Jonathan Wolff (FBA) is a prominent philosopher and academic, recently serving as the Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, and currently president of the Royal Institute of Philosophy in the UK.

Humanities and social sciences classrooms have never been free from controversy. Classroom anxiety runs as high as ever today. Questions of gender identity, climate change, immigration, religion, and the conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan are among the issues that soak up attention and concern. Political tensions are also heightened, especially on college campuses, in U.S. election years as individuals face so many uncertainties.

As a teacher of moral and political philosophy, currently teaching at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford on a Master of Public Policy Degree, I typically teach students from around 50 countries with very different social, educational, and professional backgrounds, and I often encounter passionate disagreement in the classroom. So how do I keep the peace and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue?

As a preliminary to class, preparation is essential. Naturally, readings should be very carefully chosen, paying attention to the gender and ethnic balance of authors, if possible, as well as different political views. Often, students ask for a more diverse set of readings. After getting over my instinctive defensiveness, I ask students for suggestions, but only of texts they have actually read and feel are suitable for class. This has given rise to a number of new texts, with varying success; sometimes I remove a text suggested by one cohort after complaints from the next. It’s an important lesson that students can vary considerably in what they want to see in the curriculum, and generalizations are bound to fail.

Nevertheless, generally in class I find discussions are respectful and tolerant, but if the temperature rises, I encourage students to reflect on the distinction between criticizing a view and criticizing the person holding that view. When they disagree with another classmate’s position, I ask students to imagine the argument as if on a PowerPoint slide and to dissect it dispassionately. Don’t insult the person who said it, or question their motives or character, or try to make them feel small or stupid. Imagine yourselves as partners in the search for truth, however difficult that may be. This is especially important if students have a religious or cultural formation that has made particular views central to their identity.

At the same time, this approach has its limits, and personally I still struggle to get the balance right. I remember a seminar in which issues about social class and gender became particularly heated, and a male student from a comfortable economic background confidently made an argument defending a view that others thought was cloaked by his privilege. As he was being attacked, I tried to calm things down by saying “please don’t personalize the issues.” Immediately, a student in the class replied, “Why not?” — not out of ignorance, but as a type of rhetorical challenge to me.

This led to a very interesting and important discussion of “standpoint epistemology”; a position originating, perhaps, in Marxism or before, but taken to new levels in the study of race and gender. The idea is that those who are oppressed are capable of a level of insight on a topic that the oppressors, or bystanders, are likely not to achieve, not only because they lack experience, but also because it can be in their interests to shield themselves from the truth. Hence there is every reason to listen to those who are prepared to talk about their personal experience. In other words, there can be reason to personalize the arguments of those who speak from experience of disadvantage or discrimination or oppression, at least for a time. Students can be experts too, and although we should never let one voice dominate, calling on experience can be a liberating experience as well as educationally highly valuable for all.

But here we also run into a different source of trouble. If the topic is something members of the class may have experienced themselves, such as end of life care for an elderly relative or witnessing or being a victim of domestic abuse, a group discussion can be traumatic. This is even more the case when they have made decisions that they themselves could come under scrutiny or criticism for, as could well be the case if abortion is the week’s topic. Trigger warnings are often helpful but need to be used with care. In my experience, general advance notice to everyone about the topic of the week’s class, every week, with special attention to sensitive topics, is preferable to the occasional red flag that can itself raise the temperature. Students need to be given advance warning and prepare themselves. They should not be forced or provoked to express opinions on topics that are very sensitive to them. But getting the line right here is very difficult. We want students to be challenged, not traumatized, and many of us who are now teachers do not have good role models to rely on from previous generations, when classroom sensibilities might have been very different.

How, then, to proceed? There’s a golden rule of teaching, just as in the rest of life: “How would you like it if it happened to you?” But there’s a modification for teachers, for there’s a vagueness in the golden rule: How would you like it when? Much of what happens in the learning process — reading technical texts, attending complex lectures early in the morning — is not conducted for the pleasure of the moment, but how they will allow students to learn and develop. Things can be uncomfortable in the class but are a path to valuable learning, greatly appreciated later. Or they can lead to longer-term distress and justified complaint. But thinking yourself into the shoes of the more vulnerable class members — who may be vulnerable for different reasons — can be a guide to when to divert the discussion away from troubling questions and when to continue, calling on class members to illuminate the issues from their own perspective and experience.

Here are a couple of techniques I’ve learnt that have helped. A colleague pointed out one extraordinary trick to help manage a discussion. If you think that a topic has run its course, and you want to move on, but not appear too abrupt, ask “Anything else?” Students typically will not speak unless they have something urgent or important to say. But if you want to dwell on the topic a bit longer, and discussion is not flowing, ask “What else?” Students will feel that you’re hinting that something has been missed and will think hard about what it might be. This works outside the classroom — in meetings for example — just as well.

A different technique may be equally helpful. When a discussion is getting rough, and especially if an instructor is seen as inexperienced or vulnerable, students can try to put them under pressure by asking a direct, controversial question. One example I saw is that of a hostile student asking the instructor in a class on gender “What is a woman?” There is no answer that will satisfy everyone. But here the trick is to realize that you have no obligation to answer. Instead, you can ask what’s at stake, or why it’s an important question. Doing this can turn a flashpoint into an academic discussion of the type we should welcome. Of course it isn’t possible to defuse everything, and philosophical dialogue is a process that has no ending point and is fraught with tension. But for as long as we are teaching moral philosophy, we can hardly expect a quiet life.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Wolff (FBA) is a prominent philosopher and academic, recently serving as the Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, and currently president of the Royal Institute of Philosophy in the UK. Renowned for his work in ethics, political philosophy, and public policy, Wolff has made significant contributions to discussions on social justice, equality, and disability rights. He is the author of Norton’s An Introduction to Moral Philosophy, Readings in Moral Philosophy, and The Human Right to Health.