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Lisa Kretz's Article Accepted for Publication in the Journal “Ethics and Education”

Posted: Friday, August 1, 2014

University of Evansville Assistant Professor of Philosophy Lisa Kretz's article “Emotional Responsibility and Teaching Ethics: Student Empowerment” was recently accepted for publication in the journal Ethics and Education.

Kretz explains that the idea for the article came about when she overheard a student say Kretz’s ethics class was depressing.

“I wondered how my classes could generate a sense of empowerment rather than depression,” says Kretz, “a sense of hope rather than despair. Drawing from David Hume’s and Martin Hoffman’s work on the psychology of empathy and sympathy I contend that dominant Western philosophical pedagogy is inadequate for facilitating morally empowered students.”

 “Moreover,” she adds, “I stipulate that adequate analysis of the role emotion should play in pedagogy requires tending to the politics of emotional expression and how oppression functions. I argue that ethical educators have a moral responsibility to facilitate not only critical moral thinking but critical moral agency. Part of ethical education should involve the provision of tools for effective citizen engagement and reasoning alone is insufficient for this goal. The role of emotion in ethical decision making and action remains devalued and under-analyzed. Approaches that fail to adequately recognize the role of emotion in ethical education are to the detriment of effective ethical pedagogy. I recommend a number of methods for remedying this omission so as to provide tools for moral action.”

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