How ethics can affect education

1. ETHICS IN EDUCATION
Teaching modalities
Tutors and Tutorials
Consultations
Readings
Assessments
1

2. ETHICS IN EDUCATION
Course overview
Unit 1: Ethics in Education
Lecture 1
a)Introduction
b)The nature of Ethical Inquiry
c) Subjectivism
2

3. WEEK 1 & 2
MEANINGS, SUBJECTIVISM, RELATIVISM IN
EDUCATION
KEY DISCUSSION POINTS
Are human beings good by nature? How are
character and moral personality formed?
Are moral judgements and behaviour just
personal views and attitudes? What is wrong
with cultural and moral relativism in education
and what can be learnt from it?
3

4. THE NATURE OF ETHICS: MORALITY AND
PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
Morality:
The idea that some behavior is good or right and that other
behavior is bad or wrong.
Moral Philosophy
A philosophical inquiry concerned with morality and its
principles and values as well as it judgments and problems
4

5. Etiquette:
a set of customs and rules for polite behavior
Law:
a system of rules developed and enforced by society or
government in order to deal with business agreements,
personal agreements and relationships, and crime.
5

6. NOTE
Although morality shares certain characteristics with either
one of these systems of rules, morality transcends (or goes
beyond) etiquette and often but not invariably precedes
law.
Morality is close to etiquette and distinguishes it from law
because it is not changeable or exhaustible by legislation
and deliberate judicial procedures.
Morality is also not etiquette
6

7. KINDS OF ETHICAL INQUIRY
 Descriptive empirical inquiry
Concerned with the origin of morality and ethics
 Meta-ethical inquiry
Consists of conceptual analysis or the investigation of the meaning of key
concepts (like: good, right, ought and many more)
Investigation of the correct methods for answering ethical questions
Also considers how one justifies ethical values and moral principles
Basic: about the nature and purpose of morality
7

8. Normative inquiry
Guided by the question: How ought I live
Both theoretical and practical
8

9. PHASES OF MORALITY AND MORAL
DEVELOPMENT
 Stage 1: Group (pre-conventional) morality
Morality begins as a set of culturally determined goals and rules
The rules are usually external to the individual
 Stage 2: internalization of conventions
Also linked to development of conscience yet not fully rational.
Make the external one’s own
Motivated by acceptance, closeness, dependence
9

10. Stage 3: Individual (rational or reflective) morality
With the gradually increasing capacity to put oneself into
another person’s position one begins to develop the ability to
care as well as examine one’s own grounds for doing things.
Stage 4: The stage of ethics /moral philosophy
Transcends society group by criticizing its norms, values
10

11. SUBJECTIVISM AND MORAL RELATIVISM
Are moral judgments and behaviour just personal views
and attitudes?
Are we simply expressing our emotions or sentiments?
Should moral judgments be based on reason?
In what sense can moral judgments be true or false
Do moral truths exist?
11

12. SUBJECTIVISM and ETHICAL SUBJECTIVISM
and its basic beliefs
 Attitudes of each individual person determine right or wrong, good
or bad.
 Anyone who calls something right or wrong is expressing a personal
attitude, nothing more.
 Arises from observation that values are very different from facts.
That facts can be proven true and moral judgments are neither
true nor false

13. Philosophical origin of ethical subjectivism
David Hume’s argument:
Are moral judgments based
on reason or sentiment
(emotions, feelings, passion)?
 Morality is based on
affections of humanity,
common to all
 the natural feelings,
passions are not
objectively verifiable.
Therefore morality is
subjective

14. Conclusions arising from Hume’s thinking
 The function of morality is to reinforce sentiments that
meet the general approval of all so that selfish desires
are controlled.
Reason only serves the emotions – a slave to hu.
passion
Reason can only acquaint us with the facts of the
matter
There is a wide gap between is and ought

15. Is ethical subjectivism all there is?
If it is true:
It is difficult to understand how anyone could ever be
mistaken in one’s moral views (if it is simply a report of how
one feels). It is consequently difficult to see any teacher or
authority reprimanding ‘bad’ behavior
It is not possible to agree on what is right or wrong in society.
Where do you get the basis for teaching values in the
curriculum?

16. It changes the game on how we understand to be the place
of reason(ing) in human life. How? Is reasoning confined to
facts?
(but moral truths are truths of reason!)

17. REVIEW EXERCISE
Evaluate the extent to which ethical subjectivism is traceable in
the South African schooling system. Please provide clear
examples
Provide a mental picture of how schooling and society would
like where the moral principles of ethical subjectivism prevail

18. CULTURAL RELATIVISM
The view that right and wrong, good and bad, etc, are
determined by the standards of particular cultures or
societies e. g. different residence practices or ethnic
practices or racial practices.
Morality is what society or culture deems normal
behavior.
An extension of ethical subjectivism (right or wrong by
personal taste to group or cultural approval)
ARE THESE CLAIMS LEGITIMATE?

19. THE CULTURAL DIFFERENCES ARGUMENT AS A SOURCE
OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM
 What is right and true is so by virtue of the fact that it is believed to be right
and true by a particular society or culture at a particular time.
 Therefore, there is no morality that is universal and that exists ahistorically,
noninstrumentally and nonempirically. In other words, no morality can exists
outside or beyond social or cultural traditions.
 But different societies or cultures have different conceptions of “right” and
“wrong”, “truth”
 It follows that there is no objective truth in morality
In pairs evaluate the logic of this argument and indicate what you think.

20. DEFENDING CULTURAL RELATIVISM USING THE
“PROVABILITY” ARGUMENT
IF there were such a thing as objective truth in ethics, we
would be able to prove that some moral beliefs are true
and others false
But in fact we cannot prove which moral beliefs are true
and which are false
Therefore there is no such thing as objective truth in
ethics

21. Some problems
 While the cultural differences argument is neither sound nor valid, the ‘provability’
argument although valid is not sound because its premise 2 is false.
 What would happen if cultural relativism was taken seriously?
Cultural relativism would bar us from saying that any oppression is wrong
Cultural relativism would not only imply that that these standards and traditions
are right and worth emulating, but also that we cannot criticize or condemn
(educational) policies arising from a cultural understanding. Policies would then
become excessively conservative.
The ideas of moral progress and social reform in education would called into
doubt.

22. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MERITS OF CULTURAL
RELATIVISM
 Although basic arguments underlying cultural relativism are logically faulty it is
important to note:
1. That there is less disagreement between cultures than it appears. They may
disagree on factual and religious beliefs, but there is less disagreement in terms
of ethical beliefs.
2. All cultures have some values in common
3. Relativism is right in warning against basing all our preferences, judgments on
some absolute standard. Most often what is considered absolute may be
dependent on a salient dominant culture.
Nevertheless what is wrong in it is the idea that all are as such depending on
cultural proclamations.

23. SELF- ASSESSMENT QUESTION
How does the debate on cultural relativism affect
Multicultural learning approaches in education?