Transcript READING #1: “What This Book is About”

READING #1:
“What This Book is About”
Chapter One from
The Ethics of Teaching
CASE # 1: Plagiarism
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Cynthia > English instructor
Henry > College basketball player in
Cynthia’s Introd. Lit. and
Composition course
Ethical Issues:
(a) Honesty > student
> teacher
(b) Obligations to institution > student
> teacher
(c.) concern for student well-being
(d.) recognition of students as persons
(outside lives, influence on future, etc.)
Consequentialist ethical thinking focuses more on
the consequences of one's action's than on one's obligations.
Such ethical theories “hold that the rightness or wrongness
of an action is to be decided in terms of” (p.11) its negative
and positive results for all those affected.
Non-Consequentialist ethical thinking is when “duty,
obligation, and principle” (p. 3) are considered more
important than any consequences of one's action.
Two major themes developed in this text:
1. To see how major ethical theories can shed some light on
deciding what is right or wrong – the nature of ethical thinking.
2. Considering whether ethical behavior can be settled 'objectively'.
“We believe that a kind of rational ethical thinking that goes
beyond personal beliefs and values is essential both to professional
ethics and to the moral education of all members of society. Ethics
is a public as well as a personal matter. If … correct, … teachers
have a special obligation to help their students see and share the
potential objectivity and rationality of ethical thinking so that we can
all lead morally responsible lives together.” (p. 5)
The Nature of Ethical Inquiry
Consider the ethical statement/claim: “The educator … shall
not deliberately suppress or distort subject matter relevant to
the student's progress”
What makes this an ethical claim, and what makes it true?
Ethical claims distinguished: “Ethics concerns what kinds of
actions are right or wrong, what kind of life is a good life,
or what kind of person is a good person.” (p. 5)
Factual claims 'describe' something about the world. They
are true when their description matches the way the world
actually is.
While ethical claims do not describe how the world actually is,
they rather tell us how the world should be - inherently prescriptive
Not all value judgments are ethical:
Appraisal: ex. “He is a 'good' skier” vs. “...a good person”.
Preference/taste: ex. We would prefer not to pay our taxes,
while we feel morally compelled to do so.
Many believe all value judgments to be “subjective” - matters of free
choice. When ethical judgments are confused with, for example,
preferences, there is a danger that they may be thought to be about
arbitrary choice – no right or wrong about them. (p. 7)
David Hume's “Is to ought fallacy”
- Valid arguments have the property of telling us what follows
from our premises. In fact, “all the terms that occur in the
conclusion … are contained in the premises of that argument.” (p. 7-8)
Further,,“it is impossible for any argument containing only factual
premises to lead validly to a conclusion about what we ought to do.
For any such argument has a new idea in the conclusion that was not
in the premises – the idea of obligation. 'Ought' conclusions ... cannot
follow from 'is' premises … [Thus] ethical knowledge cannot be entirely
based on factual knowledge.” (p. 8)
- Some philosophers believe that we start with some initial ethical
premises/assumptions and use facts to reason to ethical conclusions.
Ethical Skepticism
Following from Hume's fallacy, if our ethical conclusions are
no better than our initial assumptions, then our conclusions seem
as arbitrary as our assumptions. This problematic leads to the
position of ethical skepticism: “We cannot really know anything in
ethics. We can only deliberate with others about what is right or
wrong if we already agree with them about our basic assumptions.”
(p. 8-9)
Skepticism: - the doctrine that nothing can be certainly known
– the refusal to grant that there is any knowledge or justification.
(can be: partial or total, practical or theoretical, moderate or
radical, of knowledge or of justification)
Relativism: - Any theory of knowledge or ethics which holds
that all judgments or criteria of value are relative, varying with
individuals, circumstances, cultures, etc.
-- no universally valid moral principles.
Objectivism: - certain truths and principles can be certainly known;
such principles stand or hold true for all people,
cultures, times, etc.
- although cultures may differ in their moral principles,
some moral principles have universal validity.
Consequentialist theories – recall: they hold that the rightness
or wrongness of an action is to be decided in terms of its
consequences
Principle of Benefit Maximization – When “faced with a choice,
the best and most just decision is the one that results in the
most good or the greatest benefit for the most people. Thus
the principle … judges the morality of our actions by their
consequences … the best action is the one with the best
overall results” (p. 11)
- 'the good' implies those “things that are intrinsically valuable
… intrinsic goods … valued for their own sake” (p. 11-12)
- Utilitarianism, a social policy and form of consequentialism,
is based upon a hedonism principle (maximizing pleasure).
- within utilitarianism, a person's utility can be theoretically
quantified:
* utility = total pleasure – total pain
* average utility = society's member's collective utilities
divided by population size
*average utility is a measure of general social welfare
- According to the theory of utilitarianism, decisions on social
policy are made by examining
the effects on average utility.
¿
(Highest average utility = just social policy)
- However, it is necessary that all consequences for everyone's
well-being be considered.
Problems with Conseq.'m: 1. Required info may be difficult or
impossible to get
2. Results may seem morally unacceptable
Non-Consequentialist theories
1. Principle of Universalization
Kant's “Categorical Imperative”:
“So act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same
time as a principle establishing universal law.”
(p. 15 – orig. from Critique of Practical Reason)
“If you are about to apply some moral principle to someone else,
are you willing that it be applied to you in the same way …
willing that the principle that guides your behavior be treated as
a universal rule of human conduct[?]” (p. 15)
2. Principle of Equal Respect for Persons (PERP)
(a.) treat people as ends rather than means
(b.) regard all persons as free, rational, and responsible
moral agents
(c.) regardless of differences between persons, all are of
equal moral value or intrinsic worth
Problems with Non-Conseq.'m:
1. If such a theorist is “unwilling altogether to consider the
consequences of actions as relevant to [his/her] moral
appraisal, it becomes hard to see how [he/she] could ever
decide whether or not some moral principles could be
universally willed.” (p. 17) For ex., lying cannot be
accepted as a universal rule precisely because it has
undesirable consequences. “If, however, [NonConsequentialists] are willing to talk about consequences,
they will have to explain how they are different from any
other consequentialist theory.” (p. 17)
Problems with Non-Conseq.'m:
2. How generally or specifically should the moral principle
underlying some action be expressed?
■ very generally ► behavior unresponsive to real differences
in the circumstances
■ very specifically ► choices become vague, contradicting
the purpose of universalization principle
- undermines rationality of judgments
(p. 17)