APA Newsletters
Fall 1999
Volume 99, Number 1

Articles

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Jason Kawall
Brown University

In what follows I present a simple discussion exercise intended for introductory philosophy courses dealing with values. Essentially, the exercise involves having the students rank a number of valuable objects and then articulating (in discussion) the basis for their rankings. This allows the students to see the broad range of values they hold, and those held by others. In the body of this note I present an example of the exercise applied to environmental ethics. In the final section I briefly explain how the exercise can be modified for use in other areas of value inquiry.

The Exercise

I would suggest giving students a handout with the following outline at the end of a class session, thus giving them time to fully consider their responses before discussing them at the next session.

Outline

Imagine that there is a large ship that is rapidly sinking at sea. There is an island with a small human city and a great deal of forest which can be reached by lifeboat. However, there is just one lifeboat left, and you must decide on which order you would place the following creatures on the lifeboat:

1) An intelligent, healthy, morally virtuous human
2) An intelligent, healthy, morally evil human
3) A healthy moose (there is an indigenous moose population on the island)
4) A collie with a permanently lame leg
5) A severely mentally disabled human
6) Ten chickens
7) A breeding pair of an endangered species of bird, once native to the island
8) A human in a coma who will almost certainly never come out
9) A breeding pair of common, but beautiful, indigenous songbirds
10) Two breeding pairs of a nonindigenous variety of rapidly breeding wild rabbits (with no known predators on the island, and an extensive food supply)

Assume that while on the lifeboat none of the potentially dangerous creatures will attack or cause any harm to the other creatures on the boat, and that all groups of creatures require an equal amount of space. Rank the creatures (or groups of creatures) from 1-10, with #1 being the creature(s) you would save first, and with #10 being that creature (or those creatures) which you would be most willing to sacrifice. Where possible, try to give a reason for why you placed a given creature where you did in your ranking. For example, if you placed the disabled collie ahead of the healthy moose (or vice versa), can you explain why you did so?

Guiding Discussion

A good way to start the discussion session is by asking if any of the students have all of the humans before all of the other creatures on their list. Once you have a few responses, you can begin to ask the students why they placed the humans as they did. This can lead to a discussion of anthropocentrism, the value of sentience, and so on.

I have found that the following concepts and concerns (amongst many others) can be introduced in the discussion by asking about the relative ranking of the creatures:

1) Criteria which might justify favoring human interests:

Asking students where they placed the severely mentally disabled human and the human in a coma can lead to a discussion of these issues. Introducing rationality as a possible criterion can also lead to a discussion of Kantian ethics.

2) The Value of Sentience:

Ask students to compare where they placed the moose or collie relative to the human in a coma, or the birds. Did the animals' ability to experience pain and pleasure play a role in the ranking?

3) Anthropocentrism:

If students place the chickens or the collie high on their lists, is it because of their value to humans?

4) Utilitarianism:

Where did the students place the ten chickens on their list? Is the happiness of ten chickens as important as the happiness of a single human or dog?

5) Dangers to Ecosystems / Holism:

Where did they place the nonindigenous wild rabbits in their lists? Did they think of the possibility that introducing a species like this could cause a great deal of destruction to the established ecosystems (communities of plants and animals interacting with one another, and with the nonliving environment) on the island?

6) The Value of Endangered Species:

Did the students place the breeding pair of endangered birds ahead of the chickens or the common songbirds? If so, why? After all, there are ten chicken lives at stake, and only two of the endangered birds.

Goals of the Exercise

There are three main goals to this exercise. First, as I hope to have shown in the previous subsection, it serves as an excellent introduction to a number of essential concepts in environmental ethics. Students seem to enjoy the exercise a great deal-partly because of the mild absurdity involved ("Why is there a moose on this ship?") and partly because it allows for them to work out and express their own intuitions.

Second, the exercise allows students to see that they do already have intuitions concerning the issues raised in the previous section, and that there are principles at work in their rankings (even if they cannot see this as they make up their lists). Students often have difficulty in giving reasons for their rankings prior to the discussion session, but afterwards they come to see the unarticulated concerns which guided them.

In answering such questions as "Why did you rank creature A ahead of creature B?" students are led to articulate why they consider one creature to be more valuable than another. Students thus begin to explore the values which underlie their initial preferences. Individual students will see that such properties as sentience, rationality, and rarity are valued by classmates, even if they themselves had not considered such possibilities. As they are introduced to these other possible values, students may come to question their initial lifeboat preferences as they recognize the intuitions which these values reflect, and through basic arguments or thought experiments which arise during discussion. They may come to question whether some putatively valuable properties, such as (mere) rarity are, in fact, valuable-does a rare disease become valuable simply by being rare? Still, the exercise is not focused on ranking these underlying values-the course as a whole will presumably involve much critical examination of the articulated values.

Third, the exercise, if used towards the beginning of a course, can serve as a reference point for later, more complete discussion. The lifeboat scenario is quite vivid, and students tend to remember the issues raised in discussion. Thus, for example, an instructor can introduce the topic of endangered species by referring back to the exercise and the ranking of the endangered birds relative to the chickens or beautiful songbirds.

Extending the Exercise

The basic structure of the exercise consists in forcing students to rank a number of objects (actions, creatures, etc.), each of which seems to have some value. In forcing the students to rank the objects, their attention is drawn to the different values involved, though perhaps in an inarticulate fashion. In discussion the students are then led to see explicitly the values guiding their rankings. Given this structure, the exercise can be adapted to other subject areas which involve (prima facie) a plurality of values. For example:

Human Well-Being/Value Theory: Students must decide on the order in which a person should prefer to have the following things:

1. Wealth
2. Friendship
3. Knowledge/the Truth
4. Happiness
5. To live on a world in which everyone is happy except the person herself

Clearly, discussion of the students' lists can introduce distinctions between kinds of intrinsic value and instrumental value; hedonism; the objectivity of values; and the importance of rationally-informed values.

Thus, the underlying structure of the exercise allows for modifications which make it relevant to any subject involving norms or values. It can spark students' intuitions, create discussion, and serve as an introduction to key concepts in most any course.

Note