Jason Swartwood is an instructor of philosophy at Saint Paul College in St. Paul, Minnesota. His work on the skills of practical ethics helps him engage community groups, professionals, and young people in moral reasoning that matters in their lives.
What type(s) of civically engaged philosophy do you do?
One of the things I love about philosophy is that it gives us tools we can use to engage more productively with questions that grip us all. So, I’m always on the lookout for ways I can spread the Good News about why philosophy is valuable. The projects I’m usually drawn to are ones that introduce people to reasoning strategies from philosophy (especially practical ethics) and show how they can improve thinking and discussion about important controversies or questions people face in their lives and careers. I’m a tiny fish in a huge pond, but I like to find ways I can use philosophy to make some ripples and splashes, however small.
Some examples:
• Philosophy with kids: I gave an invited talk about Socrates to my daughter’s first grade class. Her school follows a classical education model, so they were discussing ancient Greek philosophers in their history unit. (I nerded out on this so hard that I received copious eye rolls from my daughter.) I led the class in role-playing how Socrates might use his gadfly method to examine whether it’s wrong to keep primates in small urban zoos.
• Philosophy summer camp for high-schoolers: In 2019, I designed and led (with the help of fellow Saint Paul College philosophers Julie Haider and Ian Stoner) a summer philosophy camp for High School students, The Saint Paul Lyceum. The camp provided students with a skills-focused introduction to philosophy, in which we engaged in a variety of exercises, discussions, debates, and other activities on a variety of topics (the existence of God, personal identity, the nature of the good life, and a variety of applied moral issues, such as religious liberty and discrimination, racism, colonizing Mars, and reparations for slavery). I was able to get a grant to fund free tuition for students with financial need, and it was fun to give students who might otherwise not be exposed to philosophy a taste of the ways it can improve their thinking and discussion about tough and important topics.
• Applied Professional Ethics: I’ve also given lectures and workshops that introduce professionals outside of philosophy to some philosophical concepts and ethical reflection strategies relevant to their practice. For example, I’ve done invited lectures to a graduate psychology class and to clinical staff at a local mental health clinic on how reasoning strategies from philosophical practical ethics can facilitate ethical reflection in psychological practice. My friend and colleague Ian Stoner and I also gave an invited lecture/workshop about the philosophy of disability at a local mental health clinic specializing in autism spectrum disorder and related disabilities. Ian has done interesting research on well-being and disability, and we both teach models of disability in our health care ethics courses. So, we were excited to start a discussion with the clinical staff about models of disability, why they matter, and how they might apply to complex real-life cases.
• The Ethics of Youth Prisons: Most recently, I’ve been taking part in a discussion group with staff at the Legal Rights Center (LRC) about the ethics of youth prisons. Taiwana Shambley, a former student of mine who works at the LRC as organizer of the No Kids in MN Prisons campaign, had the idea that we should start a discussion group in which we applied the argument skills from Doing Practical Ethics (a skills-focused textbook Ian Stoner and I wrote) to the question of whether Minnesota should abolish youth prisons. Taiwana identified other interested staff at the LRC (including lawyers, social workers, investigators, restorative justice facilitators and advocates), and Taiwana and I came up with a schedule that paired topic readings with chapters of the book. At our meetings, we’ve been working together to identify and evaluate the best arguments for and against abolishing youth imprisonment in Minnesota. My goal has been to leverage everyone’s expertise so that everyone can work towards a well-reasoned position on the issue, with the (hopefully not too naïve) aspiration to illustrate how philosophical argument skills can usefully inform activism. Our meetings so far have been very productive (more on this below) and I’ve learned a lot.
What’s the philosophical grounding of your civically engaged work?
As far as my goals, I take inspiration from Socrates’ injunction that critically scrutinizing beliefs and arguments (crucially, both our own and others’) is essential for acquiring knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. (Though Socrates didn’t seem to worry as much about when and how to be the gadfly, I worry about that quite a bit and wish I had more wisdom there. It’s easy to be the gadfly at the wrong times, in the wrong ways, and for the wrong reasons.)When it comes to my approach to specific moral controversies, I’m generally averse to the method of applying comprehensive moral theories. Suppose a child psychologist is grappling with whether to alert Child Protective Services (CPS) to a parent’s reportable verbal abuse, given that the parent is aware of the mistake and trying to change, and reporting them could lead to the whole family being deported. Telling the psychologist to decide whether to report to CPS by comparing the guidance of utilitarianism, Kantianism, and virtue ethics (for instance) isn’t useful. Even if they did have the time and training to choose the most plausible theory and develop its reasoning on the dilemma, I don’t think moral theory is the best tool for generating well-reasoned guidance about particular moral issues. That’s why my work focuses on applying the strategies of practical ethics (described in our book)—analyzing, evaluating, and developing specific types of moral arguments such as arguments from analogy, arguments from principle, and moral inference to the best explanation. Examining these arguments helps people develop coherent and justified beliefs about what matters and what ought to be done in particular situations.
Give an example of a successful project.
For me, a successful project is one that helps people see why philosophical skills are valuable tools for approaching questions they care about, and one where we get to apply those skills together. Ideally, I want to show people who are new to philosophy that philosophical reasoning strategies facilitate meaningful and productive reflection on their existing perspectives, commitments, and expertise.
The discussion group we’re having at the LRC (see above) is a great example of that. Since the group’s paid work is to advocate for an affirmative answer to our question (should youth prisons in Minnesota be abolished?), having a philosopher come in asking them to critically evaluate their own arguments and take opposing views seriously could have been a non-starter. But they’ve been so generous and just as invested as I have in getting to the bottom of things. So far, this has enabled us to identify and analyze some arguments against youth-prison abolition; given us tools to identify and evaluate principles about justifiable punishment that come up in discussions of the ethics of youth prisons; helped us identify potential weaknesses in some common abolition arguments; and put us on the trail of some additional arguments for abolition that might avoid those problems. I’m excited to see where future meetings take us!
What’s the philosophical grounding of your civically engaged work?
As far as my goals, I take inspiration from Socrates’ injunction that critically scrutinizing beliefs and arguments (crucially, both our own and others’) is essential for acquiring knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. (Though Socrates didn’t seem to worry as much about when and how to be the gadfly, I worry about that quite a bit and wish I had more wisdom there. It’s easy to be the gadfly at the wrong times, in the wrong ways, and for the wrong reasons.)
When it comes to my approach to specific moral controversies, I’m generally averse to the method of applying comprehensive moral theories. Suppose a child psychologist is grappling with whether to alert Child Protective Services (CPS) to a parent’s reportable verbal abuse, given that the parent is aware of the mistake and trying to change, and reporting them could lead to the whole family being deported. Telling the psychologist to decide whether to report to CPS by comparing the guidance of utilitarianism, Kantianism, and virtue ethics (for instance) isn’t useful. Even if they did have the time and training to choose the most plausible theory and develop its reasoning on the dilemma, I don’t think moral theory is the best tool for generating well-reasoned guidance about particular moral issues. That’s why my work focuses on applying the strategies of practical ethics (described in our book)—analyzing, evaluating, and developing specific types of moral arguments such as arguments from analogy, arguments from principle, and moral inference to the best explanation. Examining these arguments helps people develop coherent and justified beliefs about what matters and what ought to be done in particular situations.
What failure have you experienced doing civically engaged philosophy, and how did it teach you as you moved forward?
One mistake that’s been particularly instructive is forgetting just how weird (and potentially threatening or off-putting) philosophical methods can seem to non-philosophers, especially when discussing things outside of the context of a course or classroom (where the norms, goals, and roles for everyone are often clearer). For example, when having discussions with people about topics they feel very passionate about, if I ask them to dive right into the arguments—seeking to find a justification for their views, or asking them to consider the best justification for views they’re currently opposed to—they sometimes feel like I’m asking them to give up or ignore their feelings or identity. Now I’ve learned to clarify at the beginning of a conversation that there is definitely value in processing feelings (being married to a psychologist has made it impossible for me to avoid recognizing that!), and feelings are certainly a part of moral reasoning (I like Jonathan Bennett’s explanation of that point). But if we’re going to get at the truth and come to a well-reasoned judgment on controversial issues, attending to our feelings isn’t enough. By clarifying at the outset the way philosophical methods aim to give us critical perspective on our feelings, I can avoid some misunderstandings. I don’t think it’s going to be possible to avoid all misunderstandings, but when managed well, misunderstandings can lead to fruitful discussion. Intentionally opening up space for discussions of method shows people they can bring those questions or reactions up later if they arise.
What motivates you to do this work?
It likely sounds cheesy, but I think doing philosophy is (part of) a valuable way of life. I think differently about the world, I conceive and approach questions and problems differently than I used to, as a result of my philosophical training. The state of the world makes it easy to view the pursuit of knowledge and understanding about controversial questions (and productive thought and discussion in general) as quixotic or impossible. Philosophy has shown me there is a plausible path forward, even if it is one that’s at times emotionally, intellectually, and socially challenging. This is what I keep coming back to when that work gets tough.
In what ways does the work inform your teaching (or vice-versa)?
My research on wisdom is part of what got me focused on practice-based methods for teaching moral reasoning skills, and I find that trying to introduce those skills to non-philosophical audiences concerned with real, practical problems helps me design my courses to teach skills that will be useful on the ground. For instance, discussing practical ethics with clinical psychologists has helped me identify some useful topics for class discussions and paper assignments. Conversely, my experience teaching skills in the classroom, along with my interdisciplinary research experience, has helped me anticipate questions professionals might have about philosophical methods. For instance, developing effective methods in the classroom for explaining the problems with simplistic cultural relativism and the limitations of professional ethics codes as tools for moral decision-making has been useful for discussing moral reasoning in psychological practice.
What gets you out of bed in the morning? What is your passion?
The hope that careful and rigorous thinking and discussion can have a positive impact, however small.
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