After taking a seminar in graduate school on the nature of blame and moral responsibility, Professor Joe Shin became fascinated with this subject that intersects philosophy and moral psychology. Now as a de Vries postdoctoral teaching fellow at Calvin University, he gets to share this interest with philosophy students through classes and presentations.
Shin’s research examines, in his words, “the nature and norms of such phenomena as blame, apologies, and forgiveness.” He hopes to help us understand what it means to assign blame or extend forgiveness, and to clarify what moral principles should guide those actions. As he explains, “there’s something special and interesting that we’re doing when we blame someone (or ourselves) or when we apologize or even when we extend forgiveness. But just what are we doing when we do those things? What has sustained my interest in part is that blame, apologies, and forgiveness are extremely important parts of our lives and yet some interesting puzzles emerge when we think carefully about them.”
The puzzles that Shin’s research explores naturally find their way into his teaching as well. He tries to incorporate some of the issues he encounters in his research into each course that he teaches. For example, he asks his students to think about what it means to “do the right thing for the right reasons vs. the wrong reasons.” This helps his students to recognize the significance of motivations in how human beings understand moral responsibility and decide when and to whom to assign blame.
This past February, Shin gave a public lecture at Calvin titled, “Moral Ignorance, Apologies, and Self-blame” that asked the question, “does being wrong mean not having to say I’m sorry?” As Shin observed, “there are situations in which a person genuinely and falsely believes they are doing the right thing because they have a mistaken moral belief.” In this lecture he inquired about the appropriate response in these situations, and the moral principles that should guide the response. One thing that Shin hoped the audience would take away from the presentation “was that these phenomena are not only related to one another in interesting ways, but they also “come apart” in surprising ways. For example, I suggested that someone can be forgiven for something even when they aren’t (and weren’t) ever to blame for what they did. From this presentation, I also learned that students at Calvin have lots of interesting views about blame, apologies, and forgiveness!”
Shin not only teaches philosophy classes and continues his line of research and publishing as a de Vries postdoc fellow, but also works with a seasoned faculty mentor. His mentor, philosophy professor Kevin Timpe, observes that “the philosophy department is very fortunate to have Prof. Shin as a De Vries teaching fellow. From our first interaction with him in the application process, we were impressed with how well he understands our department's approach to teaching as formative rather than merely informative. We are very excited about his teaching and mentorship to students, and what he adds to our department in terms of expertise. He’s proven himself to be a valued member of the philosophy department and the wider university community.”
Shin said that his experience with Timpe as his faculty mentor has been “edifying and inspiring. We try to get lunch every month or so and talk about teaching, scholarship, and life more generally. Professor Timpe is someone that I’ve grown to admire as a teacher, philosopher, and person more generally.”
Beyond equipping him with a mentor for ongoing conversation and practical experience in the classroom, the de Vries fellowship has informed Shin’s approach to scholarship. On the concept of integrating Christian faith and academic research, he said, “for me, a big theme that emerged from reflecting on such a question was the importance of regularly checking in with myself about why it is that I am pursuing research. It’s a persistent temptation in academia to pursue research as a way of proving one’s importance to one’s peers or to get the approval of others. So regularly examining my motivations for research is something that I at least aspire to do.” As he moves into the second year of this postdoc fellowship, Joe Shin will take the experience he’s gained into the next season of his research, teaching, and relationships with colleagues and students.