However, whereas Suber is a professional academic, I am not. Before reading any further, read my disclaimer and warning on my My Writings page.
The Ethics of Teacher / Student Contact
Glenn Mason-Riseborough (24/9/2003)
I. The Problem
I will discuss a problem that I came up against during one of my summer jobs teaching English as a second language (ESL) at a private tertiary institution. This school I was teaching at is particularly large, and at one stage it was seeking university status. What interested me, amongst other things, was the out-of-hours interactions that went on between teaching staff and students at the school.
At this particular school it was written into the contract as a contractual duty that ESL teachers must “interact informally and socially with students”. Now, this was written into the contracts of both salaried teachers and also casual teachers paid on an hourly basis. So a minor worry I had was how this interaction was supposed to happen for the casual teachers who only got paid for hours in the classroom. I assume here that “informal” means non-classroom interactions. Were the casual teachers expected to informally interact with students without pay in the same way that they were not paid for lesson preparation time but were nonetheless expected to prepare lessons? And how much time was to be spent on this?
But, more importantly, I also wondered about what sorts of informal and social interactions were expected or required or permitted. There was nothing further in the contract that detailed this, and there didn’t seem to be any written or verbal instructions to clarify. But what I observed at this school worried me a little. What we got was a wide range of teacher attitudes. By far the majority of students were Asian, and we got prejudices from the teachers ranging from extreme dislike to, well, extreme like would be the polite way of putting it.
What we also got was a wide range of teacher-student interactions. At the extreme end I heard of a number of romantic or sexual interactions between teachers and students, for both male and female teachers. One teacher married his ex-student. Another was supposedly writing romantic letters to her current student. Certain teachers were flatting with students. Teachers and students would go out drinking or clubbing or partying together. A particularly strong Christian teacher would take students to church on Sundays. Some teachers would take students away for weekend trips. Sporting and musical events were also arranged. This was not just teacher-initiated. While I was there I had students offering to cook or buy me dinner and take me back to their place. I was also given numerous gifts by individual students.
Clearly some of these interactions are worrying. But not all need be, and I can also see the other side. An important part of language learning is social interaction, and clearly students can benefit from such interaction. Also, students and teachers are adults, and there is something to be said for free choice in the matter. Thirdly, these students are a long way from home, and many need support and assistance with everyday living. Teachers may be their only link to the local community.
So, what I wondered about was the boundaries. What is acceptable, what is unacceptable, and what is required of a teacher as part of the role of teaching a second language? This is the problem I wish to discuss.
My first step, after identifying and thinking about the problem for a bit was to try to find out if anyone else has thought about this problem before. So I did a search of the library databases, for any publications on this. I came up with a number of articles concerned with the ethics of intimate or sexual relationships between teaching staff and adult students at universities.[1] I also came up with a few articles on the ethics of friendship in this same context.[2] But I wasn’t able to find anything specifically on what is appropriate between language teachers and adult students. Firstly, there are more types of interaction than just intimate relationships or friendships. And secondly, there could well be relevant differences between learning a language and learning chemistry, for example, that means that certain social interactions are more or less appropriate in the context of language learning. Anyway, I am not sure if this lack of publications is because I was not looking in the right areas, or whether this is a genuine gap in the literature. I talked to a few language teachers and a few people in my philosophy department, but no one was able to suggest any writers on this. So, basically what I will do is run through some ideas that I came up with as I thought about this problem for myself.
Where to begin? First what I’ll do is discuss some of what I found in the context of friendships. This should give some background that we can hopefully apply to other forms of social interactions. Many of the main issues associated with this problem, at least as I see it, are covered by a discussion of friendships.[3] We can also begin to look at whether the context of the interaction—the type of academic institution, the teaching subject matter, the type and purpose of the qualification, the formal relationship between teacher and student within the institution, the culture of the participants, whether the interaction is individual or group based, and so on—may have a bearing on finding answers to the problem.
I take it that we can begin with the liberal presupposition that the burden of proof is on the person who would restrict any such interaction, to show why such interactions are morally wrong. That is, unless we can come up with a good reason for restricting certain interactions, we can assume that any and all such interactions are morally permissible. And this goes the other way, too. That is, this liberal presupposition also tells us that we ought not force teachers to informally interact with students, without good reason. This reason might just be that it is because the contract says so, but it might also be built into the role of teacher, or role of language teacher, or something similar. Or there might be other considerations. That is, it might turn out that certain informal or social interactions between teachers and students are morally obligatory while others are morally prohibited, and yet others are neither.
In addition to the liberal presupposition, it is plausible that friendship is a prima facie good, so the burden of proof is even more on the person who wishes to restrict or prohibit certain friendships.
In an article called “Professors, Students, and Friendship” Peter J. Markie[4] argues that there is a prima facie moral obligation for teachers to refrain from friendships with students. Markie is focusing specifically on university teachers and students, but it may be possible to apply his ideas to other educational contexts too. At the very least I take Markie’s analysis to be especially helpful, as it potentially sheds light on other forms of social interactions besides friendship. He gives a useful structure that we may follow for other cases. Three preliminary points before getting to his main argument.
First of all, why does Markie call it a prima facie moral obligation and not simply a moral obligation? If we have a prima facie moral obligation not to do something, then we have a good reason not to do it (at this stage we can stay neutral about our normative principles that dictate what the good reasons may be). But not all prima facie moral obligations are moral obligations. We may have a conflicting prima facie moral obligation to do the opposite. For example if I promise my friend I will meet him at 1 pm, then I have a prima facie moral obligation to keep my promise and be there at 1 pm. But suppose on my way to meet my friend I come across someone who needs my help—a lost child, or someone drowning, or whatever—in this case helping the person trumps my prima facie moral obligation to keep my promise to meet my friend at that time. Presumably an explanation and/or apology to my friend for my lateness would be in order, but I have still broken my promise to be there at that time, and yet this would not be blameworthy.
The point here is Markie’s claim is that teachers are morally obliged to refrain from friendships with students, unless some other moral considerations override this. But Markie wants to say that the moral obligations for such refraining are especially strong, and so the circumstances would have to be extraordinary for there to be any moral considerations that trump this. He doesn’t suggest what these extraordinary circumstances might be, but they may not be anything much less than mad-scientist extraordinary. In other words, he thinks that there are very good reasons for refraining from friendships, which would trump other reasons to the contrary in all but the most extraordinary of circumstances. More on these reasons below.
The second point is who counts as a teacher’s student? Does this include all students at the school? Or only current students of the teacher? Or both current students and also students the teacher is likely to teach in the future? Markie takes this third option. But how likely is likely, in this context? Markie does not tell us. He does say that it is unlikely for him, as a philosophy professor, to ever teach an advanced graduate student in physiology, and so the prima facie moral obligation to refrain from friendship does not apply in that case. But clearly some cases will be borderline, or we just don’t know what the future will hold. Ought teachers to be conservative in their judgement, and refrain from friendships just in case one day they teach that student? Should Markie refrain from a friendship with an undergraduate physiology student just in case this student should in the future choose to change subjects? Or alternatively is it permissible for a philosophy professor to be friends with a philosophy graduate student as long as their research interests don’t overlap too much? I don’t know the answer in these sorts of situations. Perhaps a detailed case-by-case analysis is the only way of answering this—look at the student’s interests, background, and so on.
What about language students? In the case of language schools, as students move up the levels they can often be taught by most of the teachers at that school. If there is a good chance that students, if they stay at the language school long enough, will be taught by most teachers, then it seems like Markie would have to say that language teachers have a prima facie moral obligation to refrain from friendship with all students at that school (assuming a parallel argument for language teachers, from Markie’s argument for university teachers). There is just too much of a chance that the student will someday be taught by that teacher.
One alternative so that the teacher doesn’t teach that student with whom there is a friendship might be to intentionally change the class rolls to move the student out if the problem arose. But this might be difficult to manage in practice, particularly if many teachers are friends with many students, or the school was a small one.
Thirdly, what counts as a friendship? Markie gives three necessary conditions:
(i) We share or have shared an activity with that person.
(ii) There is mutual affection.
(iii) This mutual affection is acknowledged through expectations and commitments.
This conception of friendship could be debated. One criticism of Markie is that this understanding of friendship is mistaken. We might tighten it up to make friendships more rare. Apparently Cicero thought that friends must be virtuous and share “a perfect conformity of opinion on all religious and civil subjects”.[5] I heard once that it takes many years for one to be considered a friend in Germany. Or we might loosen things to make friendships more common. When I was travelling in Bolivia I was sometimes called friend from within the first few minutes of conversation. Or we might tweak it in some other way. In a response to Markie entitled “The Ethics of Faculty-Student Friendships”, Rodger L. Jackson and Peter L. Hagen[6] reject this model, which they call “the exchange model of friendship”, in favour of a model developed by William K. Rawlins in Friendship Matters.
Whatever the case about what counts as friendship, Markie’s conception is clearly one case of informal interaction that may occur between teachers and students. So whether or not it is a good account of friendship, it is worth talking about whether this type of interaction is appropriate between teachers and students. Also, it seems to me that it is the uncontroversial components of the account of friendship, which are also components of most forms of interactions, that are the most problematic, especially for language teachers. More on this below.
Now for the argument. The structure is very simple. It has a major premise and a minor premise. These premises are:
1. If engaging in an activity is likely to limit severely our ability to honour one of our moral obligations, then we have a prima facie moral obligation not to engage in that activity.
2. Establishing and maintaining a friendship with one or more students is likely to limit severely a teacher’s ability to honour his or her moral obligations.
There is the self evident claim that:
3. Establishing and maintaining a friendship with one or more students is an instance of engaging in an activity.
And the conclusion is that:
4. Teachers have a prima facie moral obligation to refrain from establishing and maintaining friendships with one or more students.
The structure is deductively valid.
The first premise is the general principle, and it applies to a wide range of situations. It lies behind the lawyer’s prima facie moral obligation not to represent both parties of a dispute, and the psychiatrist’s prima facie moral obligation not to have intimate relations with his or her clients. I won’t discuss this premise any further here, but I take it to be a fairly solid principle.
The second premise is the instance that is applied to the general principle. This is the more debatable component of the argument. For this premise to be shown to be true Markie has to show which moral obligations the teacher would have difficulty honouring if that teacher were to establish or maintain a friendship with one of his or her students. Or, to put it another way, Markie’s thought might be stated in terms of role ethics. There is a conflict between the duties required of one when occupying the role of teacher and the duties required of one when occupying the role of friend. If the argument works, then the only way to resolve the conflict is to refrain from occupying both roles simultaneously, with respect to some individual. Let’s now turn to what these moral obligations or duties might be.
One moral obligation is that the teacher must give all students equal consideration in instruction, advising and evaluation. A teacher must make these available to all students if he or she makes them available to one student. This is a duty of justice. It is also a duty of fidelity, given that there is an implicit promise, in teaching a class, that the teacher will give equal consideration to all who are in that class. Markie takes this obligation to be particularly strong, and the likelihood of it being overridden by more pressing moral obligations extremely small.
Now for the central issue. What is it that makes having such friendships limit severely a teacher’s ability to honour these obligations? Firstly, teachers will not be friends with all students in a class. Practically it is not possible, and some students will not want it anyway. But part of what it means to be a friend is that one adopts a special concern for that person, and a commitment to the welfare of that person. Markie thinks that it is for this reason that a teacher who is friends with a student will give that student extra opportunities in instruction, advising, and evaluation, that the other students will not get. These extra opportunities mean that students are not given equal consideration. This will happen despite even the best of intentions on the part of the teacher and student. What this amounts to, for Markie, is three main points of concern.
(a) The teacher is more likely to be more sympathetic with assessment. Perhaps the teacher will make more of an effort to understand and appreciate what the student is trying to say. Due to this special concern that has developed between friends, there will be greater understanding and appreciation of the student’s work by the teacher. Or perhaps, simply from frequent conversation and interaction, the teacher will be more aware of the student’s manner and idiosyncrasies. The student may not need to be as clear as other students, for the teacher to catch on to the point being made by that student.
It seems to me that we don’t need to tie this in with special concern, which may at least be debatable anyway with respect to friendship. It is the mere fact of shared activities—another component of friendship—that the teacher has a better chance of understanding and appreciating the student’s work. (I have noticed this when marking student essays. If I have talked with a particular student frequently—in tutorials, office hours or wherever—or have read draft essays or previous essays by that student, then I am more likely to understand that student’s point in an essay. When I have shown the student’s essay to other markers they have been less certain than I on the clarity of the essay.) If the teacher understands the student’s work better because the student takes legitimate advantage of the teacher’s course contact hours, then there is no violation of justice. But there is a violation of justice if the teacher understands the work better because the teacher and the student are sharing non-course related activities.
This may happen in many subjects, but in particular it happens in language teaching, where accent and phrasings become more understandable through prolonged interaction. If the teacher is a friend of a particular student, then the teacher will find that student comparatively easier to understand than other students of a similar ability, simply from having had more conversations. Just like parents often uniquely understand their toddler’s speech habits, so too do friends often uniquely understand each other’s speech habits. If the teacher is assessing the language students for promotion or reports, then this could easily unfairly advantage the friend over the other students. This would especially be the case in speaking exercises, or at schools that emphasise verbal over written communication. It would also be especially true in schools where teachers are concerned more about two-way comprehensibility than with technical or grammatical correctness.
An even more blatant allowance Markie identifies in the context of assessment might be that the teacher is more lenient with respect to late work, and so on. But perhaps this is less plausible and more easily resolved, since again I don’t see this as required of friendship, even on Markie’s account. Surely it would be a failure of both teaching and friendship to give preferential treatment in this way. And so I’m not convinced that special concern or affection need result in special allowances with respect to assessment, but I will look at this a little more when considering objections below. As I say, I think this basic point about assessment made by Markie, fits better with the idea of frequent contact or shared activities, than special concern or affection, and this is especially so for language students.
(b) The teacher is also more likely to give extra advice and assistance with academic enrolments and career opportunities. This may happen by explicitly making introductions, giving contacts, or providing recommendations. Or it may happen simply in the course of conversation or activities between friends, since it is likely to be a mutual interest.
In the case of language teaching the teacher may help the student by going with him or her to universities to find information, or helping to fill out applications, which they typically may not do for all other students in the class.
To be honest I am not sure about the details of the role requirements on this point, for language teachers, university teachers, or teachers in general. To what extent are teachers required or supposed to give advice? So I don’t know whether this creates any problems of injustice. I’ll look at this a little more below.
(c) Another mutual interest is likely to be the subject matter itself, and so the student is likely to gain additional course instruction over and above what the other students get. Specifically in the case of language teaching, this is even more obvious since the student is going to gain language ability simply through shared conversation. They need not even be explicitly discussing the subject matter for the student to have this advantage.
In addition, for Markie, another moral obligation likely to be violated by the friendship is that of not acting in a way that will lessen the credibility and worth of the evaluation offered by that teacher. At most schools, evaluation of the students is an important component, to give evidence of the student’s abilities to the student and others. Teachers are seen as being competent to provide an accurate assessment of the student’s abilities. At the very least, friendship can give the appearance of partiality, and place doubt on the worth of the evaluation provided. Bias need not even actually happen, for doubt to be placed on the evaluation’s worth.
Some degree of anonymous marking may minimise this particular worry to some extent, as might checks from an external second marker. But it is unlikely to eliminate it completely.
In the case of language teaching, this last point may or may not have weight, depending on the context and particular school. Standardised external tests such as IELTS minimise this difficulty, since it is not the teacher giving the ultimate evaluation that matters. But it may still arise with respect to promoting students up the levels at that school, or internal tests that some schools offer instead of IELTS, to get accepted into degree courses at that same school or that school’s sister schools. But as I say, whether this is a factor really just depends on the school’s emphasis and attitude to testing. Some language schools see their aim as simply providing a learning environment to improve language skills. There are no further academic aims. But even for those schools, it is well known amongst students and teachers that the more charismatic and outgoing students often get promoted up the levels faster than quieter students of comparable level.
Jackson and Hagen consider this argument about the appearance of favouritism. Their response is to say that teachers have always had to deal with charges of favouritism, and this will remain the case regardless of whether teachers and students are friends.
But it seems to me that this is a rather weak response. If there is a way of avoiding some charges of favouritism, then teachers ought to adopt it. Surely refraining from friendships lessens the firepower of those who are accusing teachers of favouritism, and so improves the credibility of the evaluation.
Does this analysis give compelling reasons why there is a strong prima facie moral obligation for language teachers, university teachers, or teachers in general to refrain from friendships with students? I have already identified and responded to a number of objections while articulating the main arguments for these restrictions. I will now consider a few more objections to which Markie identifies and responds.
First, Markie considers the possibility that teachers will strongly monitor their behaviours and so refrain from giving undue consideration to their friends. Such monitoring allows for teachers to be friends with their students because it eliminates the problems raised above.
Markie’s response is to say that this is a willingness and ability that we do not grant to other professionals in other contexts. Jurists are excused from hearing the cases of friends. And letters of recommendation for jobs or promotions are given less weighting if they are from a friend of the applicant. This objection also ignores the moral obligation of not lessening the credibility of the evaluation, even through the appearance of bias.
While I think this monitoring is possible in some respects—and I think it may even be required of friendships in some contexts—I don’t think it will solve all the problems. I think this is especially in the context of language teaching, for the reasons I suggested above that are to do with the advantage coming from the contact itself. Firstly, the friend gets an advantage over other students simply from conversation, and secondly the longer the teacher converses with the student the easier it becomes to understand the student’s language style, and this affects assessment. Neither of these factors can consciously be compensated for, by the teacher. However, some factors may be minimised or eliminated by this awareness, such as enrolment help that is not similarly given to other students, or leniency with respect to lateness.
Jackson and Hagen pursue this objection to Markie. First they think that the analogy to other contexts is not a good one. They think that a teacher is more like a physician, lawyer, or minister, where friendships are permitted. I wonder about this, since the evaluative component is not the same, but maybe there is some accuracy of analogy. Whatever the case, I don’t think anything great is hanging on this analogy either way.
Secondly, they think that giving a student extra time for discussion is not on the same level as giving extra time for assessment. As long as the teacher gives all students equal opportunity for discussion, then the unfairness will not arise. Not all students will take advantage of this opportunity, but what is important is that it is offered equally. But as I say above, especially in the case of language teaching where the benefit comes merely from engaging in conversation, by the very nature of friendship the student will continue to have or have had in the past a greater opportunity for discussion, and hence have an advantage over the other students. The point is that all students won’t get an equal opportunity for discussion, in such cases.
The second objection that Markie considers is that one might wonder if this additional attention is really as bad as is being made out. So what if the student who is the teacher’s friend has these benefits? Perhaps there is some moral minimum duty required, and as long as all students are offered this, it does not matter if friends are given extra advice and/or instruction. All students are given the basic instruction and attention, and giving more to some students is supererogatory. If the teacher chooses to give a friend extra instruction or advice then that is permissible. Being a friend is a relevant characteristic that makes it permissible for the teacher to give the student more than is required just on the basis of being the student’s teacher. As long as this does not slip over into advantages with respect to assessment or evaluation, then there is nothing impermissible about the friendship.
Markie’s most plausible response to this objection is to say that when teachers advise, at least in a university context, they are doing more than just providing a service. The students are competing for rankings, honours and job opportunities. In this context the university teachers are both running the competition and advising their friends on how best to do well in this competition. It is giving the friend a competitive advantage over the other students.
This may be an appropriate response for some school and university situations, where it is extremely competitive, but I doubt it is accurate of all schools. I don’t notice it here at The University of Auckland, but then maybe that is just because I am not personally interested in the competitive hoop-jumping that I have heard of at North American universities.
Is it a fair representation of language schools? Well, yes and no! It is in the sense that students are often extremely competitive when it comes to being promoted to higher-level classes. It is often extremely important, especially for Asian students, to be seen by friends and family to be improving rapidly. At some schools only the top few students in each class are promoted, so it is important for students to beat their fellow classmates. But it isn’t accurate in the sense that it is at best only true of some schools and some students. Not all students are competitive, and, more importantly, ultimately promotions count for little outside the school (even if students momentarily forget this) since for those who are competitive it is IELTS that ultimately counts. So I don’t see how academic advice in the context of language teaching is going to unfairly advantage students who are friends with teachers. But I am inclined to think that the additional contact that comes from friendship will help students be promoted faster within the school. There is the further question of whether students should be promoted faster, save money, and so on just because they are friends with the teacher. And I don’t think they should be.
A more general reply to Markie’s response to the second objection is incorporated into his third objection. It is the thought that his reasoning is based on a mistaken perception of friendship. Favouring a student in this way is not really acting as friends should act towards each other. I will note this objection, but skip over it, given my discussion above in my third preliminary point, which was on friendship.
Markie’s fourth objection that he sets up and replies to is based on a supposed unpleasant consequence of his position. The objection is that if he is correct, then analogous arguments can be made with respect to other professional relationships that involve imbalances of power. For example it may follow that senior teachers who are in a position to promote are morally obligated to refrain from forming and maintaining friendships with junior teachers. Or senior managers are similarly morally obliged to refrain from friendships with respect to junior employees.
Markie’s response to this is simple—if such analogies are fair (and it is not clear that they are), then so much the worse for these types of friendships.
Jackson and Hagen’s response is equally simple. We don’t want a revival of a class system in which those with different levels of power cannot interact as friends. So we’d better find ways of dealing with power inequalities while still maintaining friendship and socialising.
This is going beyond the scope of my essay, so I won’t pursue this objection. Whatever the case, I don’t think the weaker conclusions that I draw with respect to language teaching need imply these sorts of extreme consequences, and I suspect Markie’s stronger conclusions don’t either.
Let’s get back to informal or social interactions between teachers and students at language schools. I particularly like Markie’s argument structure, as we can very easily plug whatever activities or interactions we like into 2., for analysis. We need not restrict this interaction to just cases of friendship.
Where I saw the greatest strengths with respect to the content of Markie’s ideas was in the context of any informal or social one-on-one interaction—not just friendships—potentially unfairly benefiting the student with whom the teacher socially and informally interacts. As I say, it could be any type of interaction. Perhaps the teacher and student share an interest in music, and so have jam sessions together. This happens at some language schools where teachers and students occasionally perform musical productions. Or maybe they share an interest in a certain sport. Or maybe they have a meal together. Or maybe they discuss the student’s university plans and application.
To reiterate my previous points, first off these interactions potentially unfairly give one student the chance to improve his or her language skills where other students are not given the same chance for improvement.
I don’t think the idea of a moral minimum—the second objection discussed—is a satisfactory response to this problem. I suggest it is not, because choosing one student to benefit over another simply because of a shared interest with the teacher seems like an inadequate reason.
The only solution to this, as I see it, is that if the interactions are offered to one student then they must be offered to all other students. Consequently, teachers ought not be flatting with students, or accepting meals from individual students, or developing friendships or intimate relationships with students. I would suggest that on this basis teachers ought to only interact informally with students if the interaction is offered to all students. Furthermore, a wide range of interactions ought to be made available, if any are made available, so that the teacher’s own unique interests don’t exclude some students from participating. For example not all students will want to go to a bar with the teacher. Also, given that often language students are on their own and a long way from home, some of this interaction might involve gaining survival skills within the community.
Secondly, in the case of inflated assessment, this generates another restriction. The above suggestions can only be made at a school where the main aim is language learning, and not that of gaining a qualification or moving rapidly up the levels. As I suggested, it is too easy for a teacher to see a student with whom he or she has frequently conversed as better than he or she really is. Or at the very least there may be the perception that this happens. I would suggest that at schools where the assessment is seen as more important that there is minimal social or informal interaction between teachers and students.
Finally, should these restricted informal and social interactions be obligatory, as part of the duties attached to the role of language teacher? I don’t see why they should be. The benefits to the student associated with most of these informal and social interactions between teacher and student could equally be achieved through interaction with native speakers who are not their language teachers. At least in part it is the obligation of the student to initiate interaction with native speakers, not the obligation of the teacher to provide this service outside classroom hours.
(5809 words)
Bibliography
Carusi, A. (2002). Review of “The Ethics of Faculty-Student Friendships”. Retrieved 17/8/2003 from the World Wide Web: http://www.prs-ltsn.leeds.ac.uk/philosophy/reviews/articles/tp24jackson_hagen.html.
Dixon, N. (1996). The Morality of Intimate Faculty-Student Relationships. The Monist, 79(4), 519-535.
Jackson, R. L. & Hagen, P. L. (2001). The Ethics of Faculty-Student Friendships. Teaching Philosophy, 24(1), 1-18.
Markie, P. J. (1990). Professors, Students, and Friendship. In S. M. Cahn (ed.) Morality, Responsibility, and the University, (pp. 134-149). Philadelphia: Temple University.
Superson, A. M. (2001). Amorous Relationships Between Faculty and Students. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 39, 419-440.
[1] See for example Dixon (1996) and Superson (2001).
[2] See for example Markie (1990), Jackson & Hagen (2001), and Carusi (2002).
[3] The main issue not covered is that of coercive relationships. However I aim for my suggestions at the end of this essay to implicitly cover such relationships.
[4] Markie (1990).
[5] Cicero “Laelius”, in Markie, 1990, p.
137.
[6] Jackson & Hagen (2001), and reviewed in Carusi (2002).