Professor Erik Wielenberg on sabbital at St. Andrews University
in Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
COURESY OF ERIK WIELENBERG
At the start of the summer of 2012, professor of philosophy Erik Wielenberg was trying to figure out what to work on next.
Having written several papers and even a textbook, he decided it was time to take on another large project. It occurred to him that many of his papers corresponded and that they could possibly be the bare bones for a philosophy textbook.
The result was “Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism,” set to be released on Nov. 25.
“I ended up incorporating a lot of that material into the book,” Wielenberg said. “So, this isn’t a book that I really set out to write at the start; it’s more that I realized I was already writing a book a few years in.”
After deciding to take on the task of writing a full book, it was time to start the research. He completed plenty of reading and spent plenty of time thinking.
“The book draws not just on ideas from philosophy but also from psychology, particularly moral psychology, which has to do with the cognitive processes that produce our moral beliefs, emotions and actions,” Wielenberg said. “Since I don’t have a degree in psychology, I had to do a lot of research in moral psychology to make sure that I knew what I was talking about in that area.”
He quite enjoyed the psychological research, particularly one experiment focusing on disgust.
“The psychologists would often accomplish this by using varying amounts of ‘fart spray,'” Wielenberg said. “It was pretty obvious that they had a lot of fun doing these experiments.”
According to Wielenberg, the writing process wasn’t all that different than what DePauw professors stress for students in their writing.
“DePauw professors often emphasize the importance of rewriting and revising, and I’m here to tell you that that’s not just something we give lip service to,” Wielenberg said.
Once he had a complete draft of the whole book, Wielenberg spent lots of time visiting and revisiting his past working, ensuring everything was as clear as it could be.
“I spent lots of time going over and over it, revising it again and again to get the wording just right or to make changes in light of research I had done or feedback I had gotten from others about my ideas,” Wielenberg said.
Senior Camille Veri took two of Wielenberg’s classes during her time at DePauw, and she also had help from him on her senior thesis.
“He’s very talented at explaining theories and concepts in easily digestible ways,” Veri said. “Uses creative ad comical teaching methods, mixing in pop cultural elements.” Her class, for instance, read “A Clockwork Orange” and watched the movie, “Signs.”
“I think that’s a good way to get people interested in philosophy,” Veri said.
As for his book, according to the book’s Word document, for just one chapter of the book’s four, Wielenberg spent 6200 minutes (about 100 hours) of editing time for that chapter alone.
All in all, the book’s content was written over a period of five to six years.
Wielenberg has plans to use his book in the classroom upon his return from his sabbatical at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
“I will probably use it in an upper-level course,” Wielenberg said. “It can be a bit tricky using your own book in a course because the students might be a bit hesitant to criticize the professor’s ideas."
Apart from Robust Ethics, Wielenberg has written another book, “Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe.”
“I’ve successfully used my first book in previous upper-level courses so I think I can make it work with this one too,” Wielenberg said. “The keys are to include other books that defend positions opposed to mine and to earn the trust of the students during the course of the semester by demonstrating fairness and receptivity to criticism.”
COURTESY OF AMAZON
Veri contends Wielenberg has implemented his own work into class lectures successfully.
“In philosophy of religion we read an article he wrote, ‘Devine Deception,'” Veri said. “I think it should be done in a way that the professor isn’t imposing their ideas on you rather sharing their point of view. I know [Weilenberg] invites students to provide criticisms for his own arguments.”
For now, Wielenberg spends his time as a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs at St. Andrews.
“My sabbatical project is on whether there is such a virtue as secular or non-theistic humility and, if so, what it is like,” Wielenberg said.
He hopes to use what he learns there to create a new course on DePauw’s campus. To accomplish this he has been sitting in on some graduate courses at the university
The plan is to write a paper and develop a new course on that topic as well as giving talks at St. Andrews and some other universities in the United Kingdom.
“And, of course, I’m doing some empirical research into Scottish whiskey,” Wielenberg said.