Philosophy Confronts Issues Rais

Philosophy Confronts Issues Raised by Technology, Genetics

by Valerie Strauss

Here's what many folks think when they hear the word "philosophy": Professors perched high in their towers, pondering such things as realism and whether we can infer naturalism from skepticism (maybe yes, maybe no).

But consider these images: Philosophers counseling clients about moral dilemmas. Latte sippers chatting in philosophy cafes. A Microsoft engineer crediting his philosophy education for his success. A wrongful death lawsuit filed against an ethicist.

Philosophy, that abstruse academic discipline, is enjoying a popular renaissance as revolutions in technology and genetics raise fundamental questions about the nature of our life in the new millennium. There used to be "a widespread sense that philosophy had become very detached from real-world problems," said Bill Galston, director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Not anymore. In a movement that would have pleased Socrates, who viewed philosophy as essential to public life, scholars are trying to apply the wisdom of the great thinkers to today's issues. And courses marrying technology and philosophy are a current favorite of many students.

Daniel Rothbart, a philosophy professor at George Mason University, teaches a junior-level philosophy of science course in which 80 percent of the students are computer science majors. John Arz, a professor of management science at George Washington University, teaches a number of philosophy/technology courses. "What people don't realize is that Socrates, Aristotle and Plato had a lot to say that is of value to information systems," Arz said.

Though traditionalists view "applied philosophy" as a distant cousin of the real thing, it is where the action is. When the University of Maryland institute was founded in 1976, it was one of the first such centers in the country. Now there are dozens of them, dealing with debates over medical and scientific experimentation, gene therapy, abortion and assisted suicide. Their scholars write papers, give speeches, lobby politicians and confer with business executives.

"The whole business about philosophy and public policy is booming," said R. Paul Churchill, head of the GWU philosophy department. Churchill recently participated in a symposium on NATO peacekeeping in Bosnia, arguing that peace should be seen in terms of justice and reconciliation, and not as simply the absence of war.

Galston teaches a University of Maryland graduate course called the Moral Dimensions of Public Policy. The class studies questions that revolve around honesty and lying. The Center of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania opened in 1994 with one staff member; now it has 14. It started out without a master's program and now has 100 students working toward master's degrees. "Bioethics has become the way Americans can talk to one another about ethical and value issues," said Arthur Caplan, the center's director. "Cloning. What do we think of Dr. Kevorkian? Who should own your genes? Is it all right to dig up Abraham Lincoln and see if he had a genetic disease? . . . I actually believe that bioethics has become America's moral tale."

Caplan is involved in a morality play of his own, having been named in a lawsuit filed against the University of Pennsylvania by the family of an 18-year-old man who died as part of a genetic experiment. Caplan had discussed the case with the patient's doctors.

Though traditional philosophy courses have been cut back at some colleges, the number of students studying the subject through other departments--religion, political science, literature--has risen dramatically. The number of philosophy majors also has increased in recent years after declining in the 1980s and early 1990s, and they are winding up in many professions.

Paul Stieglipz is a 26-year-old GMU senior majoring in philosophy and Russian and planning to become a Marine Corps officer. The reasoning skills he has learned from studying the great thinkers is good preparation for a military career, he said. "You need a firm basis for your beliefs. Philosophy really helped me with that."

John Mueller, 31, a software test engineer for Microsoft Corp., was a philosophy major at GWU. Because of the logic he learned in philosophy classes, he said, "I can go through a computer program and think about, at each step, what are the assumptions and expectations for this function or for this procedure."

The subject also is being studied at more high schools. In Philadelphia, for example, about a dozen high schools have recently started offering courses in bioethics. At Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, teacher Carrie D'Amour last year started the equivalent of Philosophy 101. "It's perfect for 11th- and 12th-graders who are trying to map out who they are and what they believe in," she said.

The resurgence of philosophy also can be seen in the bestseller list, which includes philosophy books such as "Sophie's World," by Jostein Gaarder, and "Plato, Not Prozac!," by Lou Marinoff.

The emergence of the philosophy counseling movement has horrified many traditional philosophers as well as psychotherapists, who say that people in need of mental therapy should seek out professional help. But the trend is growing, led by Marinoff, a philosophy professor and counselor at City College of New York, which this fall became the first college in the country to offer philosophy counseling at its student Wellness Center. There are about 100 such licensed counselors in the country, helping clients--many of whom feel that traditional therapy failed them--sort out their feelings about a job, a marriage, the loss of a loved one and other life issues. "The secularization of America has left many people in a moral vacuum," said Marinoff, who counsels clients by trying to find a philosopher or philosophic tradition that offers wisdom for their particular problem. "If you don't belong to an organized religion, how do you develop morals? People need wisdom that can be distilled for use but not watered down to where it is useless. That is what we are able to provide."

Those who prefer to chat in groups can visit one of the "philo cafes" sprouting up in cities around the world, including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. At the Hong Kong Philosophy Cafe, monthly discussion topics have included "Can sports be an alternative to religion?" and "What makes work meaningful?" and even "Marriage--what for?"