Should We Force The Truth On Others? Choosing to be Neo or Socrates

I am presently working on a paper that deals with the problem stated in the title of this post. I am presenting a brief outline of the main argument below and would welcome any comments. In so far as I do not know how to post the entire draft, if you would like to read it, please let me know and i will email it to you. You can contact me at alexajoh@gvsu.edu

Once while watching the Matrix with my son Micah, he commented that he thought that Neo would be acting unethically if he exposed the reality of the Matrix to others without their consent. Even though doing so would expose the illusion that they actually live in a world as it appears to them and act as they think they act, he thought that people have a right to choose to remain ignorant and that Neo’s proposed actions would violate this right. When I teach an intro to philosophy course I use the Matrix in discussing the nature of knowing and skepticism. I ask my students to write a short paper on which pill (the red for knowledge or the blue to remain ignorant) they would take and to explain their reasoning behind their decision. Inevitability about 1/3 of the students will choose the blue pill to remain ignorant. The reason most often given to justify their position is that they are happy with their worldview and lives and they do not want to consider the possibility that they may not be correct regarding the truth status of their beliefs about the way the world is and what constitutes happiness. For them, remaining ignorant of possible viable alternatives is the preferable alternative. They simply do not want to investigate their core beliefs and have them challenged. This is an understandable position in that core beliefs are these that form the foundation upon which we build our conceptual frameworks. It can be very difficult for us to put these beliefs under critical scrutiny. If a foundational core belief turns out to be false, then a major portion of our framework crumbles and we may be left “dazed and confused” without a concrete reference point to regain our intellectual bearing so that we can continue to knowingly and freely move forward in our lives.


According to Hope May, the Socratic method is designed to expose two types of ignorance; definitional ignorance where we do not end up with an acceptable definition for what is being investigated and inconsistency ignorance where the definition that we are investigating leads us to conclusions that are inconsistent, or contradictory, to what was originally stated. Consequently, there is an important normative, as well as pedagogical question that confronts us as educators; “should we force our students to accept what we believe to be true if doing so could radically change the way they view and live their lives?” Neo thinks that it is permissible to force the truth on others and is going to proceed to expose the existence of the Matrix to others without their consent. There is an alternative approach exemplified by Socrates. While agreeing that we should expose ignorance, he would act differently; he would simply offer us the opportunity to uncover the truth for ourselves through critical reflective dialogue around an important issue, but would not force us to learn the truth regarding that issue without our first giving our consent to follow where the argument takes us. Socrates would allow people to enter into, or remain in, the dialogue as they choose. Assuming that it is part of our duty as philosophers to expose ignorance (and I think that it is), if we, as educators, decide to follow the example of Neo, do we violate any ethical parameters that should define the pedagogical role that the teachers of philosophy should play in exposing ignorance?

It is interesting to note that Neo would fail to give others the very choice that Morpheus, the true Socratic figure in the Matrix, gave him when he was first confronted with the opportunity to discover the truth concerning the nature of our existence. Socrates’ approach represents a more passive and nuanced approach then Neo’s in exposing ignorance because it rests on the belief that others do not have to participate in the dialogue, or can even leave the dialogical process, if they so choose. In fact, for Neo there is no dialogue, there is simply exposure to the truth, no quarter given to those to whom he would force the truth upon. However, there is an important moral constraint in the way the method functions when utilized by Socrates: it is not forced upon anyone. Those engaged in the dialogical process must consent to be part of that process even if they are bystanders. Socrates never gives an argument for not forcing people to learn the truth in undertaking his investigations, he simply incorporates it into the way he conducts his investigations. Although he is committed to exposing ignorance and discovering the truth about important issues, he never forces anyone into a discussion, or into remaining in a discussion. At any point in the dialogue we, like Euthyphro, are free to end the discussion and walk away. In fact, we are free not to enter into a dialogue. Even if we make a statement that was to catch the interest of a Socratic-like investigator, we do not have to answer the question posed by that person. Socrates believes that we will suffer a great harm by not investigating the truth of important issues, namely we will never arrive at a firm foundation for making the correct decisions on how to live our lives so that we can find true happiness, but we are free not to know and to be harmed by not knowing.

Neo, on the other hand, is like a freedom fighter. He knows that we are living in slavery and that slavery is an undesirable state of existence if people are to be self- determining moral agents. Neo assumes that there is a contradiction between being self-determining and choosing to become a slave. He must believe that no self-determining agent would knowingly and freely choose to become, or remain a slave. If people choose to become slaves, or to remain ignorant if the opportunity for knowledge is presented to them, they must be somehow being compelled or tricked into making this wrong life altering decision. How can we be morally responsible for our lives if we do not control them? How can we control our lives if we are in a dream-state like existence with our experiences simply being the result of a computerized program designed to deceive us into believing something to be true which is in fact false?

Socrates seems to be arguing that we must know in order to be free, while Neo is arguing that we must be free in order to know. This might be the real issue, the right to be free versus the right not to know. Neo sees the evil of the Matrix, not as a limitation on what we can know, but on our freedom to choose and to act as self-determining moral agents based on those choices. Socrates has a different agenda then Neo; he wants to expose ignorance to arrive at knowledge while Neo wants to expose ignorance to arrive at freedom.

The question we have been discussing is not an unimportant one. To bring in an example that you might face (in one way or another) in real life: suppose that you are a physician and that you have a patient who is suffering from an incurable terminal illness that will kill him in one year. The patient doesn’t know that he has this illness; but you know that the patient’s knowing that he has this illness will not help him recover (nothing will) and will bring him a great deal of misery for the remaining year of this life. Are you obligated to tell the patient? What if the patient is also your friend?

Plusses and Minuses of Online Readings

I wonder what experience people have had with using online readings. A recent email prompts this query:

"Drs. [Tim] O'Keefe and [George] Rainbolt [from Georgia State University, Atlanta] have become shocked and annoyed at the high cost of intro to philosophy anthologies. We have decided to put together a web site that has the format of a standard anthology but is composed exclusively of materials in the public domain and of materials that authors have given us permission to use for free. We plan to make this available free on the web. We are looking for input about the web address we should use. We hope that you will take a moment to fill out a one-page survey on some options. To take the survey, just click on this link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Srex6oIyncqF7NI1T_2b0Llw_3d_3d

Thanks in advance for your time. If you would like to forward this message on to other philosophy students or faculty, please feel free to do so."

I wonder what experience people have had with using online readings. Mine has been mixed: the problem has always been, at least with my students, that too many of them either don't read them and/or don't print them out and/or they don't bring them to class. So, even though a lot of $ could be saved by their using online readings, they seem to unfortunately resist it and so I am forced to try to make them buy sometimes expensive books. Anyone have any better luck out there?

Weir on lecture shakeups

Rob Weir at Inside Higher Ed has a nice set of tips to enliven class lectures and presentations. He calls them examples of "didaction" that combine instructor exposition or content and student action. It's definitely a list to check out (though in some cases, it may be hard to apply the suggestions to philosophy: Weir mentions "demonstrating a concept" that was just explained -- is this what we philosophers do with examples?)

One thing I noticed: Several of the techniques are ways of involving students that invite them to participate in contexts where there's little pressure for them to provide a right answer: brainstorming, etc. I've often thought that one factor that suppresses student participation in philosophy classes is that students are very accustomed to participating in discussion, etc. by giving the right answer but feel ill-equipped to participate in the more open-ended, investigative discussions that often take place in philosophy classes, where "right answers" are in short supply. It'd be great to have a set of techniques that work around this student anxiety.

New ETS grad school assessment

Success in graduate school is clearly not a matter of academic ability alone. In my observation at least, a good many other virtues or emotional dispositions shape whether a person completes graduate school, and in turn, how successful they are in their subsequent academic careers. Plenty of bright people end up leaving graduate school (or the profession) because they are not sufficiently creative, focused, or persistent, for example.

Now our friends at Educational Testing Service, who brought us the SAT, the GRE, the LSAT, and the other standardized tests, aim to identify those who have the personal characteristics to succeed in graduate school. Per the Los Angeles Times:

Is there a way to evaluate a student's drive, persistence, honesty and creativity? What is needed beyond college grades, test scores and traditional recommendation letters?

The Educational Testing Service says it has just the thing. The ETS, which runs the Graduate Record Examinations, will soon offer a supplemental assessment of graduate school applicants on those personal characteristics that could help students tackle advanced studies.

The new online system, called the Personal Potential Index, will ask faculty who know the students to rank them on a 1-5 scale for such attributes as communication skills, teamwork, resilience, organization and integrity. It asks 24 questions, including whether the candidate "produces novel ideas," "meets deadlines," "works well under stress" and "is worthy of trust from others."

So: is the aim of this assessment, assuming it's a good one, achievable? My recollection is that most graduate schools send evaluation forms to recommenders that ask similar questions about students. The hope (I guess) is that the ETS instrument will be more systematic or scientific. I'd be also be curious to know if anyone has ethical objections to this assessment: How would you feel about it if you were a candidate for grad school?

review of ISW in June 2009 issue of Teaching Philosophy

Those of you who are fans, or at least regular readers, of this site probably also know about the journal Teaching Philosophy, which since its founding in 1975 "has provided a peer-reviewed forum for the exchange of ideas about the challenges faced by philosophers in the classroom, and has published the largest body of original work on philosophy teaching in the English language." Over the years, I have found the journal to be a very helpful resource.

The current issue (Volume 32:2, June 2009) includes a Digital Media Review section. One of the "digital media" under review is this very site. Prof. John Immerwahr (Villanova Univ.), the reviewer, gives a clear (yet concise) overview of this site -- along with advice about how to subscribe to a weblog such as this one.

I'll shatter the suspense -- SPOILER ALERT -- SPOILER ALERT -- SPOILER ALERT --

by saying that it's a positive review! Some selected bits of Immerwahr's review follow. (Seeing the full review online requires that you or your institution's library have an online subscription to the journal, I'm afraid.)

• "This particular blog calls to mind the tradition of essay writing from Montaigne through Addison and Steele. The general format is that Cholbi or one of the other regular authors 'posts' a reflection on some issue related to the teaching of philosophy....other readers post comments or reactions to the original comment.... The whole process, in other words, is rather like a virtual 18th century coffee house. Most of the posts are brief, well-written, thought-provoking, and addressed to real concerns for a typical philosophy instructor."
• "[The discussion of Michael's post, "What If I Just Don't Like You?", is] an interesting exchange that one can read in just a few minutes. It is just the kind of conversation that one might have in a department common room with a group of serious and thoughtful colleagues. But, as we all know, in today’s hectic world those conversations are increasingly rare. It fills a niche, in other words, between a researched article in Teaching Philosophy and a casual venting with a friend, spouse, or partner."
• "ISW allows us to participate in a conversation around issues in teaching that is both thoughtful and thought provoking, inviting further commitment but not requiring it. For a small investment of time, it offers a rich reward."

Hooray for us (especially for Michael), and sincere thanks to Prof. Immerwahr for the positive and encouraging words.

By the way -- as it happens, the other review in the Digital Media Review section (this one written by Ruth Poproski) is of a site developed and maintained by Immerwahr himself: TeachPhilosophy101.org, which "presents strategies and resources for faculty members and graduate assistants who teach philosophy courses, especially at the introductory level; it also includes material of interest to college faculty generally." There's a permanent link to that site down in the lower righthand side of this page. Check it out!

Philosophy behind bars

Our old friend the CHE has a short piece by Robert Gormong relating his experience of teaching philosophy in a Virginia correctional facility. I've talked to a number of people who've taught philosophy (or cognate disciplines) in prisons and nearly all find it to be highly rewarding. Gormong writes:

Whatever their flaws, I thought my inmate-students were in a unique position to benefit from a class on philosophy. Philosophy is a discipline that ought to help students shape their lives and values — and at Lunenburg, my students desperately needed to rethink their lives. At their best, they understood that. Many of them proved it in their intense devotion to the class.

Anyone else done this sort of teaching? What were your experiences like?

Best student excuses for late work

Crooked Timber has a nice post on all-time greatest student excuses for late papers. I'd love to hear other examples of the best excuses ISW readers have received. But here are some personal favorites from the CT post:

"It was during my first year of teaching here in Arkansas that I got my favorite late paper excuse of all time: one of my freshmen comp students told me his paper would be late because, the night before, his stepfather had shot his computer with his shotgun while he was messing around, and it would take him awhile to get a new one."

"I missed an organic chemistry final. My excuse was being in jail and I had the newspaper account of the arrest as proof. The professor was pleased with the originality of my situation and let me take a make-up exam."

"How about “I got my girl friend pregnant and I had to help her get an abortion.” A friend of mine used this on two seperate occasions with the same instructor."

"During a summer session I had a student who failed to turn in an assignment via e-mail because his neighbors, from whom he was stealing a wi-fi signal, moved out, leaving him without internet access. That sounded pretty plausible to me."