Theodore Brown
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Theodore Brown commented on Michael Walzer: Has scientific progress changed your understanding of morality? on September 27, 2008, 6:35 PM
I think that at least two of the previous commentators have missed the point of Walzer's comments. The question is whether the findings of science have in some way presented us with grounds for changing the criteria we might apply in making a judgement about a moral issue. Science certainly forces us to confront many moral issues that would not otherwise arise, but it does not in itself seem to have given us new grounds for judging whether some action or proposition is morally right. For example, is the use of in vitrofertilization a good thing? The criteria for making a judgement in this case still rely on what harms may occur, what costs will be borne and by whom, and so on, using ethical considerations that have not really changed much over the time during which science has become a dominant force in society. We use our understanding of the science, the record of the efficacy of IVF in the past, the social costs and so on in addition to the clear benefits that accrue to couples that use it successfully, to make a moral judgement. So we need knowledge, whether you want to talk of it as "facts" or not.
Theodore Brown commented on Joseph Stiglitz's Short-Term Economic Prescription on September 27, 2008, 6:21 PM
These are interesting comments, but they aren't really prescriptions, as billed. Understandably, Professor S doesn't have any prescriptions at this point. We're in a pickle, and just need to keep searching for a way out. I find myself surprised that there is not more attention paid to the fact that some of the lead actors in this were in fact sitting in the big chairs while all this mess was being created. Paulson, for example, at Goldman Sachs. Why isn't his moral authority being more vigorously challenged in terms of his "complicity" in the making of the problem? Why isn't there more naming of names, with more detailed analysis of what their lack of actions in some ways, and overt actions in others contributed to the mess? And, of course, of how they came out it with millions. But, incidentally, have their fortunes suffered as the values of the companies they headed have tanked?
Re: Re: Do teachers make enough money?
The question here is just what sort of fulcrum one chooses to use to push the idea of higher teacher compensation. There is a tendency to talk about how poorly some teachers are paid, but for the mass of citizens who will vote to approve higher taxes for schools, that may not be the best sort of emphasis. I think one needs to focus over and over again on the costs associated with poor schooling: high dropout rates, low productivity of school graduates, possibly higher costs of social programs that attempt to make up for better schooling in the first place, and so on. The message should be: All of us are going to pay, in one way or another, for bringing kids into adulthood and into society, or- even more expensively - for failing to do it. So just suck it up and support good schools NOW. And supporting good schools means paying salaries to teachers that are high enough to attract AND KEEP capable, dedicated people. We need powerful new metaphors for what community schools mean to each and every community, ones that attract attention and compel a response. I find some of them in local newspaper stories of teachers that have gone the extra distance to help their students, who work long hours and give a lot of themselves emotionally. Those stories need to motivate citizens, especially parents, but also older citizens, to get out and advocate when important votes associated with schools and teachers are immanent. It is not primarily the responsibility of teachers to do this advocating, in fact they cannot do it with as much moral authority as ordinary citizens. … Read More
April 29, 2008 |
Theodore Brown commented on the Humanities on February 15, 2008, 10:17 AM
My thought is not all that quick; I hope there is room here for a somewhat extended reply. cuixotiq(C) has loaded a lot into his little question. The phrase "purpose does forcing" is coupled to "career-driven college student", with the effect that studies of the humanities, social sciences and arts are implicitly made into commodities, things that have the prosaic purpose of advancing one's career. The irony is that they very well might do that, though not unless they are accepted for their intended purpose, which is to open the mind to worlds of thought, analysis and appreciation that would otherwise be unrecognized and unexplored. It does add a great deal to life to be able to appreciate art and good writing,to have a sense of history, to be able to place oneself in the flow of humankind through time and place. At the least it imbues all the career striving with some sense of its proper place in the totality of one's life, and thus mitigates the ennui that inevitably comes to those whose career aspirations tend become the driving force for daily life. At best it can enhance career aspirations by making one a more interesting person, one with a larger vocabulary, superior writing and speaking skills, and a more refined sense of humor. And, its not like medicine; it can be fun!
I am a Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, and the Founding Director Emeritus of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I also served in that institution as Vice-Chancellor for Research, and Dean of the Graduate School, and as interim Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs.
I am a senior coauthor of the text, "Chemistry: The Central Science", now out in its 11th edition, and have authored the books "Making Truth: Metaphor in Science",University of Illinois Press 2003 and "Imperfect Oracle: The Authority and Moral Authority of Science in Society", to be published.
I have served on many boards and panels; e.g., the Government-University-Industry Rountable, the Board of Governors of Argonne National Laboratory, the Association of Graduate Schools. I presently serve on the Board of Directors of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.
Theodore Brown commented on Do we need to change how economics is taught? on October 15, 2008, 3:01 PM
One sort of problem that often arises, as Professor Airely well knows, is that the number of uncontrolled variables in social experiments is so large as to preclude unambiguous conclusions from the outcomes. Multivariate analyses of various sorts are helpful, of course, but conducting the experiments "in the wild", so to speak, make for very difficult terrain. I think this means that one needs to try to formulate the experiment conservatively; try to figure out in advance what these various confounding variables are likely to be, and work hard at experimental designs that anticipate as much as possible their effects and where possible work around them. One would think this to be no more than common sense, but the flood of flawed studies that issue with regularity shows that not so many are ready to do the hard work needed to render a study meaningful. I can't imagine, for example, how one would conduct the Iowa tax cut experiment that Dan Airely suggests in such as way as to get a meaningful result.