Week 5: Monday, February 6th

When making moral decisions, is it better to focus on the particulars of the case (like the names, histories, and motives of individuals involved) or to abstract to broader categories (like how much pleasure or suffering will result)?  How important is it to have good intentions rather than to be the cause of the best results?  In this class period, we will consider what it means to intentionally take responsibility for a moral decision, looking at ideas from Native American philosophy.  We’ll discuss the concepts of moral injury and apply Native American philosophy to debates about the ethics of violence – particularly how we should connect with our ecosystems and sources of food. And we will work on the skill of telling stories that uncover morally important intentions.

By the end of the session, you will:

1. Understand the key differences between how consequentialists, virtue ethicists, and Native American philosophers approach questions of personal responsibility.

2. Appreciate the role narrative, or telling “morally thick” stories, plays in Native American understandings of responsibility.

3. Practice telling your own morally thick stories about things you’d like to take responsibility for in the story of your life.

READ THIS:

Philosophical Text: V.F. Cordova, “Ethics: The We and the I” [access through Moodle] (from American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays, ed. Anne Waters)

Philosophical Text: Joseph M. Marshall III, “Wisdom,” and, “Walking the Circle” (from The Lakota Way)

Application Text: Anna Harwood-Gross, “Moral Injuries” (Scientific American)

WATCH THIS:

DO THIS:

Consider the following questions, write your responses in your journal, and talk about them with a friend:

1. When you reflect on who you are (especially who/what you care about), do your cares include what other people care about? What evidence from your own life do you have to support the claim that you are more Individualistic, or, more Collectivistic?

2. How might having a Collectivist self-understanding be a benefit to environmental justice? How might having an Individualistic self-understanding be an impediment to environmental justice?

3. What are some serious things that caused you pain or discomfort or shame, and for which you took personal responsibility? What does ‘taking responsibility’ look like in a Native American culture?