Opinion polls and discussion questions
There is nothing wrong with sometimes including questions that have no clearly right or wrong answer. Questions used as demonstrations are one example. In other cases, you might just want to poll students' opinions about a topic, or use a question to get a discussion going in class.
Opinion polls
For example, suppose you are asking a question about how a theory or principle applies to a particular case. You might first ask students for their opinion about the case, as in the following example from an introductory ethics lecture:
| TROLLEY or THE RUNAWAY TRAIN You are standing by the railway track, with a lever, which will divert the trolley onto a different track. A trolley is coming. Currently, the trolley is directed to head down a track where there are five people. The other track has only one person on it. OPINION POLL Is it permissible to divert the trolley? A. Yes, it is permissible. B. No, it is not permissible. Two principles: SANCTITY OF LIFE: It is always wrong knowingly to kill an innocent person. BEST CONSEQUENCES: One ought to act so as to bring about the best achievable outcome. (1) What does SOL recommend we do in TROLLEY? A. According to SOL, it is permissible to divert the trolley. B. According to SOL, it is not permissible to divert the trolley. (2) What does BC recommend we do? A. According to BC, it is permissible to divert the trolley. B. According to BC, it is not permissible to divert the trolley. |
In this way, students get some practice with the method of 'thought-experiments' -- testing theories against our considered judgements (or intuitions) about particular imagined cases or examples.
'Opinion poll' questions can also be used to introduce a topic or illustrate a problem. Consider the following example:
| OPINION POLL: Which of these outcomes is worse? A. Five people contract a fatal disease that can only be treated at great cost and with difficulty. They are not treated, and die of it within a year. B. A person murders a completely innocent stranger. The murderer feels no guilt, but never re-offends. C. Neither: they are equally bad. Suppose an all powerful being asks you to choose which of these outcomes to bring about at some point in the future? Which one would you think is the worse possible outcome? |
Many (though perhaps not most) people will think that B (murder) is the worst outcome. Later in the lecture, students are introduced to the 'best consequences' principle and given the following question:
| BEST CONSEQUENCES: One ought to act so as to bring about the best achievable outcome. SPARE-PARTS SURGEON or TRANSPLANT Five patients in need of transplants in order to save their life. One patient has five healthy organs, which could be used to save the five. The surgeon can kill the one such that no one knows, and such that the five others are saved. What does the Best Consequences Principle say? A. Yes, it is permissible. B. No, it is not permissible. |
Many students will give the answer A -- the surgeon should go ahead and murder the patient. But, returning to the results of the opinion poll, many people held that murder is a worse outcome than 5 people dying of a disease. People who held that view ought to say that the Best Consequences principle entails that the surgeon should not go ahead. In this way, the lecturter illustrates the need to get clearer about what makes consequences (outcomes) good or bad -- the topic of the next lecture (preference vs. classical utilitarianism).
Discussion questions
Sometimes you might want to discuss a number of different candidate theories or solutions to a problem. In this case you might give students an opinion-poll question, asking them to choose from a range of theories or solutions. You can then go on to explain those theories and possible problems with them in more detail. However, students are now more likely to be interested and engaged, because they have already taken a position on one side of the debate or another. After you have lectured on the topic and considered objections and problems, you might poll the students again, to see if there has been any change of opinion. Questions like this are often a good trigger for a class-wide discussion. After the initial poll, you could ask students who picked one option to explain why they did so. Then ask someone who picked one of the alternatives to explain their answer. Then you can ask students to evaluate the arguments offered; 'who agrees with that?', 'can anyone think of any objections to that argument?' and so on. This is a good way of getting a debate on the issues going.
Here is an example, taken from a philosophy lecture on arguments for and against the existence of God:
| Consider the following objection to the free-will defence to the problem of evil: Even if it is true that a world of free agents who sometimes choose evil actions is better than a world without free agents, this does not explain the existence of natural evils such as earthquakes, diseases, tsunamis and so on. A perfectly good God ought not to allow such things to occur. How might the free-will defender respond to this argument: A. Deny the existence of natural evils. B. Maintain that the existence of natural evils is consistent with freedom. C. Maintain that some amount of natural evil is necessary for the decisions of free-agents to have any significance. D. Deny that God can create a world that does not contain some amount of natural evil. |
In this question, option B is irrelevant, but all the other answers are possible.
Here is anothe example:
| 1. Some things exist and their existence is caused (Premise) 2. Nothing causes itself. (Premise) 3. There cannot be an infinite regress of causes.(Premise) [4] There can't be a circle of causes. (Unstated Premise) [5] If there is a first cause, it is unique. (Unstated Premise) Therefore : 5. There is a first cause of existence something that causes other things, but is not itself caused and that thing is God. |
| Discussion question Which of the following objections to the argument do you think are correct? A. Even if all the premises are true, it still does not follow that there is a first cause of existence. B. According to quantum mechanics some things happen with no cause. C. If the past is infinite, then there could be an infinite regress of causes. D. Even if there is a first cause, why should we suppose it has all the other attributes of God: omniscience, omnipotence, perfect goodness and so on. |
Here C and D are both good answers.
A question like this can built 'on-the-fly' instead of being completely prepared in advance. Offer students one or two options and then ask them if they can think of any more. As students offer further possible answers, add them to the list, perhaps filtering out ones that are too confused. You could write the question on the boardm, or overhead transparancy and then add students answers as they suggest them. Alternatively, if you are using a data-projector, you could open up a blank Word document and type the answers up. Students can vote on which option they think is strongest (or most interesting). You could then discuss the most popular option, perhaps explaining why it is mistaken or why it is good answer. You could then go on to talk about the next most popular option and so on. In this way, the students (as a class) get some control of what gets discussed in the lecture.