Ethical Landscapes in Puerto Rico: Resituating the Ethics Bowl

1. Ethical Landscapes in Puerto Rico: Resituating the Ethics Bowl William J. Frey Center for Ethics in the Professions University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez

2. Three questionable claims impede those who teach ethics and do research on teaching ethics • Ethics cannot be taught at the university level • Our moral views and behavior are hard wired into us by early adolescence • Studying the teaching of ethics is not research but pedagogy • Teaching ethics does not raise issues that are intellectually challenging and intellectually satisfying • Teaching ethics is not interdisciplinary • Only philosophers are qualified to teach ethics since it is a branch of philosophy

3. The view that ethics can’t be taught has led students in Puerto Rico to oppose ethics courses • In a recent article in the UPR magazine, Dialogo, students opposed requiring ethics courses by stating that teaching ethics was impossible • In class this semester, we considered three of these arguments: • Religious dogma and moral values are not taught but assimilated through one’s childhood environment • Ethical views are set in early childhood and can’t be changed • Ethical relativism is the (absolute) truth. Therefore, to attempt to teach certain ethical values restricts our autonomy (our right to hold whatever values we want to hold). Teaching ethics, on this view, is nothing but indoctrination. • UPRM faculty rejected a code of ethics on the same grounds • The student arguments may reflect widespread faculty doubts about the feasibility of ethics and ethics instruction

4. A proposal to implement the Ethics Bowl was turned down • Among the comments • “This is not research” • Assessing the results of the ethics bowl is not research but merely evaluating the results of projects already carried out • These comments have their presuppositions: • Research and Pedagogy are separate: one can teach the results of one’s research, but teaching itself is not the subject of systematic, ordered inquiry • Rigorous assessment is not an integral part of research and teaching activity, but an afterthought

5. Nursing Ethics is no longer taught at UPRM because of the third questionable claim • In a meeting between the nursing department and some humanities faculty, a philosopher argued that nurses couldn’t teach ethics because… • “ethics is a normative discipline while nursing is merely empirical” • “only philosophers trained in ethical theory can understand and teach normative ethics” • On these grounds, humanities opposed the nursing ethics course and nursing withdrew it

6. These comments and claims ignore nearly 40 years of research • Psychologists (influenced by Piaget) have carried out research projects into moral development and moral pedagogy • Philosophers were initially opposed • This opposition was based on the claim that the normative and the empirical were separate

7. But recently philosophers have begun to study moral psychology • Owen Flanigan: Minimal Psychological Realism • “Make sure when constructing a moral theory or projecting a moral ideal that the character, decision processing, and behavior prescribed are possible, or are perceived to be possible, for creatures like us.” • Hence moral philosophy needs to formulate its normative content within the limits of the humanly possible which is exposed through the empirical studies of psychology

8. Considerable research has been done on moral development • Kohlberg • Individuals progress through different stages of moral development • Neo-Kohlbergians • Simplified Kohlberg’s stages • Tied to cognitive science • Empirical Studies charting adult moral development and assessing the effectiveness of programs in moral instruction at university level • Colby, Damon, Oliners have studied moral exemplars (highly virtuous people) • Recently Haidt has identified two relatively independent processes at play in moral judgment • Intuitive processing and conscious processing

9. Moral judgment is moderately correlated with moral behavior • But according to Agusto Blasi, it is how moral judgment is incorporated into self-concept that is important • For most, moral behavior is a part of one’s self-concept • But for some (e.g., moral exemplars) moral behavior is central to self-concept, that is, central to their sense of identify • This has brought virtue ethics into the picture

10. Research into moral development has led to a richer conception of moral education • Moral Judgment • Long considered the only teachable aspect of moral development • Approached by first teaching then applying theory • Moral Sensitivity • Taught by discussing cases • Role-playing • Moral Imagination • Moral Motivation • Looking at factors that motivate moral action • Content rich, real world cases also help to develop moral motivation • Moral Character • Can be developed by studying good news/little news cases • Moral Exemplars and Professional Communities

11. We also know what situations foster moral development • Likona: We foster moral development through situations that… • encourage seeing things from another’s point of view • encourage reasoned argumentation and comparison of alternatives • encourage taking responsibility • set forth moral controversy • foster participation in building and sustaining professional and moral communities

12. Classroom discussion of cases creates these situations • Cases can be constructed so that students take up multiple perspectives • Ending the narrative abruptly before an action is taken helps students to practice decision-making • Setting up small groups to discuss cases broadens student participation, helps students practice taking responsibility, and provides insight and experience into community building

13. We have developed a taxonomy of ethics cases to set forth teaching options • Historical vs. Hypothetical • Ford Pinto vs. Mountain Terrorist Case • Thick vs. Thin • Challenger Case (see Pinkus et al) vs. email scenario • Good News vs. Bad News Cases • Time Magazine Whistle Blowers vs. Ford Pinto • Big Cases vs. Small Cases • Exxon Valdez vs. Japanese Engineer • Evaluative Perspective Cases vs. Participant Perspective Cases • Aquaculture Case Version 1 vs. Aquaculture Case Version 2

14. Cognitive Science research has brought out the importance of moral imagination • Johnson, Moral Imagination, 1993 • Studies show how moral imagination filters and structures the information presented by complex situations • We frame situations • We structure by schematizing • We make sense of situations by imposing on them certain narrative forms

15. Moral imagination works its way down into conceptualization • Moral imagination accounts for the way we formulate and understand intermediate moral concepts like safety, privacy, property • These open-ended concepts cannot be defined by listing necessary and sufficient conditions • Rather we understand these concepts by moving from non-problematic instances or prototypes • Michael Pritchard in Reasonable Children shows how children extend prototypes by analogy to problematic cases

16. Problem solving in ethics also involves moral imagination • Moral imagination also shows how we integrate ethical considerations into decision making at different levels • Ethical considerations do not merely evaluate alternatives that we find ready-made in the situation • Rather they play the role of design specifications in guiding the imagination toward constructing solutions • In other words, ethical considerations can structure and channel the creative process of generating solution alternatives to problems

17. The Ethics Bowl makes sense in this richer view of moral education • Moral Reasoning • Team 1 presents a position, justifies it, and defends it • Team 2 makes a counter-proposal • Decision-Making • Cases require that students propose and defend solutions to open-ended cases and problems • Team Work • Students prepare cases together in groups • The debate requires that team members reach quick consensus • Role-Playing • During a debate one group asked another to act out their solution

18. It began as a competition developed through APPE • Designed by Robert Ladenson at Illinois Institute of Technology • Presented in 1993 before the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics • A nation-wide competition is held at the annual meetings of APPE • This year 40 teams competed

19. The structure promotes student debate on ethics cases • Two teams, two rounds, two cases • Team one is presented with a case, asked to take a position, and justify that position • Team one gives an initial presentation of its position • Judges ask team one questions • Team two makes a counter-proposal • Team one responds to this counter-proposal • The roles are reversed for the second half

20. Judges score each team according to four criteria • Intelligibility—Has the team stated and defended its position in a way that is logically consistent? • Depth—Does the team’s statement and defense of its position indicate an awareness and understanding of the issues ethically central to the case? • Focus—Does the team’s statement, and defense of, its position avoid discussing issues that the judge considers ethically irrelevant to the case? Does it respond to what is ethically relevant? • Judgment—Has the team made a careful and reasonable comparative assessment of the considerations it identifies as ethically relevant in its statement and defense?

21. This year the organizers revised the judge’s scoring criteria • Clarity and Intelligibility • stated and defended its position in a logically consistent way that makes clear the team’s line of reasoning • Focus on Ethically Relevant Factors • identified and discussed the ethically relevant factors in the case • Avoidance of Ethical Irrelevance • stayed on track by avoiding preoccupation with issues that are ethically irrelevant or have only minor ethical relevance • Deliberative Thoughtfulness • the team has made a careful and reasonable comparative assessment of the considerations identified as ethically relevant in the statement and defense of its position

22. In Puerto Rico, we have sought to contextualize the Ethics Bowl • Into the Engineering Curriculum • Modify the competition to cover basic issues in engineering ethics • Into Puerto Rico • Prepare a Spanish Language version • Focus on issues that arise in engineering practice in Puerto Rico

23. An important but difficult part of this contextualization is case selection • Projects with the NSF in issue identification and case development (NSF SBR-9810253) • We had workshops where BSE faculty and practitioners identified key ethical issues • In other workshops BSE faculty and practitioners wrote and refined cases based on these issues (50 cases posted at www.uprm.edu/ethics ) • We have used this issues list to write cases in other projects (40 cases in engineering ethics in ABET workshops) • We want to develop more cases that integrate technical and ethical content

24. The following grid has helped us to select cases for the Ethics Bowl

25. These topics are more particularized to Puerto Rico

26. We made special efforts to have interdisciplinary judge teams • Seven Judges from Engineering College • Industrial, Electrical, Mechanical • Five Judges from Humanities • French Literature, Humanities/Music, Philosophy • Difficulty with pairing engineer and non-engineer • Competition coincided with ABET visit at UPRM • Judges brought different perspectives into the competition • Students challenged to respond to different, unanticipated questions

27. We changed the structure of the competition to allow each team to compete twice • Ethics Bowl (National Level) is set up as an NCAA Basketball tournament-type competition: several rounds where winners advance and losers drop out • Each team competes twice. Scores totaled. Highest total score wins class competition. • Raised problem of uniformity in judge’s scoring.

28. Students were asked to assess the Ethics Bowl last semester • He desarrollado mis destrezas en liderazgo y llegar a acuerdos trabajando en equipo para el Ethics Bowl • No somos ingenieros solo para dar resultados calculados (2 x 2 = 4) y ya! Hay impactos, primarios y secundarios; pero todos afectan de una manera positiva, negativa, colectiva y/o individual. Ayudo a considerar todos esos puntos de vista. • Me ha ayudando grandemente a desarrollar mis destrezas en comunicacion • I hated working in groups before this competition. And I also used to do all the work by myself, but I like to work in groups now.

29. We also formed some conclusions based on observing the competition • Benefits resulted from bringing humanities and engineering faculty together as judges. • Students learned from preparing cases • Prepared 14 case summaries and one in-depth analysis • The competition promoted team work • Debating promotes moral imagination: • identifying and framing problems, brainstorming solutions, defining intermediate concepts through prototypes, designing win-win solutions • The Ethics Bowl elicits broad student participation • Students divided labor and worked together as teams to prepare for competition and during competition • Students uncomfortable with commenting in class were given another, different opportunity to participate

30. The first stage brought forth some challenges • Involving the rest of the class • The students not participating in the debate were not content with the role of passive observers • Difficulty with 50 minute format • The competition requires an additional 15 minutes to generate debate between teams and to provide teams with feedback • Variation in judge scoring • The need to keep renewing the case repository

31. Sometimes the students got bad advice from outside the classroom • NSPE BER Case: An engineer provides a safety analysis report in support of the plaintiff in a personal injury case • The engineer’s findings do not support the plaintiff so he is paid and dismissed • The attorney for the defendant hires the engineer to do a report for his client • Question: “Was it ethical for the engineer to provide the second attorney with a separate report?”

32. The students presented the case to an engineer who misunderstood it • The engineer thought that the engineer had been subpoenaed by the defense attorney to testify • Hence he told the students that it was a dilemma, a forced choice between the law and ethics • Moreover, the law should win • When a judge (an experienced engineer expert witness) took exception, the students remained fixed in their belief in the authority of the engineer with whom they consulted • The time demands of the competition did not allow us to sort out the issue

33. The students had several ideas to improve the process • Ethics Bowl veterans could be judges in future competitions • Create a one credit hour course • Saturday seminar to learn how to judge and score a competition • Saturday seminar to learn how to develop cases for future competition • Challenge • Providing recognition for this effort (Socio-Humanistic Credit? Certificate?)

34. To provide feedback, I developed an Ethics Bowl rubric

35. This part of the rubric focuses on integration of ethics content

36. This part considers how well the students focused their comments

37. The rubric on judgment provides an overall assessment of team’s performance

38. Implementing the Ethics Bowl beyond the classroom also has its challenges • Effort to involve individuals from private industry • Funding for more ambitious efforts • Working with crowded faculty schedules • Generating maximum feedback for students on debate and other activities

39. We are considering several possibilities for future expansion • Competitions between classes • Bioethics students have challenged the engineering ethics students to a debate • Competition within the College of Engineering • University-wide competition • Island-wide competition (Caribbean Ethics Bowl?) • Bring the Ethics Bowl to PR high school students (preliminary discussion with high school teachers) • Developing a team for competition at the National Ethics Bowl (APPE) • Strong interest from the Puerto Rican Foundation for the Humanities (service component)

40. Overall, the Ethics Bowl was a dramatic success • It responds well to the findings of moral development theory and moral psychology • The students were enthusiastic about the process • Faculty have found it important enough to take the time to serve as judges • Administration is gradually recognizing and supporting the competition

41. Thank You • Questions? • Comments? • Suggestions? • Similar Experiences? • If you try something like this, let me know about the results • William J. Frey • W_Frey@rumac.uprm.edu