The Philadelphia Story

The Philadelphia Story centers on the moral transformation of Tracy. When I say ‘moral transformation’ I mean that she moves toward a higher, better self – and she does this by becoming herself more fully, i.e., by truly being herself, or, as Dexter puts it, by behaving naturally. This does not mean that she was, previously, bad, although I fear that this is what the idea of a moral transformation brings to mind for many people: one was bad and then, through a transformative process, one becomes good. I don’t think that most moral transformations are of that sort. Rather, I’m willing to think that most (or at least many) people are basically decent (as are Wiesler and Adam and Seth and Torvald and Nora) but are perhaps misguided or ignorant of something crucial; then, once they receive guidance or the crucial experience that enables them to see things more fully, they become better. And while they are better than they were before, this does not mean that their work is done: new crises will likely need to be faced, and even better selves are waiting to be brought into existence – into actuality, i.e., into acts.

 

Tracy in interesting in that she is not like Amanda – she is, in a sense, not yet a full human being (as she herself notes near the end of the film), whereas Amanda is. However, she is also not quite like Nora, insofar as no one is holding her back. She is not constrained as Nora is. In fact, she is, with her concern for proper appearances, control, and the scolding of others, more like Wiesler or Torvald or Seth’s father. She already gets to be like a man, which is something for which Nora can only wish. Yet even though she gets the privileges and liberties that a man does, there is an important sense in which she is not yet fully human. If this is so, then the (very Millian and Aristotelian) implication is that most of us who have liberty are not doing anything with it – we are not yet fully human, not yet making our own choices, and are instead ignorant of and/or indifferent to ourselves (to our true being, whether that be our preferences (Mill) or our intellect (the term Aristotle uses for our capacities to reason (practically and speculatively) and to choose).

 

Amanda, like Tracy, is the equal of any man, but unlike Tracy, she has, in Beauvoir’s phrasing, already completed the struggle to become a human being and is, when we meet her, struggling to be a creator (714). The closest we got to a creator in this film is Dexter (and perhaps Mike), and this is worth thinking about, but it is also a different point and so I’ll set it aside for now.

 

With respect to Tracy’s transformation, there are a number of ways in which the final scenes and stages of that transformation echo some of the key ideas of our course. I’m skipping many things here, but these are the moments I want to pull out at present (and all of them occur as Tracy talks to her friends the next morning). First, she says “my eyes are opened.” A bit later she says “I don’t know anything any more” (a condition that Dexter, echoing Socrates, praises). She has her final exchange with George in the company of people she calls “my friends,” who get to stay precisely because they are her true friends (and George is not – and it seems important that they be able to contemplate her rejection of George, which is a beautiful (kalos) act insofar as she freely negates something (in this case the desire to marry him) that is not her and not true to her). She is unable to explain her behavior from the night before, which she grants is something difficult to understand (just as Augustine grants that it’s difficult to understand that an act of free will has no source). The need to go “haywire” and “behave naturally” is affirmed by Liz and Dexter respectively. And there is the notion of different classes of people based not on economics or birth but on spirit, intellect, and authenticity (a very Nietzschean idea). And there is Tracy finally feeling content and happy – in harmony with herself, a harmony that is visibly evident – because she is finally human (and not a goddess or a statue). And two of the things that most fully drove her to that state are (a) being forced to see herself – to confront herself as she is – and (b) being able to see what others imagine her to be when she is not present, such that they have faith in her better self, as Dexter does, or they do not, as George does not … and note that George was given the choice to think the best or the worst of Tracy, and he first claims that he cannot think anything else but then affirms that he’ll decide for himself how he’ll imagine Tracy. Why, you might ask, does George choose to think the worst?

Blog 8: Finding a Topic and Question for Essay Two

I can perhaps better and more fully describe my reluctance to offer or assign specific essay questions now that we have read Nietzsche, who offers a useful set of concepts and ideas in this regard. The problem is this: When I assign particular questions, I find that what I have in mind with a particular question often differs greatly from what you have in mind when you read the question. Thus, you head off in a direction that ends up not being fruitful, because you in essence answer a different question (one not designed to draw the best out of you). The reason that this turns out bad is that you’re answering my question, not your own (or rather, because we can understand the same question differently, you answer what you think I was asking, which turns out to be different from what I was asking).

 

Things go much better when you ask and answer your own questions. In Nietzsche’s terms, things work best when you put before you all that had attracted your interest; something can attract your interest because you understood it and it fits with your thinking, or because you understood it and it speaks to something nascent within you that you’d like to explore, or because it confuses you and yet you want to understand it (likely because it speaks to something buried within you). You want your topics and questions to arise from this process; you should end up with more than one question. You then have to exercise various capacities in determining which question you will actually address: you must think through things, you must reflect upon yourself, and, in the end, you must make a choice. If you let the choice be made for you, the chances are that it will not go well. But if you do manage to make it yourself, then you will find yourself revealing and even engaging “the real raw material of your being.”

 

But there is of course more that can be said. First, I recommend that you reread the advice I gave you the first time regarding the temptations you should avoid and the strategies you should engage. Remember: you want to engage your ‘true educators’ first and foremost. You want to ask tough critical questions of them. And you may want to test their thoughts using one of the movies or perhaps even an issue from contemporary life (although the issue itself should take up little space – the emphasis should be on testing the educator’s thoughts; that is how you learn about yourself).

 

One of the key strategies is to think about what’s going on in the course at this point. Recall how we started. We looked at the beginning of moral life as Plato presents it: we are in a state of ignorance because of how we have been shaped by society. We do not even know that there is much that we don’t know. This is not a morally good or happy state. We then looked at how society shapes our moral being and we did this in large part by looking at a crucial moral act: entering a society. We of course did not enter a society from some outside position – we are already in one. But one of the fundamental moral acts of our lives is how we relate to the strangers around us, and for much of us these relations are directed by the principles on which our society is founded. We agree that we ought to grant each other liberty, but as Mill and Rawls and Beauvoir show, one can do that and remain indifferent to others (Rawls), push them to conform (Mill), or in practice deny some people the liberty that they are granted in theory (Beauvoir). And as Beauvoir, Locke, and Mill claim, we are often reluctant to change our society or ourselves (especially if we’re a sovereign Subject and not an oppressed Other).

 

So we are at this point aware that we – and our society – are not all that we can be. But we are still in chains – or at the overwhelmed with unpleasant sensations, such as the too-bright light that blinds us and the aches in our legs, which we haven’t ever used, and the scrapes from the rocks on which we stumble and the yanking of our arms by that wild man or woman who claims to have the truth … And so how do we change? How do we get out of the Cave? What frees us from our chains (our ignorance and preconceptions and unjustified sense of the good and poorly chosen ends) and turns us to the true and the good and the beautiful and then guides us and sustains us on our haphazard journey toward it – a journey subject to chance and crisis? In other words, now that we’ve become awakened to the possibility of the moral life (of both a better life and the possibility of a better self and even a better society), how do we make our way toward that life? How do we do something about the opportunity opened up to us in this moment of crisis in which all our certainties are thrown into doubt?

 

The point of the readings since the first essay is to get us thinking about that. Thus, we need to know how we might change and why we might change. It seems that the answer involves the notion of the will and the end (the telos or highest good at which all our actions aim, the reaching of which is perfection, however temporary, such to ‘to perfect’ (or ‘to fully make’ or telein) ourselves is what guides and pushes us). What enables me to become dissatisfied with the world around me and the ends it has given me? What enables me to turn from it? How do I find or build a new end? Does a new end grab ahold of me or do I freely chose one? Do I think it or will it or desire it – or all of the above? And what’s at stake in saying that my will is free or not free? What, further, is at stake in saying that it’s naturally free (in Hume’s sense) or radically free (in Augustine’s sense)?

 

The key to all this can perhaps be found in the opening section of the first reading of this portion of the class: Hobbes says, “Read thyself.” It’s a variation of “Know thyself.” But think of this analogy: before I can know a novel, I must first read it (or with music: before I can know a piece, I must first play it). And once I’ve read it (or played it), there will be a lot that escapes me. So, before I can talk of knowing myself, I must first read myself, i.e., reflect on myself and test myself with new questions and experiences and thoughts and perspectives. (And I should probably get others to read the ‘text of me’ too.) And, indeed, each thinker thinks that we’ll find something slightly different inside of us.

 

In some cases, we are thought to have an ‘essence’ – some nature (as in a natural principle or trajectory or set of inclinations) that we share with all other humans. According to essence-based thinking, my existence (each of my actions, day in and day out) is determined in advance by my essence. Aquinas and Hobbes are, in their ways, both essence-based thinkers: essence precedes existence, and so someone like Aquinas or Hobbes believes that they can sit down and think through what I should do even though they’ve never met me. On the other side of the spectrum are thinkers like Beauvoir and Nietzsche, for whom existence precedes essence: there is nothing that I am or must be simply because I am human; rather, who and what I am is revealed through the choices I make as I move through life. In the case of Nietzsche, my creation of myself is guided by the higher self that lies buried within me; for Beauvoir, I am creating (making it up) as I go. Hume lies somewhere in between these two spectrums.

 

In any case, you might try to distinguish each thinker in terms of whether or not s/he believes we have something inside us that is the source and measure of what we do, and you might further wonder if that something is essential, meaning that it’s something that each human has by nature and that somehow determines what will make him/her happy in advance of his/her existence. Take the following pictures of the human (the human find (a) a natural law, (b) a true self, (c) appetites and aversions, or (d) nothing), and ask yourself, “Which thinker posits which picture?” Then, ask yourself, “What difference does it make which picture is true – or which one I accept?” You might find something useful. (For instance, even if we can be sure that we are free, the idea of freedom – of liberty – is an incredibly useful one when determining the rules that should guide our relationships with each other. To pick an example that one student is using, think of the current situation in Iran.)

As for some topics, issues, and questions to get you going, you might think through the following:

1.    Start with a compare/contrast approach: take two-to-four thinkers and see how they agree and differ on some crucial issues, and then investigate the consequences those differences have for the way of the life – the moral life – that those thinkers would have us lead. You might focus on the different conceptions of liberty, will, the final end, first principles (those ultimate maxims that, like the final end, are intended a measures of possible actions), or human nature.

2.    You might take, as your primary aim, the task of understanding fully the thinker who most spoke to you – you can compare/contrast to other thinkers as needed. But be sure to explain why this thinker warrants more attention.

3.    Think about the different ways that each thinker believes that we go about ‘reading ourselves’ so as to determine that law and/or end that should guide us.

4.    Think about the reasons I have for entering into relationships with others – whether a society or a friendship. What is the story each thinker gives about why I am reluctant to change when these relationships aren’t working and about what justifies me in changing them when they aren’t working and about how I make that change?

5.    In a similar vein, you might wonder at this: Most of these thinkers look around their contemporary society and find it wanting; they even seem to suggest (or claim outright) that others have molded us poorly and constrained us often or always, so that developing my true self – a better self; a moral self – involves turning away to some extent from society. At the same time, all of them believe that this turning cannot happen alone. So, what role do ‘friends’ and ‘true educators’ and ‘artist-writers’ and other creators play in the moral awakening and development of others (and Others)?

6.    You might further address any of the previous five suggestions by looking at either Thirteen or Boiler Room. How do our thinkers help explain the various experiences of Tracy and/or Seth? How does this application help us to critically question those thinkers?

 

Last but not least, I would offer this bit of advice: my fullest sense of you a developing thinkers comes from your sense of taste, as revealed by the quotations you choose. That says a lot about you. The ability to select good, worthy, intriguing quotes – and to then explain and extend and apply them – is the real source of your philosophical action and being. Both Hume and Nieztsche believed that moral (and aesthetic) life is dominated and determined by the faculty of taste. So: What’s tasty?

Free Will and Morality

Morality is supposed to provide a code of conduct – an account of how to live – that pays careful attention to how my actions affect other people. Such codes always contain at least some ‘perfect duties,’ i.e., those negative commands that tell us what not to do. Generally, if we violate those commands, we are held responsible for our actions and are frowned upon, scorned, and even punished. However, there are exceptions: if I was forced to do something bad I am not responsible because it was not me acting but rather that someone or something who forced me to act in that way. But this exception is premised upon the idea that I am otherwise generally responsible for my actions because they are a product of my free choice: I could have done something else, but I freely chose to do something that violates the moral code and so I am responsible for the consequences.

 

Insofar as the very idea of morality is premised upon the assumption that we are free, the debate over the nature and existence of the free will is crucial to moral theory: if we are not free, then we cannot be held responsible for our actions, and morality then makes no sense. So the first thing that must be determined is what the free will, and the second thing that must be determined is whether such a thing exists. (A third thing would be the extent of the free will: do I will the end at which all my actions ultimately end or merely the means to the end?)

 

Most discussion over the nature of the free will centers on how such a thing is possible in a natural world in which everything is assumed to be determined by antecedent causes. (Indeed, no one disputes that all nonrational physical objects are fully determined in this fashion.) So the question is, Is free will compatible with a determinist account of the world? If not, then the free will must be a nonnatural faculty, which is something many today are not willing to accept.

 

In this debate, there are two general possible positions: incompatibilism and compatibilism. The incompatibilist argues that a free will in incompatible with talk of antecedent causes – if anything prior to the act of willing caused (determined) that act, then it is not free. Thus, in willing freely, I can, as it were, act without concern for what would determine me if I were a regular animal. Hume calls this idea “the liberty of indifference” insofar as it claims that my freedom is a matter of being ‘indifferent’ to antecedent causes – meaning that I am able in some way able to negate them so that they do not determine me. The compatibilist, on the other hand, argues that the notion of free will is compatible with determinism, since what is at issue in free willing is not the ability to negate causes but rather a different kind of cause. According to the compatibilist, there are, for the rational being, both external causes and internal causes. An internal cause means that the source of what I do comes from within me – it is internal – and so I am not compelled by someone or something outside of me. This is called the ‘liberty of spontaneity’ by Hume, insofar as I am able to act ‘spontaneously,’ meaning that I am able to do what I want – based on whatever I happen to desire at that moment – and am not compelled by something prior to me.

 

Hume argues that the liberty of indifference makes morality impossible: if it is a denial of causes, then my action has no cause but is in fact random. I cannot be held responsible for an action that I did not cause and that is simply random. Therefore, I must be the cause. But what is there within me that could cause me to do something? Hume would say that what is in me is my will – and so liberty (freedom of action) is simply being able to act in accord with what I will/desire. Insofar as I am then the cause of what I do, I can be held responsible for it: there is a positive condition (I am the cause of the action) and a negative condition (and nothing external to me made me do it), and we are morally responsible only when both conditions are met.

 

To an incompatibilist, such as Kant or Beauvoir or Augustine or Aquinas (though Aquinas is tricky here), the notion of spontaneous liberty makes no sense, insofar as I am not in control of my willings and desires if they were in fact shaped by forces outside of me. For instance, I might desire to never lie, but if this is because I was subjected to a regimented, controlled upbringing in which I was electro-shocked every time I lied, I might well desire not to lie, and the cause of this has been internalized, but it makes no sense to say that I act freely when I act on such a desire. Kant said that such a notion of freedom could apply to clock: it moves according to a mechanism internal to it that is at present untouched by anything outside of it … although of course this is only because it was built this way and at some previous point wound up. It makes no sense to say that it is free. Therefore, to say that I am a cause of my actions in any meaningful sense must therefore mean that nothing internal or external – no inner force such as passion and not outer force such as a threat of violence – compels me.

 

Yet Hume has a stronger argument, one that should make us think twice before accepting the ‘indifferent’ free will. (And a quick note here: the ‘indifference’ here is metaphysical, meaning that it says something about the nature of necessity and what is – the will is able to act in such a way that antecedent causes make no difference; in class I have also used the phrase ‘liberty of indifference’ in a moral sense – the liberty that we find in Hobbes is premised on the idea that I am naturally indifferent to others when I exercise my liberty.) This stronger argument is based on the supposed existence of the moral sentiment and our ability to exercise it when viewing character traits from a common point of view. According to Hume, we can never actually see a character trait – a personality; rather, we only see actions. However, we frequently judge the character of others. So how is this possible? Hume argues that it makes sense only if we assume a few things: First, I can take a set of actions and I can, from them, infer the kind of character who would perform them. Second, I can assume that this character is responsible for them. Third, I can assume that characters don’t suddenly change – they don’t suddenly become indifferent to who and what they have become over the course of time. If characters were not both steady and also the cause of the actions of the person, then moral discourse and morality as we know it would not be possible. In fact, when we hold a personal morally responsible, we are in essence saying that the person’s character produced the action, and we hold people responsible for their characters.

 

This then leads to the question of my character: Who am I, and how can I be held responsible for who I am? The incompatibilist would say that if my character was shaped by my physiology and my environment, then it makes no sense to suddenly hold me responsible for it when I am an adult. Doing this would only make sense if it were actually possible for me to change it: in other words, only if I could transform myself from what I was once in something different (something that I am not yet but could be) would it make sense to say that I am the author of – and so responsible for – my character.

 

So where does Aquinas stand in all of this? He is supposed to stand on the side of the incompatibilists. However, he can often sound like he is closer to Hume. Yes, there are obvious differences, insofar as Hume believes that reason cannot prescribe the end – the good – to a person. Reason is all about the means, and it is the will that moves me and that sends me out into the world after things and away from things. Reason doesn’t, as it were, go out in advance of the world and find things that the will might like; rather, the will tells reason what it wants and then reason hurries off to do its bidding. If we then ask, From where does the will get its sense of what it wants?, it seems that the only source is the passions. Contrary to such a view, Aquinas claims that reason can go in advance of the will and seek out the way of life that it should want. The will then measures – and so accepts or rejects – what reasons presents. However, this sounds odd: Would not our reason have already measured what it found as good against the true good, and so would it not have already accepted this possible good as the means to the true good before submitting it to reason? It sounds as if either the will really just is deliberative, practical reason (which is what both Aristotle and Kant would say), or that the will really has no work to do. I mean, c’mon, what lame will would reject its own good?

 

The answer that should suggest itself, based on our reading of Aquinas, is this: a will that has been overwhelmed by a passion would reject what reason offers. But if passion can overwhelm the will in the face of what reason suggests, then is it really free in the incompatiblist’s sense of freedom? Augustine, as we will see tomorrow, will say no, such a will is not free. And, in fact, Augustine posits a ‘lame’ will: our will could, when offered the good, perversely choose to not go after it. Indeed, later in life Augustine claimed that the free will is really only the capacity to sin, since we are by nature designed to want the good. 

Hume and the Intercourse of Sentiments

In thinking about Hume, I can’t help but wonder at his notion of the “intercourse of sentiments.” This is his phrase for what happens in conversation when conversation leads us to a clearer moral awareness of the world. It’s as if we have not simply a conversation of particular people but rather of the very sentiments of those people, which happens as each person, in conversation, comes to more fully under what others want and feel. Hume explains all this in a long passage from his An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (from an earlier chapter from which we did not read):

The more we converse with mankind, and the greater social intercourse we maintain, the more shall we be familiarized to these general preferences and distinctions, without which our conversation and discourse could scarcely be rendered intelligible to each other. Every man's interest is peculiar to himself, and the aversions and desires, which result from it, cannot be supposed to affect others in a like degree. General language, therefore, being formed for general use, must be moulded on some more general views, and must affix the epithets of praise or blame, in conformity to sentiments, which arise from the general interests of the community. And if these sentiments, in most men, be not so strong as those, which have a reference to private good; yet still they must make some distinction, even in persons the most depraved and selfish; and must attach the notion of good to a beneficent conduct, and of evil to the contrary. Sympathy, we shall allow, is much fainter than our concern for ourselves, and sympathy with persons remote from us, much fainter than that with persons near and contiguous; but for this very reason, it is necessary for us, in our calm judgments and discourse concerning the characters of men, to neglect all these differences, and render our sentiments more public and social. Besides, that we ourselves often change our situation in this particular, we every day meet with persons, who are in a situation different from us, and who could never converse with us, were we to remain constantly in that position and point of view, which is peculiar to ourselves. The intercourse of sentiments, therefore, in society and conversation, makes us form some general unalterable standard, by which we may approve or disapprove of characters and manners. And though the heart takes not part entirely with those general notions, nor regulates all its love and hatred, by the universal, abstract differences of vice and virtue, without regard to self, or the persons with whom we are more intimately connected; yet have these moral differences a considerable influence, and being sufficient, at least, for discourse, serve all our purposes in company, in the pulpit, on the theatre, and in the schools. (emphasis added)

So Hume grants that desires differ among people – we pursue, in Mill’s parlance, different goods. However, he (Hume) believes that we are able to look at things from a less subjective point of view when talk to others. Occupying this point of view makes us act and feel in a “more public and social” manner. We are thus more in tune with other people. And Hume’s argument here is grounded not simply in the idea that we get together and talk and change our opinions in order to find some common ground. Rather, in order to converse over matters of good and evil, those words must have some content that transcends particular differences; this must be so in order for such conversation to be possible. Thus, stored in this moral vocabulary, in these particular words, is the whole history of human experience with respect to what is agreeable and useful, and when we use language to talk to others, we are brought out of our own limited experience and put in touch with something larger than ourselves. 

 

This speaks to a problem I have with Hume’s notion of the “intercourse of sentiments” (his idea that conversation with the members of my social group will bring my sentiments more in line with the universal moral sentiment shared by all people). The problem I have with it is that such dialogue works to calibrate people’s moral sensibilities, but this seems to only happen successfully in relatively homogenous groups. Indeed, the history of Western thought is often in part the history of relatively like-minded white men getting together and coming to some sort of agreement over what is right and wrong; females, the poor, non-whites, and those of different religions and even nationalities are often left out of these conversations. Also, such conversations can easily lead to conformity (meaning that they can push people to conform to a limited ideal that is really not so good). Hume might argue that, in such conforming conversations, people are not really working together to find the proper point of view from which the moral sentiment can be exercised. However, how can one tell? How can one be sure that s/he has all the facts and is fully imaginatively sensitive and is fully disinterested (from a personal point of view)? There is no authority who can step in an adjudicate conflicts; the group must work together to find consensus.

 

And this seems to be Hume’s point: Yes, there is no higher authority in such discussions, and we must work to find consensus, and the fact that we can work toward consensus and sometimes even find it is because of how language works. In other words, if the words we use to describe moral experience – words such as good and bad and evil, liberty and rights and happiness, virtue and vice and ends – didn’t have some minimally similar meaning for all people, we wouldn’t be able to carry on conversations at all (at least, not about those things that matter to us). And Hume today could point out to me just how much ground historically oppressed groups have gained through the power of conversation. Such groups have spoken up and in doing so have made the dominant groups realize that they had not in fact entered a state that is factually informed, imaginatively sensitive, and truly disinterested from a personal point of view.

 

So conversation can work to free as much as it can push to conform. And you might at this point say, “Well duh!” 

Blog 6: After the First Essay and Looking Toward the Second

The pace of the summer session seems to be catching up with us all - I felt that we were all rather flat today, although in my case being ‘flat’ often means that I’m being a bit too kinetic (i.e., jumping about or moving too quickly – or both). I know that I myself was trying to rush through too many connections, often leaping from a statement about what the text before us was saying to some connection or critical question or thought experiment or alternative view. I’d not used Hume in the previous version of this course and I’m now amazed at how fully he connects with what we’re doing on so many fronts, and so I wanted – and tried – to move through a great deal of information in a single class. Add to this situation the fact that you all are tired and have been focused on the paper and so likely did not read Hume at all or with as much care as usual, and it made for a scattered day. Of course, I’m generally a poor read of these things: the days that I feel scattered are the often the ones that most resonate with students, and the days where I feel on tops of things are often the days that leave students fully confused.

 

Still, the main point was to start to grapple with Hume’s main idea (the idea of the moral sense) and with how he connects with the other thinkers, and I feel that we did that. It is challenging, since he casts previous thinkers in a new light, such that we were not only introduced to Hume today but to new versions (i.e., Hume’s versions) of Hobbes and Locke.

 

The next step is to get an understanding of the role that conversation plays in the development and exercise of this moral sense, and I feel that we go a good start on that, too. It’s a tricky idea, but we made progress. And I look forward to class tomorrow, as I think that Thirteen (powerful all on its own) will help us to make even more sense of what Hume is saying. 

 

Looking toward the next essay, I should stress that Hume’s moral theory continues to be endorsed in various forms by many philosophers today. It was - and still is - tremendously influential. It will likely be one upon which many of you will want to write. It will also connect very well with the next film (Boiler Room).

 

Also, I’ve read through the papers and I’m pleased. As a group, you did very well (meaning that there were many As, although not everyone got an A; however, everyone who turned in a revised paper did get a C or higher). I should have rough scores for tomorrow, but I won’t have my feedback written up. But I can certainly let you know how you did. And everyone has a solid foundation on which to build in the next two papers. Again, I’m very pleased - it’s both a sign that you are developing (which is what, of course, the course is all about) but also that the full revamping of my Intro Ethics course is paying pedagogical dividends. 

Eve of the First Paper

My hope is that our class is busy putting the finishing touches on thoughtful and engaged essays. My fear is that students haven’t started yet or are rushing to produce philosophical sound and fury. I haven’t heard much at all from our class, and so I don’t know if that means that all is under control or that students were afraid to ask questions (or still haven’t started). Of course, it is just the first paper, but I want everyone to do well.

 

And it is a daunting task, as hardly anyone in the class has ever written a philosophy paper before. I used to come up with a list for such people of definite things to do and temptations to avoid, but I found that students never read these lists and so I stopped making them. However, the list of temptations is easy to distill into a few key ones. First, there is the temptation to get caught up in an issue that interests the student (whether its personal or general, political or moral) and that keeps them from ever closely engaging the course material (the readings, films, class discussions). The second major temptation is to tackle too much, such as trying to solve the issue of why people suffer … in just three pages. It’s always best to keep things focused on some particular question; doing that will lead you into the deeper issues while keeping you from getting lost. The third major temptation is to try to touch on everything that we’ve done. And the last temptation is to think that one has been thinking hard all along and can just sit down and churn the paper out … only to realize that s/he doesn’t really understand anything.

 

With respect to this last temptation, I should note that if you have been thinking hard all alonge, then there’s nothing wrong with sitting down to write the paper the night before: if you’ve been actively thinking about everything all this time, then you will find that you are ready to write when you sit down. If you understand things and have a sense of what interests you, then you’ll be able to pick and choose from our material as needed. It’s the prior thinking and engagement that is crucial.

 

So those are the temptations to be avoided. It is perhaps also possible to distill the things that should be done. The main suggestion I have is this: I believe that every class period could be treated as a draft for a paper, and so one could simply write about what was done in a particular class (assuming that one can make a claim and provide a supporting reason regarding what was said and done). I approach each class with a particular question or set of questions in mind (along with the topic for the day that is stated in the syllabus), which I attempt to answer in part by looking at the movies and at other thinkers and at small snippets of life. This is, in essence, what you should be doing in your papers. I thus want you to engage these thinkers, and the best way to mull them over is to try to understand some particular thing that they are saying (something you can do by comparing them to each other and by applying them to the films) and what the implications of that are. I’m less worried about you being right and more worried about you being engaged and pushing your thought somewhere new (and doing so in a manner that you can clearly articulate).

 

How do you know if you’ve done this? You have to give it shot. You have to try. It’s a moment of crisis, yes, but until you make the attempt, you won’t know what’s going well and what’s not going well. And it’s only 10% of your grade, and you can rewrite it if you’re desperate (assuming that you actually turned in an actual essay in the first place – you can’t rewrite something that hasn’t already been written).  

Blog 4: Looking Toward the First Paper

For this blog entry, I’m going to talk less about my own experience with writing and more about the process of teaching writing. My own experience writing is not tremendously helpful: I went to a college prep school where a true collegiate style of writing was ground into my head on a daily basis. (Some high school students are told that they’re being taught a collegiate style of writing when in fact they are not being so taught.) So I knew what to do when I went to college and was able to focus on grappling with the material, which is what most professors want. However, I’ve since learned that you if you aren’t terribly sure how college writing works, then it can be very daunting. The anxiety can then keep one from truly grappling with the material. I think that many students are at the mercy of how well their high school prepared them; in some cases, one can overcome a high-school-based deficiency with a rigorous college writing class, but that is not always the case.

 

To make matters more difficult, it is much harder to teach philosophical writing than it is to teach general composition. I know, as I teach both composition and philosophy. This difficulty is in large part because (a) philosophers are curmudgeonly types and reject the idea of a single method or mould into which everyone can be expected to fit and (b) the type of writing that is rewarding in philosophy cannot happen if one tries to fit a mould. Thus, I can offer examples and templates and possible topics and questions and themes in composition and literature, but it does not work in philosophy. Further reasons for this are the fact that philosophy (c), unlike composition, requires you to encounter many philosophers and talk about them, and this leaves little room for talking about writing in detail and (d), unlike a literature course, there is not the ability to do lots of research and gather up supporting material as a means of spelling out and expanding your claim, which in turn adds length to your paper. (Most secondary sources in philosophy are far too difficult for undergraduates, especially at the introductory level). As a result, you’re really forced to rely upon your own thoughts and instincts and sense of things. Philosophically speaking, of course, this is as it should be.

 

However, I don’t want you to be fully unprepared, and for this reason I give you all these reading questions and blogs. It might have seemed odd that I wasn’t worried about correctness; I just wanted you writing. (Of course, this might have seemed perfectly natural.) One aim of that is to get you comfortable with writing and thinking in a new – philosophical – way so that you’re not completely unprepared to write a philosophical essay (one in which you are thinking in every sentence and the thoughts are all coming from you). But what you write should be a true expression of your mind at this point in your life. My hope is that finding such an expression will be worth the effort.