Sparking curiosity through disagreement | Stanford Report

What if as a substitute of attempting to win an argument, you aimed to actually perceive your opponent? Think about a world the place disagreements have been seen as alternatives to broaden your individual perspective and construct empathy – a pathway to cultivating compassion, grace, and humility.

This radical method to battle was on the coronary heart of PHIL 3: Democracy and Disagreement, a spring quarter course taught by Debra Satz, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences (H&S), and Paul Brest, professor emeritus and interim dean at Stanford Regulation Faculty (SLS) on the time.

Every week, Satz and Brest introduced students with opposing viewpoints into dialog on a variety of points similar to gun regulation, legislating social media, and legacy admissions. Members of the broader Stanford group have been additionally invited to sit down in on any of the course’s classes.

“Civil disagreement, after all, might be arduous, and it may be passionate. It can be appropriate with advocating for radical change of the established order,” Satz mentioned.

The course’s purpose was to mannequin what civil disagreement on divisive matters appears to be like like, maintaining it as a dialog quite than a debate.

One of many classes that stood out for Satz was a dialog on the Israeli-Palestinian battle that featured former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Professor Alon Tal discussing the potential of a two-state answer.

“Even essentially the most high-stakes, passionate, and really deep disagreement might be performed in a significant manner and other people can be taught,” Satz mentioned.

For Brest, a spotlight was exploring the complexity of points and appreciating them from many views.

“A number of the points [covered in the course] weren’t merely two-sided,” Brest mentioned. “Many have been multifaceted. The purpose of the category was to pay attention to a different place, to search for its strengths in addition to its weaknesses, and to acknowledge your individual place.”

How variations emerge

A purpose of the course was to point out college students how disagreement can come up.

A dialogue between Stanford students Jeff Hancock and Anna Lembke about whether or not social media is addictive, for instance, highlighted how disputes can emerge on account of variations in information and analysis methodology. 

Lembke, who’s a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences on the Faculty of Drugs and writer of the bestselling e book Dopamine Nation: Discovering Pleasure within the Age of Indulgence, shared how over the previous decade, she has handled an rising variety of sufferers whose habits mirrors all of the indicators and signs of habit.

“However their drug of alternative is digital and social media,” mentioned Lembke. Her opinion relies on scientific experiences – actual, firsthand accounts of an issue.

Hancock, nonetheless, has a special perspective. After reviewing some 700 research and 70 meta-analyses revealed since 2006 within the social sciences, he discovered no conclusive proof that social media use is linked to hurt to well-being on the inhabitants stage.

Hancock emphasised the significance of contemplating the content material and the context of social media use, quite than merely categorizing it as addictive or not. He argued that framing it as such takes away the obligations of platforms and customers. What is required, he mentioned, is a broader dialogue concerning the expertise, rules, and help mother and father and youngsters want for accountable use – areas he and Lembke discovered consensus round.

Parsing by means of diverging units of scientific-based proof to determine the place one stands on a difficulty might be difficult. As Brest remarked to the category, it could possibly even be “complicated,” however this kind of information-gathering is essential for a democracy.

“Individuals discuss an epistemic advantage of a democracy – which is you’re amalgamating a variety of completely different items of knowledge that may be very completely different – with the hope that you simply’re getting higher data than you’ll in the event you simply went prime down with one standpoint,” Satz mentioned in an interview with Stanford Report.

Debra Satz (left) and Al Roth (proper) mentioned kidney exchanges as a part of the spring quarter course, “Democracy and Disagreement.” | LiPo Ching, Faculty of Humanities and Sciences

Separating opinion from proof

College students additionally noticed how students can arrive at very completely different conclusions even after they have the identical data.

Typically, disputes emerge due to conflicting values, which was some extent financial historian Ran Abramitzky made when discussing the 2 sides of the immigration debate, an space he has devoted a lot of his profession to learning.

“Even after we can agree on proof and info, cheap folks can fairly disagree about what the coverage suggestions are,” mentioned Abramitzky, who can also be the senior affiliate dean for the social sciences in H&S. He additionally confirmed what can and can’t be concluded from the information and the way inconclusive proof has impressed extra analysis.

As Satz mirrored throughout one of many course’s last classes, disagreement brings out completely different items of knowledge.

The final class featured a panel of 4 college students, together with Senkai Hsia (left) and Christian Figueroa (proper). | Fawn Hallenbeck, Faculty of Humanities and Sciences

Cultivating empathy

Of their course evaluations, college students highlighted the distinctive nature of the discussions and debates, noting they hadn’t skilled something related of their different Stanford courses, in accordance with Satz.

The course culminated with a panel dialogue that includes 4 college students from the category sharing what they discovered to be important situations for civil disagreement.

The scholar panelists selected clips from earlier courses to debate, together with a snippet from the dialog between Satz and economics Professor Alvin Roth about his work designing kidney alternate packages that match donors to sufferers, efforts that earned him the Nobel Prize in 2012.

What stood out to Christian Figueroa, ’27, was how thoughtful the 2 students have been towards one another, regardless of their radically opposing viewpoints. 

“For me, one thing that was fairly main out of this dialog was simply the massive quantity of empathy inside the disagreement,” Figueroa mentioned. He famous how Satz and Roth might have been extra assertive with their opinions, however as a substitute selected language that acknowledged, appreciated, and generally, as Alexa Kupor, ’25, identified, anticipated variations.

Senkai Hsia, ’24, who’s graduating in December with levels in mechanical engineering and worldwide relations, shared how he admired the respect and mental curiosity the students demonstrated, in addition to the generosity and good religion they confirmed each other.

“Humility, I believe, is what creates the situations for that good religion,” Hsia mentioned. 

Satz and Brest shall be educating the course once more within the winter with a special set of points. Data forthcoming.