dogmatist, at least someone who has faith in one’s own world and the attitudes and sense-contents that have constituted that world. No one’s ethical regard and acknowledgement is perfect.
This leads me to a second way to go about ethical discourse, a phenomenological way. Instead of arguments, we would learn how to bracket the general ethical positings we make that are constitutive of our everyday ethical life-worlds. (I know, I’m mixing my Husserl terminology. I don’t care.) I’m not suggesting this will magically convince anyone of anything. But a genuine insight into the constitution of ethical worlds, and a genuine understanding of the relativity of those worlds to each Ego-subject, should convince someone not only that dogmatism can never be right, and that dogmatic intolerance can never be an ethical orientation to take toward others. It should also show that logical arguments about ethics are not the complete story. Perhaps, as Husserl claims, it will teach us to be sensitive to grasping other attitudes, and therefore to understanding ethical perspectives, including our own, as perspectives.
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