{Speaking: Bernhard (Ben) Gunter} Good morning let me start. Welcome to
teaching ethical reasoning across the
disciplines and let me first introduce
Vicky, Vickey Kiechel from...SIS, and Sarah
Houser from SPA government.Okay
this is today's program first I want to
give you some background of habit of
mind courses and ethical reasoning
courses when I want to provide some
experience of ethical reasoning course
specific experience my course econ 110
for Global Majority and I want to give
you some examples of interactive
exercises have something productive
exercises - based on econ 110 and then
we will have Sarah's and Vickie's
presentation. I also we will also have
towards the end question and answers
and discussion but if you have a
question right away which you need to
get solved before you can really follow
i'm of course happy to take any
questions any time if you know if it
doesn't take too long of answering it.
Okay I have posted some documents it's
normally a blackboard site but it's a
conference site and visit this
powerpoint is on the conference website
also the syllabus of econ 110 for
authority or for 2018 is on that site
for guidance notes of a discussion paper
or research paper for learning outcomes
worksheet which was a requirement to get
this course and proved to be an ethical
reasoning course I have provided that
for those of you are interested and want
to see an example of how I have
done it and how it was approved and when
there's a called supporting document and
that's a document which was also
required to getting econ 110
approved for ethical reasoning and it has
information on assignments for
descriptive paragraphs, the steps the
department will take and a major
selective prerequisites issues related
to econ
110. Okay, note the deadline if you are
interested to submit ethical reasoning
course a proposal is February 15 this year
and let me give you a little bit
background on the habit of mind causes
habit of mine cause as you probably know
our part of a new AU core that AU
core replaces old previous general
education program and one of the main
reasons for revising for training
program as you probably know was that
students thought of it as an obstacle as
a requirement that they have to finish
before they can focus on their most, the
more interesting topic what they
really want to graduate in their major.
however as it as it turned out the new a
new AU core is actually implies actually
more requirements in terms of credit
hours and than the old general education
program on the other side of course
the content is very different so it's
not really any more so if it's more
credit hours it is very different
structure so even quantity is more
quality is also better and it should not
necessarily be seen as an obstacle which
we have to take before really getting into
their areas and fit courses which they
want to take for their degree for more
general information about the AU core
you know there's a website you can look
at and you know I'm not waiting now that
you copy down because in search you
don't just get the PowerPoint which is
on the conference website there are five
habits of minds as you may know created
a static inquiry which are cultural
inquiry ethical reasoning it's not
outstanding I just made it blue because
it's a topic we cover and then national
scientific inquiry socio historic
inquiry actually that difference is that
it's ethical reasoning everything else's
inquiry, but anyway
starting with forward 2018 also
freshman's have to follow the
requirements of a new AU core and all
new students have to take habit of mind
courses and they have to take one course
for each its five habits of minds as
these courses may be taken at any time
during the program and again for general
information about habits of mind,
so again, a website where you can of
course find much more information. Let me
just
inform you in case you don't know 
that actually faculty of all things may
teach a habit of mind causes and that
causes may be offered at any level from
100 to 400 but all sections must be open
to all students across university
therefore it cannot be a major
requirement and because courses that are
major requirements are not eligible to
become habit of mind causes major
selective's however which are courses
that students may take for their major
credit are eligible to become habit of
mind causes. Okay, as of December 2018
there are actually 42 courses that had been
approved as habit of mind courses in
creative aesthetic inquiry, there were nine
courses in cultural inquiry, there were ten
courses in ethical reasoning there were
only five courses approved for
ethical reasoning. In natural scientific
inquiry there were also only five but
for environmental science 150 there were
15 sections of (inaudible) were we covered a lot
of students you know who wanted to take
natural scientific inquiry.
Socio-historical Inquiry, there were 
13 courses accepted and in
2018 this is giving overview for
following ethical reasoning courses they
are taught for those American Studies
240 poverty and culture for two
sections with 38 students had taken that 
course. Econ 110 for Global Majority
were also two sections and I had 68
students in those two sections.
Philosophy 120 Do the Right Thing there were nine
sections and they had 164 students
taking that philosophy 220 moral
philosophy four sections 77 students and
then in sociology 210 power, privilege,
and inequality there were 4 sections and
110 students had taken that, so if you add
that all up that's 457 students in fall 2018
and recall that all these new students
will need to take you know ethical
reasoning courses so we have a kind of
not enough courses offered for all those
students who will need to take ethical
reasoning at some point while they are
here at AU. Let me know now if you
have some important questions
right now.(Pause for Questions). Okay let me give you some of our experiences some information about
how this course econ 110 has been
approved as being an ethical reasoning
course I want to first give you just
a tiny little bit of background for econ 110
for global majority. What is it? What is it about? How did econ 110  finally
get approved some major changes in the
contents of structure which I had to
make not as the only way to do
it but just as an illustration on how I
had done it and then again for learning
objectives are important of course for
ethical reasoning and I want to not only
give you four learning outcomes but also
how I applied them again just an example
it's not like it's a perfect way of the
only way but read as an illustration, and
we also have some examples and some
interactive exercises as I teach it in
this course. Okay so some background
first of all the Global Majority meaning, what is the global majority? The
global majority simply refers to where at
least 80 percent of the world population
who lives in developing countries, yeah,
and econ 110 the globe majority
has been taught at AU at least since the
1990s and I have been teaching this
course econ 110 every spring and every
fall since Fall 2009 so I'm teaching it
basically 10 years every fall and and 
spring and there has been no fixed
contents when I took over the course. Based on my experience I was
working for the World Bank's, (inaudible), the UN organizations before I
started teaching at AU. The  
department there said hey look, I trust
you to redesign this course however you
want he was not probably too happy with the
way it was taught before so he said take
whatever you want to do and he's said
and teach how you think is best
and that's how I basically redesigned the whole
course I spent a lot of time to
fundamentally revise the course and
building on students
comments feedback I also did some
experimenting trying this way and the other way seeing how it works out the course has been over
the last ten year since I taught it
basically what I felt perfect that okay
it has been really important.
Improved all the time and I was so happy
and students were happy with this
course as well
students liked the course and many
students took it because they had
recommendations from other students who
took it previously. So how did I get
Econ 110 to get approved as an ethical
reasoning course the answer is it was
actually not that smooth it was actually
quite tedious it was lengthy and in my
personal opinion it was kind of unfair. I don't want to go into too many details but for
guidelines and requirements they werel
unclear were evolved over time the
explanation for projections didn't make
sense to me at least and it also seems
like that the committee chair for Ethical Reasoning did not seem to be too interested
in having non philosophy courses
teaching ethical reasoning which is of
course philosophy and religion how can
any other discipline teach it. That's the
impression I got. It's not true but
that's the impression I got
so Econ 110 actually got rejected
twice before having finally been
approved in May 2018 and so the message really I want to
confer here is that don't expect an easy
approval okay even if you adopt for
suggestions which were given to you by
the committee as feedback it's not that
straightforward at least it was not for
me and afterward you know I mean I
submitted that for
proposal and for details on what I want
to do and so far to forth I got
feedback first I am arriving to the
Department of ethical reasoning chair and I
submitted the stuff before the deadline
and she gave me some feedback and when I
implemented all that feedback and that's
why I thought okay well she gave me
feedback and implemented it so it should
pass now so when I got the rejection it
has not been approved I said what, but I
got approval indirectly so why has it 
 not been approved? So I was kind of surprised I said okay this will not happen again
this time I will check much more
carefully I will be really revising
the course fundamentally even though I
didn't have too much incentives because
I thought the course was already great
the way it was it was an ethical
reasoning course with some degree but said okay I'm not taking any chances
I will revise it. Fundamentally make
it very different again you know I had
inputs from the Ethical Reasoning committee members and so on said okay this time it
will pass again second time it didn't
pass neither again they had new
questions and new comments, Oh what about this and what about that so at that
point I was a kind of fed up to be
honest and I say basically we have three
options now, one is that you tell me what
you want make the changes and I'm happy
to do it whatever you tell me to do
that's one option the other option is
that that you realize the course is
actually very good and it is an ethical
reasoning course and it should be approved as is. The third option we have is that
somebody like the Dean or the Provost
will if you offer all the material for
guidelines and how I have submitted it
and then they can make the decision if
it is ethical reasoning or not. Now that was then considered to be a threat. Okay, how can you write a
threatening email like that, I had to
apologize and apologize sorry I didn't
mean it that way
okay but that's how it was at that point
anyway, the bigger question really is
how much
ethical reasoning theoretical concepts
do people need to know, do students need
to know to make good ethical decisions
and the way I see it... (pause)  very dry I need some
coffee...
The way I see it (drinks coffee)
The way I see it is I am guided by article
1 of Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and as you may know the first
sentence of article 1 of a Universal
Declaration of Human Rights says that
all human beings are born equal and this
are born free and equal in terms of
rights and dignity. Now that's not the
sentence which I'm focus on it's a
second one and the second sentence of
article 1 says that human beings have a
conscience, they have a conscience and
people know what's good and what's bad
so for me I interpret it that you don't
necessarily need to have a lot of
theoretical concepts about ethical
reasoning to make good ethical decisions
that because we have a conscience we
know what's good we know what's bad but
what is actually more important is for
people to know the facts because if you
don't know the facts, if you don't know
what poverty is in developing country
how inequality is at this point in the
world, okay,  you may make the wrong decisions not because you don't know the
ethical concepts but you don't have
sufficient information to make the right
decision. That was a diversion anyway
so I had to change the contents and the
structure of Econ quite a lot this is
how the old version was before it was an
ethical reasoning course. It had four parts
in the first part I had the key
characteristics of a global majority
like that they are poor, they had population growth
and gender issues
urbanization all this stuff then they
had second part which is specific topics
which are determined for lives of a
global majority were I covered issues
like agriculture, climate change, water
scarcity, indebtedness of developing
countries, micro-credit where they don't
have access to credit. Then in part three
I looked specifically at the developing
countries in developing regions and
I always picked one country of that
developing region like when I looked at
East Asia I looked at China, but I
didn't only cover for region and for 
country, I connected one key development
topic related to that country like when
I looked at China we looked at
innovative, different economic
systems of capitalism versus
communism when we looked at India and
South Asia
we covered we looked at first the
transformation of economy some
agricultural economies to industrial
inner service and so on so forth anyway
too many details and then the fourth part
I covered human dimension institutional
policies which are topics I
covered . There was human rights
globalization and stuff like that. So
there were about seven classes for each
part. There was a midterm after the first
two parts and then there were actually
two classes at the very end which
were reviewing the most important from
all 26 classes because every
class was a new topic I felt that was
important to have a few before the final
exam okay now then I had to change
it and I changed in my view
quite fundamentally that I had now only
two parts and in the first part I cover
for foundations like for origins and for
structures and covers topics like the
development ethics paradigm ethical
frameworks for decision making Human
Rights global order and so on and so
forth and there are about 10 classes and
every class I cover one of those
foundations and in the second part I
have now changed it instead of having
one topic per class I have now two
classes for every topic so there are
eight topics which I cover starting at
poverty, inequality, population growth and
gender issues and so on so forth and I
have two classes for each topic and the
first class is giving students
basically the background about poverty
and in the second one I then cover more
ethical aspects of it so this is how it
has been redesigned and this is how it has
finally been approved to be an ethical
reasoning course. Okay, now for
learning outcomes for ethical
reasoning they are clearly defined they
are mandatory
you basically cannot even change one
word
unfortunate outcomes but of course you
need to apply it to your course and one
is I mean different sequences but one is
we recognize of origins or structures of
complex every key issues identify and
differentiate ethical perspectives or
questions the third one is demonstrate
ethical awareness by critically
discussing and analyzing moral superstitions and fourth apply ethical
concepts in the framework and this is
how I applied these four learning
outcomes to econ 110 with regards to a
first learning outcome
I said look in part one of his course
and also in the second classes of those
in part two  which we cover for
specific eight topics which are
important for the global morality firstly they provide the foundations and the
necessary background which you know
recognizing for origins so that's how I
have applied it this first learning
outcome and based on required readings
which students have to read and
summarize not all of them but some of
them before class in reflective
summaries we then derive for origins and
existing structures related to global
maturity in class via class discussions
and so on and so forth. They are also bi-weekly quizzes and a midterm that will
reinforce students grasp for these
foundations. With regards to the second
learning outcome, identifying
different ethical perspectives
again in part two of his course we
identify different ethical aspects by
looking at eight specific topics like
poverty, inequality, and so on so forth
which threatens the lives of
the global majority and there are two
classes as I said for each of his eight
topics covered in the first class
allocated to each topic provides a
necessary background and then the second
class allocated to each topic
identifies in different shades for ethical
perspectives and students have to write
four reflective summaries each
identifying a different rating for
ethical aspects of one of these key eight
topics.
The third one demonstrate ethical
awareness by critically di scussing and
analyzing morals (inaudible)
...these are patients so procedure really (stumbles over words)...
superstitions, okay, 
students will demonstrate ethical
awareness by critically discussing and
analyzing moral positions of some
key development issues in power, two
basic tests on the syllabus what I have
here. A combination of classroom, okay, I'm okay well I have I have two times
fifteen minutes
I have I have 30 minutes for my okay
no I stay that's fine okay so it's a
fourth one let me go a little bit fast
Apply ethical concepts and framework
is basically the discussion paper or
research paper whatever you want to call
it where students need to you know apply
what they've  learned about the ethical
concepts in the framework and they need
to apply it to one of eight topics
specifically and we need it also apply
to one developing country specifically. Let me just run through some
examples and interactive activities one
key ethical question related to poverty
in developing countries not poverty in
industrialized countries is, does the
global order hurt the poor and based on
philosophical debates the answer to this
question among others based on other
more fundamental question is then related
to - do those resources belong in some
possibly therefore weak sense- to
humankind collectively? And what I do I
asked them let's say you own a piece of
land and by drilling for geothermal
heating system you discover a goldmine
500 feet below who owns it gold okay and
the first idea make a well it's my land
but actually that's not true unless a
piece of land comes with explicit mining
rights okay that gold actually does not
belong to you okay at least in the US
and in Germany even something like ten
feet anything below 10 feet doesn't you don't own it.
Anyway and another question,
whether you own a piece of land and the
national government decided to build on
an interstate highway through your land
and wants to buy that land for more than
fair compensation are you required to
sell it? Yes or no? 
so this is issues related to poverty
because who owns the resources who owns
the fish in international waters, okay well
nobody whoever catches them but when you
may say well is that really fair I then
divide the class into groups of three to
discuss shouldn't those fishermen have to
pay something? Maybe to who if they have
to pay something. Should there be some
limits on how much fish
anybody can fish? There actually are some
national limits anyway. What about the
worlds climate? Okay, who owns Kenya's
climate which is getting harmed by
greenhouse gas emissions of mostly rich
people. It's not the poor people in Kenya
who cause climate changes, it's the rich  people
in industrialized countries. Yeah, and they 
destroy the climate of course globally
but especially the poorest people in the
developing countries in the poorest
countries are the most vulnerable to
climate change and there's no
compensation really this is what I
thought as an exercise but we really
don't have the time for it anymore let's
look at Qatar we could have looked at
that on there are three hundred thousand
people and they own 0.05 percent of the
worlds... that's 0.005 percent of a
population but fees 0.005 percent of the
worlds population they own about 1% of the world's oil and natural gas resources
yeah residing in average income per
capita of about 100,000 dollars per
person, that's an average. It's not like
just the rich no it's the average. So we
could have made four groups and we could
have discussed you know - Does Qatar have a
social if not a legal but it is a social
obligation to share its wealth? You
might consider the ramifications, I'm not going through, and we could have discussed it
in five minutes. Now with regards to
inequality in the first class I cover I
cover inequality more of a factual stuff
I also covered how different
philosophers have reached different
conclusions about that desirability of
inequality and then I look specifically
at two - and I don't have a time to go through
this all but anyway when I asked
students to make groups and discuss if they
agree with laws or if they agree with
the libertarians or if they agree with
both let me just give you a little bit
background on inequality like I do to
them. What is a centi-billionaire? I ask
them, they say ah a centi-billionaire is a
billionaire...it's a person who has net
worth more than 100 billion it would be
a centi- billionaire they say well there's
probably no such person in the world.
There's more than 100 billion? actually no there
is, there is. And he's currently in the news
He's the worlds richest person in the
world (Jeff Bezos)and he owns one hundred twelve
billion dollar in 2018 now as of 2016
just to give you a contrast in the
contrast the top one percent of the
world's richest people they own as much
as ninety nine percent than the rest of the world. And a handful of billionaires own, Bernie
Sanders always points out but it's not
really coming from him, he points out
that a handful of billionaires they own
more than half of the world wealth
okay I'm wrapping up. Some might call it
inequality again you know I have a lot
of details which is informative for them
that inequality is not necessarily bad
inequality can be seen as an incentive
to work hard and so on and so forth but
for me inequality has evolved over time
there are more and more people who come
to conclusion that for inequality to
this level what we have about inequality
is actually harming hope it's no more
helping hope so then I know I'm looking
in have some discussions
about it and the last thing I could have
looked at actually still have two
minutes this trade and ethics which is
eight topic, the eighth topic which I cover
and you know I go to some of a
background why trade is important why
economists think trade is important and
how can trade be unethical and they are
you know various people who fought about
it. I'll just give you one example the first
type is a kind of obvious van like you
know trade in in human body parts or you
know if people go for sex tourism to
Thailand and tries prostitution
that's say it in services that's
probably most people would not consider
it to be ethical and there are many
other examples if again I'm not going
through but again if we would have had
more time it could have beat class
exercise assume there is proof that
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Should
the US stop trading with Saudi Arabia?
Think about it things you may consider
like only stopping exporting of weapons
maybe stop importing oil - oil from
somewhere else
maybe both unfortunate but only if other
countries or most other countries do it
as well otherwise it may not be
effective what are  alternative solutions. use
the chest and visit I did with a class
with the two sections I had and I was
actually shocked with the outcome because
the class they tended to argue, no we
should continue we should continue oh
you know it has negative impacts on
families and negative impacts on us and
I was shocked I thought no if you have
proof okay if it feels guilty you should
do something about it but they didn't
feel the same way that was really
surprised I would never like to see what
these things but anyway that's basically
what I wanted to present. Thank you.
Do you have any
questions? Before we go to the
question-and-answer sessions. Yes.
(Audience Member): Did you find revising the class
was the class better or worse for you? Was it more enjoyable? Did you think students got as much?
(Gunter): I thought enjoyable
I I like both things it's not like that
I dislike this version or more of this
version than the other one. Enjoyable if
they are both equally fine I mean I
would not have suggested it if I have
not you know like to have agreed to it
to do it this way I still think that to
some degree sometimes we cover like I
try to say in the presentation that we
may cover sometimes too many abstract
ethical concepts and it's not really
necessary for them to make good ethical
decision on knowing you know five
different ethical frameworks about
effective decision-making which is
abstract ethical frameworks which you
know they learn and ventra forget in any
case even if they apply to some degree I
think it's more important that we know
the issues than knowing the theoretical
aspects of ethical reasoning, but anyway
(Audience member:) Were you always interested in teaching? You were doing the bank work then came into teaching.
interested in teaching yeah III didn't
think I would like teaching that much I
was working at the World Bank and other
organizations and then I became... my wife
and and me came back from Tunisa (inaudible)     Bank because she was American fee
I'm ever gonna give up shop and then I
was having my own research organization
and then I said that makes me nice to
teach at AU since I have my PhD from a
you to have you know as an adjunct
instructor to teach one class and I
taught macroeconomics econ 108 so much
and if it students loved it so much I
had something like six point eight you
know force evaluation out of seven if it
fell off me I laughed it and fine I said
okay I want to continue teaching so I
was continued teaching as an adjunct for
two years and when I became full-time
but I was always interested in kind of
social justice issue so even so when
when I had for option teachers loved
majority I say this is perfect this is
exactly in fest I always thought of it
to be ethical reasoning class and not
even though it didn't cover you know
theoretical aspect
sorry okay yes we can have already laid
off and you okay
I can't get it to oh yeah can you get
head yeah okay okay so hi I'm Sarah
Houser I teach an SP a and in the
government department and so full
disclosure I am a political scientist
but I do political theory so I'm more
sort of naturally oriented towards
philosophy and things of that nature
philosophers would say I'm not a
philosopher a political scientist say no
to those scientists something in the
middle you know but that makes this sort
of task a little more what I normally do
and so that makes developing a course
which I did for that was recently
approved for the ethical reasoning
something more closer to what I normally
teach and secondly that I am also on the
ethical reasoning subcommittee the the
infamous subcommittee and part of the
reason why we want to do this is so that
we can obviously smooth out this process
by which courses get approved so I
wanted and the part of the reason I
think why this you know confusion
happens is because the learning outcomes
as we all know are vague right and
they're sort of intentionally vague in a
number of different ways and I think
what matters most is perhaps defining
how making clear to the committee how it
is that you understand the meanings of
the words in the learning outcomes and
that's probably what I'm going to be
talking most about but I guess there
would be two major points that I want to
make before I get into the details of
the learning outcomes and this is has to
do with the expectations of what ethical
reasoning is in the in the view of the
committee and how we can well sorry how
it might be different from the way in
which some people normally think about
ethics so when people teach ethics class
this is or when we talk about ethical
and unethical behavior this is sometimes
understood in terms of compliance that
is there's a set of rules or principles
like the code of conduct that's put
forward by certain organizations like
the American Bar Association or the
American Medical Association and then
the ethical question is are you
complying with this set of rules or are
you not complying with this set of rules
and so then according to these codes
certain behaviors can be understood and
clearly categorized as ethical or
unethical these codes of conduct can
certainly be a part of and be taught in
some ethical reasons horses but it's not
primarily what ethical reasoning as a
habit of mind involves because what it
involves is an assumption that ethics is
not necessarily one thing or that the
claim of what's ethical and unethical is
not obvious it's something that has to
be questioned it's something that what
we want the students to challenge their
currently existing after the beliefs to
identify them and to question them so
it's not obvious from the beginning what
the requirements of ethics are and so
for example we had a business ethics
course that was which was approved this
past semester was it Viki yeah and that
course involves some teaching of these
kinds of codes but it also involves a
questioning of these codes and the
underlying principles and ideas which
underlie those particular codes so this
is something that when you're doing
particular if you're used to doing a
particular kind of professional ethics
that we would want for an ethical
reasoning course to expand beyond what
you might normally consider to be a
certain set of rules and compliance with
those rules the second point has to do
with ethical frameworks which is
learning outcome number four which I'm
going to sort of come back to the idea
behind I think the ethical reasoning
habit of mind is giving the students the
tools they need to recognize and analyze
ethical questions with chaé encounter in
all aspects of their lives
this means that
ethical reasoning habit of mind course
must provided students with ethical
frameworks which they can apply both
inside and outside the context of the
particular topic of that course we want
to give them some and this is the idea
behind all the habits of mind I think is
and the reason for changing from the
traditional distribution requirements to
habits mind is that we're teaching them
a way of thinking which we're teaching
them in the context of a particular
subject a way of thinking but the idea
is that we could then that they could
then apply use that way of thinking in
all different aspects of their life so
this is the same with historical social
inquiry those different other kinds and
so that's what we want to teach the
students with regard to ethical
reasoning is when first of all to
identify when they're making ethical
decisions because they make them all the
time and they don't realize it they have
certain underlying ethical
presuppositions which they need to be
exposed and explored and we need to give
them a framework to some extent with
with which they can analyze those
particular ethical situations that they
encounter and those frameworks can take
lots of different forms but that is I
think a key part of what's underlying an
ethical reasoning successfully
completing an ethical reasoning habit of
mind okay so those two points
Ithaca frameworks and ethic the
relationship between ethics and
compliance I just want to say also brief
word about normative versus descriptive
ethics which is something which comes up
a lot depending on what discipline this
is something which comes up especially
when you're talking about the
disciplines of sociology or psychology
so descriptive ethics involves the
empirical research into ethical beliefs
which people hold why they hold them how
they come to make ethical decisions
obviously this is empirical research and
there's certainly a place for that in
ethical reasoning and the ethical
reasoning habit of mine we can
distinguish this from normative ethics
which is the question of exploration the
question of how people ought to act
regardless of whether or not they
in fact act that way right so just
separating the basic normative and
empirical questions we just call them
descriptive ethics and normative ethics
so common theories of normative ethics
utilitarianism virtue ethics
deontological etc so some ethical
reasoning classes will deal with
questions of descripting at descriptive
ethics not all of them like I said we
just approved a psychology class last
semester which had a whole section on
descriptive ethics how it is the study
of the brain and how people think it is
that they make ethical decisions why
they feel certain ways they feel empathy
but all courses have to make some
engagement with the questions of
normative ethics as well as descriptive
ethics and yeah so these are the
learning outcomes and I've highlighted
the words in red which I think are vague
and which can mean a lot of different
things and what I found so my experience
of even though I'm on the committee I
didn't get to vote in my own course this
is the way it works right
and so my course got rejected the first
time - and I thought wow okay strange
but I think it was it forced me to make
some changes to the course which I think
it made it a lot better the course but
what I realized was it's very hard to
tell from just from a syllabus and even
from the kind of narrative statement
that I had to give what it was that I
was thinking when I read these learning
outcomes and so what I did was in what I
resubmitted it the first version of the
course was called the quest for justice
it was sort of a general justice
oriented course with different topics
and in the second version I narrowed it
down to the question of justice and
citizenship and what I did then was go
through the assignments that I had and
show what the I thought those different
words meant in terms of the assignments
that I was giving so this is just my
brief course description
which basically there are two basic
theoretical models of citizenship within
the history of political thought the
liberal model on the Republican model
and they have representatives both in
classical political theory and in
contemporary and so basically the first
half of the semester I examine the
liberal versus versus Republican models
of citizenship and then in the second
half of the semester I just problematize
those with questions of gender race and
nationality so what I did when I was
making up my assignment was to say what
I thought like I said these different
ethical perspectives was the
perspectives or questions can mean a lot
of things so when I wrote my midterm
exam normally on a syllabus I would only
put the first part right that's the on
italicized part but when I was writing a
proposal I had to explain what sort of
my thinking was so I said the purpose of
the midterm exam is primarily to test
the students understanding of the two
models of citizenship these two models
constitute two different ethical
perspectives between which the students
must differentiate and thus is meant to
test their progress towards the
completion of learning outcome one
so basically ethical perspectives can
mean a lot of things for the purposes of
this course I was looking at the two
different ethical perspectives on the
question of citizenship the Republican
model versus the liberal model and those
were the two that needed to be
differentiated okay
so moral presuppositions the second
learning outcome involves getting people
to questioning teaching students how to
question moral presuppositions so the
first thing to say about this is it is
not saying in the learning outcome
whether these moral presuppositions that
they're questioning ought to be their
own or other people's I think some
people read it with the intention of
seeing it as getting the students to
question their own moral presuppositions
other people read it with the question
of getting students is the students
reading a text and then trying to pull
out the author's underlying moral
presuppositions either of those things
is fine it's just you have to well I
guess be identifying where and how
exactly they're going to do that so with
the first paper and the first reading we
reads Socrates in the apology and Martin
Luther King's letter from Birmingham
jail and so the first paper is described
your understanding of what it means to
be a good citizen is there necessarily a
tension between being a good human being
and being a good citizen are Martin
Luther King of Socrates good or bad
citizens according to your definition so
my way of looking at this was in part to
introduce the idea of citizenship as an
ethical question but then to get this is
my way of getting them to pull out in
the very beginning of the course their
own underlying moral presuppositions
about what it means to be a good citizen
and so that's specifically what this
assignment is meant to test so and I can
I showed and I said that specifically in
my description of the assignment okay
origins and structures depending on what
kind of course you're used to teaching
you're gonna have greater trouble with
one or the other of these learning
outcomes origins and structures is less
what I normally do so those two things
obviously can mean a lot this is their
second paper describing explain how the
historical oppression of women and
minorities complicates and challenges
both the liberal and Republican models
of citizenship so basically you're
taking a theoretical model of
citizenship and you're trying to apply
it to a case in which you have certain
historical circumstances wit of
oppression which have created the
situation in which we now ask this
ethical question so that origins and
structures means looking at the way in
which those problems have come to be Wow
we've gotten to the place where we're
needing to ask this ethical question and
how that might change our theoretical
approach to the ethical question by
looking at those origins and the
structural structures within society
that effect that might affect the answer
so this is really a sort of coming
together of theory and practice kind of
a question that they're doing in this
frameworks or concepts is the final
learning outcome so my takin final thing
is I asked them to write an essay in an
increasingly globalized world the
liberal and Republican models of
citizenship are no longer applicable and
should be placed with a cosmopolitan
model of citizenship
that's the question they have to agree
or disagree with that statement and I
see this final exam as testing all four
of the learning outcomes in some sense
so that's what I did was I went and said
exactly how I saw that as being the case
the students must identify and
differentiate the ethical perspective of
the immigrant or potential immigrant
that's first thing they must articulate
their own understanding of what a good
citizen is so that's the second learning
outcome they must describe how the
context of globalization complicates the
question of citizenship that's the third
origins and structures learning outcome
and they must apply their own
understanding of good citizenship to the
ethical dilemmas posed by living in a
globalized world that's the fourth
learning outcome that's the applications
Act so obviously your assignments can
and should hit on more than one of the
learning outcomes basically I think it
comes down to just revealing what you're
thinking is behind each of the
assignments and how specifically you see
that assignment reflected in the
learning outcomes and I'm making a lot
of emphasis on assignments and I think
that's important because the assignments
not going to say the assignments matter
more than the content it's not quite it
but in terms of meeting the learning
outcomes there has to be an assignment
which shows the students progress
towards each one of the learning
outcomes and it has to be clear how that
exactly is happening and you know just
like when students write papers and
their reasoning is clear in their own
head and it's not clearer than the paper
we all have that experience therefore
reading students papers I found that
when I wrote my syllabus it was very
clear in my head but even my colleagues
on the committee it wasn't clear I
wasn't making it clear how I was
thinking about these
so that's why I went through and I
actually quoted words from the you know
learning outcomes and says these are the
ethical perspectives I'm trying to
differentiate these are the framework
this is the framework that I'm talking
about here um and if that's done then
you can do do this with lots and lots of
different kinds of content sorry excuse
me I think that's all I have
specifically for my presentations right
now?
(Audience Member:) For me it looks like the issue is going to be with the course assessment.
How are you going to assess the course and are you going to use rubrics?
For me as a student not as a professor.
To my understanding, there is no one
ethics the ethics here are different and
it's based on the culture of the student especially if you're teaching this course as a global course.
(Houser): Yeah so I think that it doesn't matter
what the students own sort of ethical
positions are they are evaluated on the
question of whether or not they should
still be able to apply an ethical
framework even if it isn't their own
that would be my first response to that
is that that's what you're teaching them
how to do and once it's to apply a
certain ethical theory to a certain set
of facts. The other thing is that the
students have to be encouraged to
examine their own ethical positions
whatever they might be they and to
expose the Mining's and examine them and
I don't think that we're necessarily
thinking I want students to come to any
particular ethical conclusion that
wouldn't be the right answer a the idea
would be that we want them to be able to
think
in an ethical manner in a coherent
logical and clearly applied manner and
most students have a set of ethical
beliefs that are not coherent and not
logical we all know this and so what we
want to try to encourage them to do is
to try to develop a set of ethical
beliefs which are more coherent for
themselves but I'm not no professor I
think should be requiring any sort of
them to come to any kind of ethical
conclusions this course qualify for a
reason well does it does it fulfill the
learning outcome...does it have assignments
that fulfill the learning outcomes is
like the first sort of big one and is it
teaching students the general sort of
theory of ethical the idea of ethical
reasoning that is that they should be
able to create an ethical Theory take it and apply it
in a certain place so the rubric is the
learning outcomes but like I said the
learning outcomes can be a bit vague and
we're open to lots of different
interpretations and learning outcomes we
just want to know what yours is.  Yes.
(Audience Member): So I teach a sociology class, Power, Privilege and Equality it's an ethical reasoning course,
And I have a question about your comment about normative versus descriptive classes.
That was probably the biggest challenge for me was to do a class as and ethical reasoning course for the first time this semester
And on the one hand I taught the class previously for about
two years and I realized teaching as an ethical reasoning course I was actually
doing a lot of ethical reasoning in the first place, but I found it hard to address the normative part
without pulling in a lot of readings from philosophy. And I know from talking to the committee
That wasn't necessarily expected, but it was really hard to do it without that
Because sociology doesn't really have a lot of these ethical
frameworks empirical evidence that
sociologists produce helps too
inform peoples ethical stances, but
I don't know it isn't that really
something that's expected? that was
probably the biggest challenge for me
it's but especially since I tried to lay
down
finding reading yes it is I mean I think
that you know that there have to be some
kinds of normative ethical frameworks I
think in order to teach ethical
reasoning adequately we're having a fact
that we're having a faculty development
workshops and things like that to help
people with this and it just depends I
think a lot on your level of comfort no
one's expecting you know that you have
to sort of you know read all of contour
something like that in order to teach
teach this but there has to be some
engagement with normative ethics and if
that's not something that is if you're
that you're not comfortable with at all
then I think that this is gonna be
pretty difficult for you but and there
will be sort of more prep but we're
really focusing on trying to help
faculty with that and get faculty and
that's why we're running this faculty
development workshop this semester and
we will be doing it further
you can just you know your discipline
and I found that really like I did have
to bring it
yeah I mean there's there's normative
frameworks within different disciplines
right and so it's not necessarily just
philosophy but it is theory right I mean
a normative framework is gonna be so I'm
Vicki I'll try to condense into about
ten minutes leave time for more
questions general questions but I'm the
sort of come hither presenter they want
you to do this you know Sarah had
mentioned this us have been this there's
a difference between ethics and ethical
reasoning right so almost if you think
about what ethical reasoning is in terms
of framing or ways of thought almost any
discipline can can engage and become an
ethical reasoning course so it's really
it's like the father and might be that
Greek wedding and you know give me a
word and I'll show you how the root of
the word is Greek you know give me a
course and I can show you how your
course could be a habits of mind ethical
reasoning course I'm serious about that
the other thing to this question about
normative ethics you know this is I
would argue really an imaginative
pursuit also and a creative one and it
is up I think to us if we're struggling
with these issues is to find sources
other than in just strictly philosophy
to rely on and we'll look at in I'll
show you some other course descriptions
from other universities and
see if there's anything that kind of
piques your interest so benefits I also
want there are benefits yeah our
students need it or society needs it you
know it will enhance you know the rigor
and imaginative Ness of your own courses
and scholarship I think that's a huge
benefit and then this question that been
addressed you get to teach all kinds of
students across a new if you do this and
that is great I taught my first complex
problems course and that was a huge
benefit and fun so you get outside your
silo and yes if you base your teaching
on discussion in these case study
exercises where you ask students to
activate their learning through these
exercises your sets your yours
evaluations do improve of it and then if
your term faculty if your adjunct
faculty you have this job security
issues right so if you're teaching in
the core all hail the core that is like
an argument for retaining you so you
know come on
um so who's his teaching ethical
reasoning I put up the Weston book Elan
great Quaker institution Quakerism the
last mystical religion maybe in an
American life but anyway we use this and
a you know sort of exploratory committee
so let's look at what we can learn from
other examples here
Stanford and Duke do a lot of these
courses they have requirements as we now
do my this is the last little sub bullet
is anecdotal the balance of courses is
are taught by non philosophers I'm I'm
an architect teaching in the global and
proudly teaching the global
environmental politics program at si
I'm not a philosopher of the obvious
kind maybe but anyway in my research
about you know he was teaching it where
these horses live it's non philosophers
to chance so here are some examples one
of my favorites Shakespeare the ethical
challenge so you know have a look at the
course description I mean it's it's
fascinating you know can we divorce
ethical decisions from the contingencies
of experience that's like so embodies
Shakespeare and Shakespearean plays and
often the kind of crux of the players
you know will ask a series of normative
ethical questions to do with pleasure
power old-age sacrifice and
truth-telling an attempt to answer the
minimal ation to the dramatic situation
of Shakespeare's characters anyone here
from literature complet or English oh
yeah okay another example literature
global health I mean again this is
perhaps when you think about you know
coming into this from the point of view
of more maybe usual disciplines to to
teach ethical reasoning I think global
health is is more of an obvious one but
the linkage in this case between
literature and global health I think is
unusual and quite powerful and you know
the fact that the I did not know the
editor-in-chief of The Lancet had a call
for literature of global health I'm
gonna milk that for all it's worth in my
gateway course in environmental
sustainability of global health but you
can see the variety of authors that
they're using here everybody from you
know phenol pedagogy of the oppressed to
Paul Farmer in his
work in Haiti another example complet
Middle East - looking at at the idea of
to ethical pathways mysticism and
rationality I put up this is obvious
inna who is a Persian and philosopher I
forget what it's actual Persian name is
but even Cinna thank you excellent you
know really interesting kind of polymath
so you know that's an interesting it's
sort of a way into this subject what
would you do differently today
again kind of this idea calling on
students to think about this you know we
certainly organize knowledge differently
but do we think about that versus movie
Noma this is more typical living more
within the sort of straight
philosophical ground but this course as
I would call it when I you know took it
off though this University website is
not one offer to philosophy students but
rather to other students so I loved its
questions
I mean again it gives you an idea of the
liveliness that is you know possible you
know you go from how should we live our
lives to should be digging wells rather
than taking philosophy classes you know
sort of you know who says that this is
the way it should be you know the
question of blame Earth Sciences this is
taught within hard sciences again this
is more analogous to some of the courses
that we do in global environmental
politics at si yes but I mean there's
beautiful writing you know to do with
the ethics of stewardship and
environmental studies
you know this obviously draws on it this
is a Stanford course I am interested
that we now own airlie is a farm I don't
know if this is transferable they
mentioned there Stanford educational
farm I don't know if it's transferable
somehow in the future if anyone's here
from you know the hard sciences and and
wants to you know take a shot at this
with respect or anything that's right
computers ethics in public policy again
the idea of looking at I think
interestingly taking ethics and focusing
on what this instructor defines that the
problem areas of computers privacy
reliability risks of complex systems
very interesting that's an idea of kind
of application then I think its vivid
ethics and politics and public service
again this is this is you know sort of
more I guess maybe usual or expected but
I think it is an interesting take
because so many of our students for
example at si yes go into public service
but certainly this whole question of
volunteering you know fallen tourism is
something they engage in regularly there
could be a lot of interesting thinking
done in this school around in this
university around this ethical issues in
engineering won't linger here but I do
think it's interesting that you know
they're they're taking this this this
kind of there they're not only taking
frameworks they're actually taking the
sort of code of ethics they're combining
them in a sense this one here's the
statue of Adam of guilt
so constructing a course around an idea
of you know guilt Paul Walker's in the
one'd suffering another kind of thing
that you have focused on Paul in your
scholarship in the past you know you
could do a kind of thematic hinge for
this as well but I think the OLT is is I
certainly grew up with enough of it so
I'm delighted to put to this group what
on what is intolerable
I love courses that teach that failure I
try to teach that failure whenever
possible and this is really you know
right there you know asking you asking
the students to really consider this
question of what is intolerable
you know I'm sure that there is a this
question again of how you define failure
again it's very much this question of
framing very much an ethical question we
have the business school not this
business school but this I found
interesting because they clearly offer
guest speakers on a variety of topics I
mean this is would be another way to
construct a habits of mind ethical
reasoning course here is to really base
it around guest speakers how fun for you
and how fun for them as long again as
you had these exercises and assignments
that actually kind of again activated
their learning
arts anyone from Towson so there a lot
of this is one being done in Australia
actually this is not an American
University but you know I think you know
it's it's it's on the arts is I'm so
glad in the last five years to see the
movement away from it's not stem it's
steam science technology engineering
arts and mathematics I mean I think this
is this connection I received for
Christmas the biography by Walter
Isaacson of Leonardo you know there's a
you know Renaissance you know argument
for this but anyway here's here's a
course description having to do with
this and then you know last there is a
course on ethical reasoning and the
aesthetic experience also in arts I put
up I mean I was just imagining this is
part of it this is a jam w Turner
painting this is one that I saw when I
was 15 or 16 years old that be coming in
I'm a native of this place Washington DC
to come in a traveling exhibition I was
standing in front of it odd and just
taken in by them beauty of it until I
actually understood that he had written
a poem directing me to observe that this
was a slave ship throwing overboard the
dead and dying who were pictured in this
beautiful depiction of nature you know
and their chains you know again this
idea of kind of you know what is that
relationship between aesthetic
experience and then this kind of ethical
reasoning a realization and you know
your value system of right and wrong is
an experience I obviously never forgot
okay so how can we help you in our post
bin reconfiguration we the committee and
I sit was Sarah on the committee I think
it's you guys is so valuable to have
your perspective as having constructed
these of horses
but you know there's support for you if
you want to do this we'd much rather
support you on the front end with
brainstorming makes much less work for
us we hate flexing no go back
revive us we can help you with
brainstorming we can help you with you
know your course development support
would pre the review and of course with
the divisions and then they're starting
to be ongoing contact opportunities
within the ethical reasoning teaching
community and there will be more of
those Alex breathing has just you know
set up a sort of a lunch for folks to
talk so please join us in this are there
we have eight minutes is that right so
I'm told to make sure that you take
course evaluations and pencils there's
little you have to do that us or you're
invited to do that you're strongly
encouraged to do that drop them in the
box before don't take them away with you
so please do that but now let's have
questions for anybody or just general
observations
like it depends on what class I mean it
depends on what class you're talking
about it like cuz my class was a totally
new one I was taking one that he'd
already done so if you're making you're
thinking about taking in an existing
class and changing it is that yeah okay
I changed about two-thirds I kept 1/3
and 2/3 I changed because I couldn't
cover all the other topics anymore so
the first whole first part it's all you
know philosophical aspects of of you
know poverty inequality and stuff like
that basically four foundations of
ethics which I cover on FETs that's I
didn't never taught before 1 pfennig the
second part when I have always two
classes the first is again is what I had
before about the second is and applying
physical aspects to vet specific topic
which is also again a new reading
typically doesn't have to be in effect
extent
I think it would have been interesting I
mean for me if I issue versed I shared
what I proposed before finally
submitting it and then I got some
feedback and I thought I have
implemented that feedback and I still
get the rejection and whenever okay if
it happens twice but not a second time a
second time it still happened so I just
didn't know what they want I really
didn't know what they want and I really
have a feeling that you're just
discriminating because it's not
philosophy that's I mean it's probably
no - but that's really the impression I
got so I think it would be useful to
have some kind of workshop explaining to
potential faculty who wants to teach his
course on what we're eating healthy and
it may be as he said you know Sarah's
ate that in the syllabus it just didn't
come across what I had in mind
it was not like it it probably was not
fair it was fair and for me it was
classically about for fame it was not
clear at all yeah I would do that
which of you ever said in some way that
the course became a better course or
worse in some way
yeah I mean if you don't know what to do
when you just get to attract that
anything I don't know what to do anymore
to favor you know if at the repair shop
is definitely much more helpful and I
don't think that two days spending
because all the reservations and
formulae dividing up it's much more than
two days so I don't think for two days
if any but today you think whether the
structure of the requirements is
reinforcing a cultural standard of
ethics in itself in other words like the
unexamined intellectual assumptions that
we make them lead into that but for
instance right like I think the issue of
honor killings that issue ethical
problem of honor killings assumes that
the rights of an individual supersede
the rights of a tribe or a family right
it's it assumes that honor is a
subsidiary value 2 for instance freedom
sorry in the in the in the committee or
in the formulation of the chorus you're
like how how deep do you dig to try to
understand whether the questions you're
asking are in fact reinforcement to
clarify I I mean I think that you're
invited to to definitely that would be a
question that I would ask if I was
teaching that subject that you know it's
not obvious so we think of it as a
problem but from what perspective are we
thinking of it as a problem right we're
thinking of as a problem because we're
looking at it in terms of human the from
the point of view of individual rights
and if you look at it from a more you
know communitarian way of of ethics then
it will be completely different so I
would think that that would be something
that you would definitely exam
when you examine that question - in
order to give it a full exploration I'm
not sure if that really answers your
question I mean I'm not going into into
too many details but I always try to
emphasize that fair are there is not one
correct way okay - to approach an issue
like climate change okay but it is
different interests and there is a
conflict of interests and which one
finally you know overwhelms and it gets
through that's not necessarily fed clear
based on ethical issues yeah I think
that's unavoidable yeah yeah
I guess my question for you is what
advice would you have to help faculty
regardless of whether the course itself
can become your course - that's a great
charge that's more of a charge excellent
you know which I think yeah trying to
encourage them to you know be systematic
in their ethical reasoning and anything
that they sort of think about it is the
best way to get them to answer those
questions because when we have students
debates about topics that they can be
kind of a free-for-all you know like and
this is my view and that's my view and
just assertion and counter assertion so
anything you can do to get them to sort
of try to formulate some sort of
coherent thought process when they're
talking about ethical questions is what
I always try to do we have an onboarding
process for faculty that's consistent
across the disciplines here I mean I'm
not sure that we do that would be a
place to try to reinforce this I mean we
don't have an orientation for us like
our undergrads do I see I mean I didn't
we do but do we more like more like
young resources so that would be an
excellent place to try to embed exactly
this kind of thing I think we're
actually oh but if ya anybody wants to
please this will return your evaluation
