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[neutralname]

I had a conversation recently about the need for students to take ethics classes.  The assumption of the person was that taking an ethics class will make students more ethical.

I teach ethics as a way to understand different viewpoints and to be able to become more consistent and rational.  None of the learning outcomes have anything to do with the students becoming better people. 

I doubt that it is possible to do much to teach students 18 years or older to be better people, although maybe it would be possible to get them to be more ethically sensitive and responsive to the needs of others. 

So my question is whether it is possible to get students to be more moral, and if so, what sort of class would achieve that?

[goldenapple]

Teach them to be more moral in a class? Hell no.

I'm not doing it, I'm not trying to do it, and I don't believe anyone who claims that they can do it.

My favorite definition of a saint is someone in whose presence you begin to feel that you could perhaps be a better person. I am not a saint either in my professional or my non-professional life.

[zharkov]

I wonder if anyone ever asked whether virtue can be taught?

[goldenapple]

I wonder if anyone ever asked whether virtue can be taught?

Yeah, but it just turned into a long back-and-forth, I-said-Socrates-said thing and nothing ever got resolved.

[theritas]

I lean towards trying to help them respond appropriately to things.  But as for 'being good,' that's rather beyond the scope of my position.  Plus, of course, it would exacerbate the vast differences between the world in my mind and that of the community in which I teach.

[venerable_bede]

I wonder if anyone ever asked whether virtue can be taught?

I'm not sure, but we should definitely start a dialogue about this. We'll need a Meno-mum of two people to get it started.

(This is the puns thread, right?)

[zharkov]

(This is the puns thread, right?)

Shoot, I knew that once, but now I forget.....

[tuxedo_cat]

You know, I have a feeling that this sort of question was perhaps at the root of the development of service learning curricula (I'm just guessing, I don't really know).

I think that doing some kind of volunteer work in the community in relation to material students are learning in class is likely to have a far more powerful impact on students' interest in being a compassionate citizen than abstract discussions in an ethics class.  That's obviously a more narrow definition of what it means to be "ethical" than what neutral seemed to be proposing, but I do think this is a completely worthy educational goal, however we want to define it or try to achieve it.

For those of you who have been through the very special experience of revising your College's core curriculum, I imagine some version of this conversation was perhaps part of that.  I'm curious.

[goldenapple]

This question also comes up when colleges start using Kohlberg's scale of moral development to measure whether college or service learning or whatever is helping to "transform" their students. And of course, we see arguments made, using these tests as a basis, that college doesn't really educate students, because students across the country aren't advancing (or aren't advancing sufficiently, or aren't advancing more than non-students) on the moral development scale.

Of course, these measurements are performed as if nobody had ever previously discussed what virtue is and whether it can be taught or even whether there is a single, uniform measure that can be applied to everybody.

I try my best not to listen when these discussions come up on our campus. I'm not in a position to tell anyone (except my colleagues in philosophy) that I think it's harmful, time-wasting nonsense.

[voxprincipalis]

This question also comes up when colleges start using Kohlberg's scale of moral development to measure whether college or service learning or whatever is helping to "transform" their students. And of course, we see arguments made, using these tests as a basis, that college doesn't really educate students, because students across the country aren't advancing (or aren't advancing sufficiently, or aren't advancing more than non-students) on the moral development scale.

Of course, these measurements are performed as if nobody had ever previously discussed what virtue is and whether it can be taught or even whether there is a single, uniform measure that can be applied to everybody.

Or whether the traditional-age college years are a time in which people are likely to make significant steps in moral evolution. I suspect the later 20s and early 30s are a better time for those kinds of inquiry, since the late teens and early 20s are generally so consumed (not necessarily improperly) by navel-gazing.

And, as Sondheim says: " 'Nice' is different than 'good.' "

VP

[hstrytool]

Having taught a class on ethics over the years my response is this:  you cannot necessarily teach the students to be good, BUT you can get them to think about their actions and the actions of others before they make a decision.  I did have a student who wrote that it was a "waste of time" to take a ethics class, but for the vast majority of those I taught responded well to such a course.  I had one student who absolutely believed that ethics could not be taught in the beginning of the semester to proclaiming that everyone should take the course in the college.  The student said they learned so much about who they were as a person by reflecting on why they did certain things.

[neutralname]

Reflecting a little more on this, I would expect courses in nursing ethics, medical ethics, business ethics, and so on to spend quite a lot of time on the standards of the respective professions and to show students what is expected of an honorable member of those professions. 

What I found odd in the conversation I had was the other person's expectation that by taking a basic non-profession-specific ethics course, the students would thereby be less likely to do bad things in their future professions, and that the reason that students need to take an ethics course is because there is so much corruption out there.  I'd love to be able to claim that a basic ethics course would have such an effect, but it strikes me as a dubious claim. 

[merinoblue]

Reflecting a little more on this, I would expect courses in nursing ethics, medical ethics, business ethics, and so on to spend quite a lot of time on the standards of the respective professions and to show students what is expected of an honorable member of those professions.  

What I found odd in the conversation I had was the other person's expectation that by taking a basic non-profession-specific ethics course, the students would thereby be less likely to do bad things in their future professions, and that the reason that students need to take an ethics course is because there is so much corruption out there.  I'd love to be able to claim that a basic ethics course would have such an effect, but it strikes me as a dubious claim.  

Well, med students get ethics rammed down their throats (called "Physicianship" here in Canada; "Professionalism" in the US), and they rightly complain mightily about the curriculum.  One complaint they have echoes your observation, that teaching ethics doesn't necessarily make med students better or more ethical doctors; they argue that either you are or aren't, and that the evidence that they have a sense of virtue or ethics is in their applications and interviews. Their second, and stronger, complaint, is that they learn the ethics of good doctoring, and then they go into the hospital systems as clerks and residents, where they learn the "hidden" curriculum: residents and doctors who treat them like crap; who don't model ethical behaviour themselves; who don't show up for rounds or surgery; who treat nurses like crap or mock patients; and so on.  I agree: it's hypocritical to preach all this good doctoring if their models don't consistently practice it, or worse, are abusive @ssholes.  A lot of cynicism is bred in that process.

[menotti]

Merinoblue, I can't agree, at least with the first part.  I think that most of the evidence is not that people are ethical or not, but that most people behave ethically in some circumstances and not in others.  It benefits people to consider what the principles of the profession and how to apply them. 

The danger is that people who think that ethics are inherent and consider themselves ethical will consider anything they do ethical by definition.

Second, medical ethics are not necessarily obvious even to people who are genuinely trying to do the right thing.  Should a patient be told they are dying?  Should a doctor provide an experimental treatment?

The second part is problematic, I agree, but should be dealt with on a professional level.  Do the people in the professions think the ethical training is wrong?  That there are other ethics that trump those that are taught?

[merinoblue]

Merinoblue, I can't agree, at least with the first part.  I think that most of the evidence is not that people are ethical or not, but that most people behave ethically in some circumstances and not in others.  It benefits people to consider what the principles of the profession and how to apply them.  

Nor do I. (I didn't state my position).  I think there's tremendous value in training students in ethics, particularly using case studies.

The second part is problematic, I agree, but should be dealt with on a professional level.  Do the people in the professions think the ethical training is wrong?  That there are other ethics that trump those that are taught?

Hmm.  Have you ever worked in a hospital system?  Dealing with things "on a professional level" is well-meaning, but it doesn't happens in isolation of provincial & institutional policies, staff practices, and institutional culture. There are just too many elements. It's an incredibly complex and political system.