Can We Teach Someone to Be Ethical?

Nicholas Capaldi outlines four ways of persuading someone to do the right thing.

There are two questions that need to be distinguished:
(1)   Can ethics be taught?
(2)   Can we teach someone to be ethical?
 
The answer to question (1) is “yes.” By this we mean that it is possible to explicate the norms of any practice and to articulate them in a discursive manner. That is, we can explicate a given practice, e.g., the norms of academic life. This is sometimes unnecessarily obfuscated and politicized by those who are in an adversarial stance with regard to a given practice (e.g., business conducted in a free market or the rule of law in Anglo-American jurisprudence) and who under the guise of teaching are actually advocating an alternative set of norms – usually described as ‘aspirational.’ 

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Friday

January 21st, 2011

Staff Reporter EducationNews.org

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