| By Shane Courtland |

After reading a thoughtful response from Dr. Hay regarding my previous blog post, I thought it would be helpful to discuss my philosophical pedagogy. Even if you have never taken a philosophy class before, the core elements of my teaching method are still applicable outside of the classroom. Moreover, describing how I teach philosophy should better show what I mean when I say that “Philosophy is a method” and “I worship that method.”

When we discuss various topics, I insist that the class be bound by three rules. Their observance helps facilitate learning of the philosophical method. They are as follow:

1. In my class, you not entitled to your own beliefs. Everything that you claim to be true in class, you must be able to justify via argumentation. If you get “called-out” to justify your view and you cannot … you must, at least for the time you are in class, give up the claim that others should agree with your view. Obeying this rule means that no one can stop discussion by merely saying, “Well, I have a right to my own opinion.”
2. If you assert a view, the burden of proof is on you. If you get “called-out” to meet the burden, and you cannot … you must, at least for the time you are in class, give up that view. Obeying this rule means that no one can rebut criticism by merely replying, “Well, show me that I am wrong.”
3. You must be civil. You cannot use hate speech (narrowly defined, as by law); there can be no threats of violence; there is no interrupting; etc.

With these rules respected, I will entertain any questions or claims pertinent to our class discussion. And, when I mean any, I mean that I will only stop the discussion for pragmatic considerations (e.g., the discussion is too much of a tangent, we are running out of class time, etc.).

Dr. Sergia Hay.

At this point, I would like to address a concern that many might have regarding my pedagogy. I can see this concern clearly articulated in Dr. Hay’s post:

Since the election, I’ve been spending a lot of time considering John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and his reminder of the danger inherent in thinking that our reasoning is infallible. We are human and we make mistakes. But I’m becoming convinced that certain ideas and public expressions of those ideas not only harm others directly (like racism and sexism), but also harm those who hold those ideas. Unlike bad tasting medicines, furthermore, such expressions offer no compensating good, but only harm. Philosophy shouldn’t just open the flood gates of all opinion. It should also help us to be gate keepers of good will and integrity.

The concern is that we will have students express views that are obviously morally abhorrent, like racism and sexism. Moreover, the expression of such views will only produce harm.

My response to this also comes from John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. This is an important passage, so I will cite the vast majority of it:

There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous as formerly) who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what they think true…[They] think that no good, and some harm comes of its being allowed to be questioned. Where their influence prevails, they make it nearly impossible for the received opinion to be rejected wisely and considerately, though it may still be rejected rashly and ignorantly; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible, and when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an argument. Waiving, however, this possibility – assuming that the true opinion abides in the mind, but abides as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against argument – this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth. (Mill, On Liberty, 37)

In this passage we have Mill praising the importance of open discussion even when one knows that a view is false. To suppress discussion, according to Mill, invites the construction of dead dogma. Moreover, those who embrace such dogmas “are apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an argument.”

Of course, like Dr. Hay, I find racist and sexist views to be morally abhorrent and intellectually unsound. I will not, however, suppress the discussion of such topics in my classroom – provided that the discussion follows my three rules. I do this because I want my students to have views that are, not only, anti-racist and anti-sexist … but I want them to hold such views as a living truth. If they hold these views as dead dogma, when they are in the real world outside of my class they will be “apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an argument.”

It is truly open discussion that forms the cornerstone of the method I so revere. To presuppose that our intellectual victories regarding racism and sexism are beyond discussion is to undermine the very progress that we have made. For those who still harbor such views will do so covertly. Without open discussion. these covert racists and sexists are denied the “opportunity of exchanging error for truth,” Mill argued in another passage (Mill, On Liberty, 20). They will view such exchanges as artificially constrained by the decorum of a politically correct culture. Moreover, those who happen to hold the right view will lose “what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error” (Mill, On Liberty, 20).

Adding insult to injury, when these parties collide, the exchange will not be productive. Those with the true view, but held as a dead dogma, and those with the false view, but afraid to express it, will view each other as either evil or stupid. They will cling to the like-minded and shelter themselves within their bubbles.

Worse yet, since those with the true view have not encountered, in honest discussion, the views of those who oppose them, they will have difficulty defusing their arguments. Their magical catchphrases (e.g., “That is racist”; “I am offended”; “That is sexist”; etc.) will not be successful when employed against such audiences. Such phrases only work with others who share the same view.

It is for the sake of progress, not in spite of it, therefore, that I champion first and foremost the philosophical method over and above any particular view that has come from it.

Dr. Shane Courtland is Program Director of the Center for Free Enterprise at West Virginia University and is SOPHIA’s Communications Officer. He is representing only his own point of view in this essay. For more information about Dr. Courtland, visit his profile page in SOPHIA’s Directory.

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| By Shane Courtland |

Please note: The following essay is autobiographical. I thought it might be helpful to share my experience. As with all personal events, those who have experienced this on the other side have very different feelings about the situation.

The way I have always viewed philosophy, regarding its practice and how it should be taught, is as a method of thinking. As philosophers, we are tasked to apply rigorous critical thinking to complicated abstract concepts and dilemmas. There are no domain restrictions; there can literally be a philosophy-of-anything. Thus, we find ourselves entangled with debates in politics, religion, ethics, physics, mathematics, ad infinitum.

While it is true that a goal of the philosophical method is to seek the truth, I wouldn’t say that it is completely preoccupied with holding true beliefs. Let me explain. After years of obsessing over this method, it has rendered most (if not all) of my beliefs tentative. I realize that one discussion, essay, or argument may compel me to abandon a cherished belief.

I know this because I have suffered from it countless times. I have been a dedicated theist. Now I am a hardcore atheist. I used to be an animal rights advocate. I was an ethical vegetarian for four years and I ran a local chapter of PETA. Now I am skeptical about the moral standing of animals. I used to be a Kantian. Now I am a Hobbesian. I used to push for egalitarian redistribution. Now I tend to embrace libertarianism.

Philosophy, in a sense, is like drinking Drano. Sure it cleans out the ill-justified beliefs, but it can leave you somewhat empty. The subjective convictions of your beliefs post-philosophy are never as strong as the subjective convictions pre-philosophy. Many of my non-philosophical friends and relatives are critical of my post philosophical-self. When I have discussions with them, at some point, I inevitably receive this rebuff: “Whatever, Shane… but… you don’t really believe anything.”

There is, however, something I believe in – the method. I cannot quit the method. Beliefs come and go, but my stake in this method is forever. It has become a part of my very identity. To use a religious expression, to a philosopher the method is the true faith.

My teaching reflects this faith. I tell my students that I don’t care what views they argue for in their papers or in class discussion. My job is to assess their application of the method. If they are competently using the method to argue for crazy or morally repugnant views, they will get a good grade – PERIOD.

The reason I am writing this is because we find ourselves in the midst of a culture war. People are staking out ideological positions, fighting for them – and punishing those they deem to have heretical views. Jonathan Rauch’s The Kindly Inquisitors demonstrates this trend within academia. Such punishments may include ostracism, shouting-down public speaking engagements, organizing campaigns to remove someone from a job, dis-invitation, etc.

I, of course, expect to see such behavior from the non-philosophical community. After all, it is human nature to engage in tribalism, to have a low tolerance for uncertainty, to engage in motivated reasoning, and to relish life in the bubble.

But, what has shocked me … to the core, is that I have found this behavior taken up by other philosophers. My shock has been due to my own naïveté. I should have known that philosophers are human. I too suffer from human nature.

What is troublesome is that some philosophers have failed to renounce such flawed traits in respect of the method. I admit that you cannot remain human and eliminate these traits – but you can make great, even Sisyphean, efforts to resist them. This resistance is constituted by giving pride of place to open discussion, encouraging intellectual diversity, and allowing a difference of opinion regarding even dangerous ideas. You give pride of place to free and open discussion. You recognize that the world is a complicated and messy place. It requires that one have epistemic humility.

Seeking to preserve an orthodoxy regarding cherished views, purposely avoiding or preventing intellectual diversity, or shouting down free discussion, even in service to safe spaces, is an assault upon the method. With great sadness, I have experienced these actions from other philosophers. Because of my worship of the method, I have lost jobs, opportunities, and friendships – all at the hands of other philosophers. Moreover, I know that this has happened to others.

Keeping with the religious metaphor: I worry that many members of the philosophical community have lost sight of the true faith – respect for the method.

Of course, this metaphor is an exaggeration and is perhaps self-righteous. But it does capture something important. What I have always considered central to philosophy is the method. As I have sought to embody the method, I have received push-back and outright hostility from those who had led me to it –other philosophers.

I identify as a philosopher. To lose the method would be to lose myself.

Dr. Shane Courtland is Program Director of the Center for Free Enterprise at West Virginia University and is SOPHIA’s Communications Officer. He is representing only his own point of view in this essay. For more information about Dr. Courtland, visit his profile page in SOPHIA’s Directory.

Journal Archive

| By Shane Courtland |

For approximately 5 years, I was the director of the Center for Ethics and Public Policy (CEPP) at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. As the director, I was charged with producing and executing various campus wide events.  My specialty, was the panel discussion.  This would bring multiple experts to the table to discuss a particular topic of local, regional or national interest.   What was distinctive about my version of the panel discussion was that I was obsessed with providing a balanced panel.  I always tried to ensure that, when we covered an issue, we had competent individuals arguing on each side. This might seem like an obvious strategy – but it wasn’t. Often when panels were held, prior to my tenure, all of the panelists would be arguing on the same side.  As an example, the previous CEPP director held a panel on “Sex Trafficking in Minnesota” – which, as you probably can tell, is a hard topic to find people on both sides of. Such univocal panels often seemed more like rallies than discussions.

I wish I could say that my obsession with providing balanced panels was based upon a noble motivation. To be honest, however, it was strictly Machiavellian. When I took over the CEPP (in 2011) it was dying. Nobody was coming to its events and its meager funding was about to be cut. I had to do something to change its downward trajectory.

So I decided to provide a good that was relatively absent in my local market. I would create panel discussions that would be marketed like prize fights. In order to have a successful prize fight, you need accomplished fighters on both sides. Moreover, the fight needs to be fair and to be a contest that truly shows their skills.  If my fights were unfair (biased toward a perspective), I would cease to get fighters for my next fight (my reputation as fair and balanced was key). Also, if the contest didn’t test their skills (e.g., they were just talking heads that failed to engage the other talking heads), no one would show up! People get those faux panels on TV all of the time.

Long story short, this strategy was successful beyond expectations. Hundreds of people were showing up to our events and we were frequently featured on a plethora of news sources (TV, radio and print).

So, why am I telling you this? Simple. These panels had an unintended effect – they changed me. We covered a remarkable number of contentious issues: gay marriage, voter ID laws, economic inequality, nickel-copper mining, medical marijuana, legalizing wolf hunting, Minnesota blue laws, Kill or No-Kill shelters, physician assisted suicide, and so on.   In these events, I came loaded (like any other human) with a favored position. There was always a position that I wanted to, and predicted would, “win.”

But, here is what happened – after each event, I would always be impressed (yes, every time) by the proponents of the other side. They were not the “straw men” that many expected them to be. They had well-articulated defenses to many (if not all) of the arguments against their view.  I admit, I rarely changed my mind on these issues… but I always left the panel feeling less sure of my view.  These panels provided me with a heavy dose of epistemic humility. Moreover, students and other faculty expressed that they, too, had the same experience.

So, why is this relevant to our current political situation?  Have you ever noticed that those who seem to dislike or despise another group rarely spend time honestly engaging with that group? And, when people start to soften such antipathy, it is often in part because they started to spend quality time getting to know those with whom they formerly disagreed.

In America, we love our bubbles. We want to be around like-minded people and love to be inundated with stories that affirm our deeply cherished views.  Facebook’s design encourages this.  Contemporary news media have been structured to foster this (MSNBC, FOX, etc.). Our comedy has preyed upon this. And, we exacerbate this in limiting whom we are friends with.

There is, however, a very high cost to such isolation. By carefully constructing a bubble (of Truman show proportions) we create a tribalism that only encourages the demonizing of those who disagree with us. If we then find out that some hold a view we do not share, we attribute their view either to some moral failing (they are evil) or to ignorance (they are uneducated).

Notice, that these bubbles, much like war propaganda, allow you to dehumanize those who disagree with you.  Insularity promotes extremism. We cease to compromise, because, after all, why would you compromise with the evil and the ignorant?

So, how do we fix it? Two things:

1) GET OUT OF YOUR BUBBLE. It is hard to demonize someone if you spend quality time with them. Engage them in fair discussion. Encourage intellectual diversity. Resist “unfriending” those who disagree with you.

2) FOSTER HUMILITY BY RECOGNIZING THE BURDENS OF JUDGMENT. In his famous work, Political Liberalism, John Rawls lists a number of reasons why we should expect reasonable disagreement regarding our moral and political views. He calls them “burdens of judgment,” including the following:

a. The evidence – empirical and scientific – bearing on the case is conflicting and complex, and thus hard to assess and evaluate.

b. Even where we agree fully about the kinds of considerations that are relevant, we may disagree about their weight, and so arrive at different judgments.

c. To some extent all our concepts, and not only moral and political concepts, are vague and subject to hard cases; and this indeterminacy means that we must rely on judgment and interpretation (and on judgments about interpretation) within some range (not sharply specifiable) where reasonable persons may differ.

d. To some extent (how great we cannot tell) the way we assess evidence and weigh moral and political values is shaped by our total experience, our whole course of life up to now; and our total experiences must always differ….Often there are different kinds of normative considerations of different force on both sides of an issue and it is difficult to make an overall assessment.

e. [A]ny system of social institutions is limited in the values it can admit so that some selection must be made from the full range of moral and political values that might be realized. This is because any system of institutions has, as it were, a limited social space. In being forced to select among cherished values, or when we hold to several and must restrict each in view of the requirements of the others, we face great difficulties in setting priorities and making adjustments. Many hard decisions may seem to have no clear answer (*Rawls, 56-7).

According to Rawls, the import of the burdens of judgment is that “many of our most important judgments are made under conditions where it is not to be expected that conscientious persons with full powers of reason, even after free discussion, will arrive at the same conclusion” (*Rawls, 58.) In short, if you think that your view is obvious and that any disagreement is beyond the pale of civil acceptability, then chances are that you have not respected the burdens of judgment.

My days as the director of the CEPP have changed me. Moreover, this change didn’t necessarily occur because I altered or abandoned my cherished views. What mattered was that my attitudes towards disagreement and towards those with whom I disagreed changed.  I began to realize that there are a plethora of reasonable views and an even greater number of well-meaning and smart people to talk to and to get to know. Sure, I still disagree with them. However, I view them now as partners in this American experiment, not as opponents to be conquered.  I don’t fear or dread exchanges with them. I welcome life outside the bubble.

Dr. Shane Courtland is Program Director of the Center for Free Enterprise at West Virginia University and is SOPHIA’s Communications Officer. He is representing only his own point of view in this essay. For more information about Dr. Courtland, visit his profile page in SOPHIA’s Directory.

*Rawls, John. Political Liberalism. Columbia University Press, 1996.

Journal Archive

| By Shane Courtland |

One often hears the expression “You should live your life without regrets” in the same situations that one hears expressions such as “carpe diem” and “YOLO.” The basic idea is that you should live your life to the fullest. One day, if you are lucky to be living, you will be able to look back on your life. When you do so, you do not want to feel that it was wasted merely because you were too timid and afraid to embrace it. Have courage, these slogans implore – reach the fullest potential of a happy and fulfilling life.

In what follows, I want to articulate a different way to understand this expression.This understanding is inspired, in part, by a passage in Epictetus’s The Enchiridion. In passage #25, he writes:

“Is anyone preferred before you at an entertainment, or in a compliment, or in being admitted to a consultation? If these things are good, you ought to be glad that he has gotten them; and if they are evil, don’t be grieved that you have not gotten them. And remember that you cannot, without using the same means [which others do] to acquire things not in our own control, expect to be thought worthy of an equal share of them. For how can he who does not frequent the door of any [great] man, does not attend him, does not praise him, have an equal share with him who does? You are unjust, then, and insatiable, if you are unwilling to pay the price for which these things are sold, and would have them for nothing. For how much is lettuce sold? Fifty cents, for instance. If another, then, paying fifty cents, takes the lettuce, and you, not paying it, go without them, don’t imagine that he has gained any advantage over you. For as he has the lettuce, so you have the fifty cents which you did not give. So, in the present case, you have not been invited to such a person’s entertainment, because you have not paid him the price for which a supper is sold. It is sold for praise; it is sold for attendance. Give him then the value, if it is for your advantage. But if you would, at the same time, not pay the one and yet receive the other, you are insatiable, and a blockhead. Have you nothing, then, instead of the supper? Yes, indeed, you have: the not praising him, whom you don’t like to praise; the not bearing with his behavior at coming in.”

The basic idea, as far as I can tell, is that Epictetus is reminding us that everything in life has opportunity costs. In order to get something of value, one always forgoes something. The man who gets to go to the party paid for it by having to sell his praise. Epictetus then tells the reader, “But if you would, at the same time, not pay the one and yet receive the other, you are insatiable, and a blockhead.”

This is not Alix.

Let’s connect this with the expression — “You should live your life without regrets.” To do this, I will tell the reader two personal facts about my life. First, by some crazy fluke, I know the exact moment my youngest daughter, Alix, was conceived. I will spare you any other details (you’re welcome). Second, my father died young from cancer. The disease was misdiagnosed…and, by the time it was diagnosed, it was too late to save him. My Father died, roughly, two years before Alix was born. Both of these events have had a dramatic impact upon my life.

Now, imagine I have a time machine. If I go back in time, say five years, and inform my father of his incubating illness, that might give him many more years of life. In a sense, I would save my father. There is, however, a cost. The odds I would be able to conceive Alix would be so slim that it would render it, for all intents and purposes, impossible. I would never be able to match the right sperm with the right egg… Alix would be lost to me. Any child I would have in the new time line, would be a new child… a completely different individual.  Part of the cost, then, of me living in a world with my beloved Alix, is that I do so in a world devoid of my father.

We see many versions of this conundrum in contemporary science fiction. For example, we see it in movies like The Butterfly Effect (2004), The Family Man (2000) and Mr. Destiny (1990). And, if you are watching TV, this is the central premise with this season of CW’s The Flash.

The world is a complicated chain of cause and effect. If you go back and alter that chain, you do so at your peril. The chain is so connected and complicated, there is a high likelihood that any change would lead to horrible (from my POV) unintended consequences.

Let’s say the time line was altered, and I got my father but lost Alix. It is true that this time line would only be negative (as far as I know), because I know of my loss of Alix. Had I not known of Alix, my life in that alternate world might have been quite good. In fact, I might have had a completely different child. One, I would add, that I would regret losing just as much as Alix.

Here is the point. Everything in this world is interconnected through a complex web of cause and effect. Minor alterations can have large unintended consequences. If I change any of the misfortunes in my past, there is a good possibility I would lose something of value. Perhaps, it could be a friendship. Or, a family member. I could fail to meet my wife. And/or, I might not have my children. To have the good things in this life, then, I have bought them with the misfortunes of my past.

All that switching time lines would do is to allow me to trade some misfortunes with some of the good things I currently possess. “Living without regrets,” then, is simply noticing this feature of our world. There are many possible worlds (via alternate timelines). In each one, you will make mistakes, have bad luck, etc. True, these errors will lead to much sorrow and grief, but do not “regret” them. For they are the foundation upon which many of your most valuable things/relationships sit.

I miss my father terribly. There is not a moment that this pain escapes me. But, I could never exchange Alix for him (nor do I think he would want me to).

I understand that the misfortunes I have suffered have played a role (at least in a causal sense) in bringing about a life full of things and people I value. And, I understand that this would be true no matter what alternate life I had. To desire something else…To live a life of regret, then …. is to, as Epictetus notes, “[A]t the same time, not pay the one and yet receive the other, [to be] insatiable, and a blockhead.”

Dr. Shane Courtland is Program Director of the Center for Free Enterprise at West Virginia University and is SOPHIA’s Communications Officer. He is representing only his own point of view in this essay. For more information about Dr. Courtland, visit his profile page in SOPHIA’s Directory.

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