Philosophy is an odd subject.
These are the twin goals that inform my teaching, and they need to be pursued together. Just about every student in Ethics and The Social Contract comes in armed with an answer to or at least having thought about the questions we confront, like the one I mention above. For this reason, class discussion is both informed and relatively easy to get going. But more than that, students care about the answers that we explore to the philosophical questions we ask philosophical convictions can be very personal, so there s something at stake every week in recitation. While I respect their beliefs, I try to prod my students to grapple with the arguments for and against their own positions.