Ben Hole is a visiting assistant professor at Pacific University Oregon. His academic work on virtue and climate ethics informs the civically engaged pedagogies of his ethics courses.
Which of your courses get students out of the classroom?
I teach a civic-engagement (CE)–designated introductory ethics course, Ethics and Society, where students identify ethical issues they care about and design projects to support their goals. These are semester-long group projects that you can view here. I love teaching this class!
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has made CE difficult. Social distancing is challenging for long-term CE projects that typically involve in-person interactions. Also, it is difficult for students to find meaningful ways to engage in an online format. I’ve found that short, focused CE projects are effective, and reduce the burden on the student to figure out how to engage in a socially distanced way. For example, when studying consequentialism, I asked students to choose a civic issue related to making the world a better place, and advocate for that change by writing a letter to an official, participating in a community forum, or participating in a protest or demonstration. This semester, we had some amazing projects advocating for issues like improved implicit bias incident reporting on campus, improved equity diversity and inclusion practices for our university counseling center, DefaultVeg for campus dining options, and many election-related political issues.
Give an example of a successful project.
Some of my favorite CE projects came as a result of my classes working with Emily Miller, a local artist repurposing fishing nets left or lost in the ocean. Ghost net pollution is an issue that really resonated with Pacific students who love the Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington coasts. My Ethics and Society classes visited Emily’s interactive exhibit to work with the materials, and some students were inspired to do more. Emily collected tons (literally!) of ghost nets, so people could come and make into art. We had one CE group work with her to host a workshop on repurposing ghost nets into functional items, such as baskets, shopping tote bags, planters, and flip-flops. I made the best-ever scratching post for my cat. (See the pictures!) We had other CE groups decide to tackle the issue from another angle, and organize local SOLVE beach cleanups. I loved how working with the ghost nets helped us use a different kind of philosophical skill: exercising our imaginations to think of creative ways to engage with the problem. Thinking about environmental degradation from the armchair can feel overwhelming. Making things with our hands felt productive.
What do you think students gain from doing this civic engagement?
The most important thing that students gain from doing CE is disabusing them of the notions that ethics is not personally important to them, and that they do not have the power to make a difference. When I first started teaching ethics, we would cover many important issues, and focus a lot on argumentation and philosophical skills. Then, some students would start to see ethics as a “philosopher’s game.” However, centering the learning around the issues that students actually care about, and asking them to employ philosophical skills to achieve those goals diminishes moral skepticism and apathy. Learning to care about ethics and learning the skills to feel empowered to affect change are the most valuable takeaways.
What does the civic engagement project offer to wider communities?
The best example and clearest image of the impact on the wider community is a CE project for a social justice mural. There used to be a big, old, decrepit American flag mural that you would see when you enter the City of Forest Grove. Given the current political climate, along with subtly racist messaging nearby the mural, driving through Forest Grove could feel like passing through a sundown town. Two ex-students, including one current Ethics and Society Teaching Assistant, worked with the City to approve replacing the old mural with a social justice one. Current Ethics and Society students joined community members in a letter-writing campaign to the City to get the project approved. Now, the old mural is being taken down and the new one is on the way. One of my favorite things about this project is that it was by passionate students working outside of the course and university structure, eager to engage civically. They wanted to do this as citizens, not students, because they care about our community, and they were able to make it happen. It also feels like this will make an incredible difference towards making Forest Grove a more inclusive and welcoming place.
Do you connect your civic engagement work to larger justice issues? How does this work connect to your research?
One of my research interests is individual responsibility for climate change. The topic used to frustrate me so much. It all felt so hopeless, and individual action felt futile. This kind of problem pressures us to develop ethical theory, exercise moral imagination, and discover creative solutions. I’ve grown to feel hopeful. Consider an analogy. Plenty-Coups, the last chief of the Crow nation, led his people well through cultural genocide. Appreciating his powerlessness to prevent the devastation, he refocused his efforts to what was in his power, and he made an immense difference. He demonstrated imaginative excellence, discovering new ways for his people to live well amidst tragedy. Instead of resigning himself to defeat or foolhardily waging an impossible war, he developed the art of persuasion, negotiated for Crow rights in the oppressive US reservation system, started programs for his people, and realized possibilities for the Crow to live meaningful lives. He embodied what many call “radical hope.” At the start of Ethics and Society, I tell the story of Plenty-Coups. When students think about making a personal impact in the areas they care about most—often messy systemic problems like structural racism, food injustice, and economic disparity—it is easy to feel frustrated and disempowered. But I ask them to embrace the ethical messiness, appreciate the difficulty, and do their best to be creative and to imagine radically hopeful strategies for affecting the change that is in their power to control.
What advice do you wish someone had given to you before you started doing civic engagement work?
Trust your students! When I first started teaching civically engaged ethics courses, the main thing I struggled with was giving up the control that I had grown comfortable with in the classroom. I would get so stressed about not being a part of each step of each CE project. My inclination was to facilitate the entire learning process, and I would find myself trying to get involved in important decisions when their projects would run into obstacles. That wouldn’t always work out…At some point, I realized that navigating through the real-world messiness is one of the most important skills students develop through CE. And they usually come up with much more creative and effective ideas than I can. From social media to 3D printing and virtual reality, I am always learning from the creativity of students.
What is your favorite quote and why?
“Let this serve as an outline of the good; for we must presumably first sketch it roughly, and then later fill in the details. But it would seem that any one is capable of carrying on and articulating what has once been well outlined, and that time is a good discoverer or partner in such a work; to which facts the advances of the arts are due; for any one can add what is lacking.” (Aristotle, EN.I.7, Ross translation)
Sometimes I put this quote on my syllabus. I think it is an awesome expression of student-centered learning about how to live one’s life and, more generally, philosophizing about ethics. Like Aristotle’s account of living well, an ethics course offers a rough sketch that welcomes everyone to fill in the details for themselves as they live their lives.
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