Professor Dean's Research
"Ethics of the Mundane: Cognitive Science and Cultivating Moral Character" (Presented at the 2007 Midwestern Political Science Association Conference in Chicago, Illinois)
The history of moral philosophy reveals a continuing tension between a deontological ethics of detached critical rationality guided by abstract principles of justice or rightness (e.g., Kant, Rawls) and a teleological ethics of situated deliberative rationality guided by traditions of virtue or goodness (e.g., Aristotle, MacIntyre). First, I will explain how recent (i.e., so-called second generation) developments in the cognitive sciences provide evidence regarding our actual cognitive capacities suggesting that teleological ethical theories are more plausible and compelling than deontological ethical theories. Second, I will argue that Heideggerian phenomenology provides a compelling perspective from which to understand the dynamics of moral character development in light of second generation cognitive science. Lastly, I will argue that moral character development is best understood as an ethics of the mundane, i.e., as an ethics oriented toward ordinary everyd!
ay embodied and socially situated comportment, as opposed to an ethics oriented toward the intellectual resolution of abstract moral dilemmas.
"Authenticity, Virtue, Expertise: Ethical Being and Becoming Ethical" (International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 3, Number 3: 139-153 (2005/2006)
Based on the "Virtuosity" paper described below.
"The Phenomenology of Moral Defensiveness" (Presented at the 2005 Western Political Science Association Conference in Oakland, California)
Much has been written about the development of moral character, moral maturity, and moral responsibility, but little sustained analysis has been directed to the phenomenon of what I will call moral defensiveness. By moral defensiveness I mean the cognitive and affective attitude/posture of one who is called upon to respond morally or, more interestingly, who is called upon to account for why they are not behaving in a morally responsible manner. Much has been written, especially of late, about the notion of forgiveness and reconciliation as a response to moral indictment or blame, but those analyses do not quite capture what I propose to study either. While the literature on forgiveness tends to focus on response to blame for large scale injustices, my analysis will attend to the more mundane, everyday forms of moral development, comportment, and interaction. What I propose here is a preliminary account of the phenomenology of moral defensiveness and its relationship to the larger question of how we cultivate moral character and moral expertise. My hunch is that an individual’s development of moral character, maturity, and expertise—and a society’s support for that development—will hindered without an acknowledgement and understanding of the importance of the phenomenon of moral defensiveness. My analysis is primarily inspired by and grounded in the work of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hubert Dreyfus, and Nel Noddings.
“Virtuosity: Phenomenology of Expertise and Contemporary Models of Ethics” (Presented at the 2003 Western Political Science Association Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado)
Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus have suggested that ethical life ought to be understood as a kind of skillful coping analogous to the skillful coping involved in any other expert activity, such as playing chess or driving a car. As an initial step towards the development of a phenomenology of ethical expertise, Dreyfus applies the notion of skillful coping to an evaluation of the Kohlberg and Gilligan models of moral development and concludes that the latter presents a better understanding of moral maturity. I will take Dreyfus’ analysis several steps forward by offering an analysis of what I take to be three distinct contemporary models of ethics: the Principles of Justice model places emphasis on one’s formulation and application of abstract and universal principles of moral right; the Traditions of Virtue model places emphasis on one’s discovery and application of communally generated moral norms; and the Relationships of Care model places emphasis on one’s affective and intuitive moral response to face-to-face encounters. My evaluation of these models of ethics will proceed in two stages. First, I will evaluate each model according to Dreyfus’ phenomenology of ethical expertise in order to arrive at a better understanding of moral maturity. Second, I will evaluate each model according to Heidegger’s notion of authenticity in order to arrive at an understanding of how each model accords with authentic modes of being.
"Heideggerian Phenomenology as a Method for Doing Moral and Political Theory" (Presented at the 2002 Western Political Science Association Annual Conference in Long Beach, California)
Regarding modern understandings of the question of Being, Martin Heidegger lamented that "that which the ancient philosophers found continually disturbing as something obscure and hidden has taken on a clarity and self-evidence such that if anyone continues to ask about it he is charged with an error of method" (Being and Time, p.2 of Macquarrie & Robinson translation). I argue that, far from being an error of method, Heideggerian phenomenology provides a compelling, though controversial, methodological basis for doing moral and political theory. On one level, Heideggerian phenomenology can serve a kind of critical regulatory or authenticating function insofar as it is used to gauge the degree to which existing political and moral theories accord with our fundamental ontology. To illustrate, I will show the ways in which contemporary liberal, communitarian, and feminist theories of morality and politics resonate or conflict with the fundamental ontological assumptions of Heideggerian phenomenology. On another certainly more controversial level, Heideggerian phenomenology can be understood as a basis for an original articulation of new moral and political theory (as opposed to a fundamental authentication of existing moral and political theory). However, at this second level, Heideggerian phenomenology is confronted with accusations that stem from the biography of Heidegger himself and which render any attempt at an original articulation of a Heideggerian morality and politics highly suspect if not doomed to failure. I will attempt to show a way out of this confrontation with the accusers toward a defense of doing moral and political theory on the basis of a Heideggerian phenomenological methodology.
