Strong Female Protagonist (No Relation to Hark! A Vagrant!)

... I don't think that was Mr Alexander's tactic. I hope it's this Bozo's, though. If I have to read the Second Coming of Mr Alexander (facilitated by Selwyn Hall, headmaster), I'm going to get a lot of chills and have to fight curling into a ball. -_-

There, there (pat's shoulder).

Yeah, from a pedagogical point of view I think what this guy is engaging in is risky. Challenging viewpoints is a foundational aspect of philosophy, but it can be phrased in a rather less confrontational way than he's choosing. Some students will take to it, but a fair number would be alienated.

(I admit I am somewhat amused by his responses though. He's a quick thinker, or he's heard many of these statements before. I suppose as a philosophy professor the latter is likely.)

Yeah that is true.

I'm expecting some sort of prisoner's dilemma where if everyone puts down white, they all fail.

Yeah, me too.

And then Allison puts down black and demonstratively grinds her white to dust.

Maybe even before he finishes the explanation.

Allison will be the only person in the class who puts down a black Go stone, which the teacher will use to "prove" that acting in the interest of fairness isn't always beneficial. Or something.

There is definitely a trick or point to it.

And here it is. Life's not fair, is it?

So it really is the massed (and skewed) prisoner dilemma. And Allison is the only one sticking up.

Although I a little bit expected her to throw her white to the guy.

edited 15th Apr '16 6:05:49 AM by Adannor

Geez, all those students in the last panel besides Alison (and the kid who got his stone stolen) are jerks. I mean, even if you're not legitimately a moral person, this scenario is so obviously a test of morality that I seriously don't believe this many students would put down a white stone just because the teacher obviously wants you to put down a black stone, or else he wouldn't have added all those extra rules at the end.

I mean, these students have to realize the teacher's not actually going to pass or fail them based on this game. He could get fired for that.

edited 15th Apr '16 6:04:33 AM by thebandragoness

Methinks the point is about solidarity (or the lack thereof) for those operating at a disadvantage. Doubly applicable in the face of someone telling you "this person is at a disadvantage, and you'd be better off sacrificing your own welfare to help them out".

Altruism vs. selfishness, which is certainly one way to kick off a philosophy class.

If you believe the instructor would actually pass or fail you based on your choice of stone, then putting down a white is the only rational choice. If you don't believe him, it makes no difference which one you pick. So again, white is the rational choice (in case you are wrong).

He also set up an option "If you trust everybody else to do the same, put down black and everybody wins, including the guy that got screwed over."

If you're really a rational person, you'll realize that, A) if the teacher fails a bunch of kids based on the color of the Go stone they put on their desk, you can just go to the higher-ups and complain, and they'll probably have that teacher fired, and B) if you put down a white stone, all the kids who put down black stones will think you're a jerk. And then it changes from an illustration of morality to an illustration of the layman's aversion to social awkwardness.

Funnily enough, in the American school system, teachers are actually heavily discouraged from failing students (EDIT: What I meant to say was they're discouraged from failing large numbers of students at once. Obviously, it's okay to fail one or two students if most students are doing fine in the class). I once had a completely incompetent geology professor who was horrible at explaining the material, and then everybody failed the class. Everybody. So the professor just gave everybody free points until we all had C's. And to this day, I still don't know a f***ing thing about geology.

Hurray. The American school system is like a well-oiled machine.

edited 16th Apr '16 6:11:52 AM by thebandragoness

That's why everyone accuses rational people of being jerks. Being super rational kind of makes you one.

I'm a college instructor, and while I have never failed an entire class, some semesters the class average goes way down.

edited 16th Apr '16 5:48:31 AM by DeMarquis

Except that, like I just said, a rational person would realize there's no way the teacher would fail you and even if they DID fail you, you could complain to the higher-ups and get them fired. A rational person would be intelligent enough to quickly realize this is merely a game with no legitimate stakes, so then it becomes an issue of if you really want to take the time to go complain to the higher-ups on the off-chance the professor really does fail you.

Either way, this test obviously doesn't work as a "real" test of human morality, which I imagine Alison is about to point out. In fact, if anything, the "real" morality test here would be to ascertain whether or not this teacher deserves to be fired and then see if you can take the time out of your busy schedule to tell the proper authorities about him. Allowing a teacher who fails students over a game on the first day of class to continue teaching is a very morally bad thing to do. Heck, it's bad from a rational standpoint too since college education is beneficial to society as a whole.

(Also, if you failed a few students, I'm sure it was because they did poorly in the class and not because you couldn't competently teach the material or because they put a black rock on their desk.)

edited 16th Apr '16 6:15:26 AM by thebandragoness

Honestly, in this situation I would choose white, precisely because the professor can't possibly be serious about his threat of failing the students who put up a black stone. If the game has no consequences, why take it so seriously? Just take the fun option.

(Well, there's the "look like a jerk" consequence, but I feel reasonably confident in saying that there would be enough other students thinking this way that I wouldn't stand out.) But still, I do agree that seeing such a huge majority of students choosing white is unrealistic.

Although I'm honestly a little disappointed at the professor's scenario so far, it's bog-standard tragedy of the commons / prisoner's dilemma. I'm hoping he at least has some novelties to introduce in the interpretation.

They're undergraduates in an intro course. That isnt the place to introduce clever variations on classic themes, Its the place to introduce classic themes as if they were new (which they will be, to most of the class).

Fair enough. On a different note, Allison looks interested in the fourth panel. Anticipating his example, anticipating his results...?

Also, I realised when asking his name, Allison referred to him as "Mister...?" Is the fact that she calls him that rather than Professor revealing what she implicitly thinks about him? I can't remember how she addressed Professor Cohen.

I remember reading an internet-anecdote once about a class who had a random guy wander into their lecture theatre and mistook him for the lecturer. They ended up listening to his inane rambling for a while. It would be amusing if this is what Gurwara did.

Most college instructors are not actual professors anymore. I'm not. "Mr" is fine.

Without knowing yet how this is going to turn out, I would say he made one error so far. Instead of all that rigamarole with Allison, he should have taken a quick straw poll, asking "Who here believes in helping people less fortunate than themselves?" Nearly everyone would agree- then go through this whole prisoners dilemma thing, leading to a nice class discussion of why people didnt act on their espoused beliefs.

That's what I would have done, anyway.

Doing that would have skewed the results, though. It would be priming everyone to put down the black stone, by getting them thinking of helping.

You need about half the case on each side to get a good discussion going. "10 points extra credit if you put down a white stone" That's entirely plausible.

It looks like the student wearing the hijab agrees with DeMarquis's line of thinking.

I think the best thing for Alison to do now is argue that she be allowed to give Davenport her white stone. If it's possible to arbitrarily take one away, it stands to some amount of reason that one could be given as well.

What I think is more likely is that the professor will offer her an opportunity to force everyone to place a black stone instead, illustrating his point. Unfortunately, since she apparently expected that everyone would do the right thing, I fear she might fall for it.

edited 19th Apr '16 1:46:28 AM by StateOfBedlam

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Or, by pragmatism in pre-emptively recognising that stupidity in others.