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Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. - Thomas H. Huxley ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Frank Kardasz Why bother teaching ethics? Experts sometimes debate whether or not ethics can or should be taught to adult learners. Some argue that by adulthood, ideas about values and ethics are fixed. Others believe that education can influence behavior, and that ethics should be taught. In The Nicomachean Ethics Book (1), Aristotle supported the idea that judgement and reason can be learned. Aristotle believed that a person learns based on the examples from experienced teachers. Aristotle said, "Therefore we ought to attend to the undemonstrated sayings and opinions of experienced and older people or of people of practical wisdom not less than to demonstrations; because experience has given them an eye they see aright". Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1981) theorized that mans moral system develops incrementally through several stages. Children are initially guided based upon obedience and punishment, and morals develop through various stages to what Kohlberg called the highest stage, that of principled conscience. (2) The development, according to Kohlberg, is influenced through experience and education. Psychologist James R. Rest (1982) supported the idea that ethics can be learned through continuing education. Rest observed the following trends:
strategies they use to deal with ethical issues. - The changes are linked to fundamental changes in how a person perceives society and his or her role in society. - The extent to which change occurs is associated with the number of years of formal education (college or professional school). - Deliberate educational attempts (formal curriculum to influence awareness of moral problems and to influence the reasoning or judgment process have been demonstrated to be effective.
with other direct-liability topics more easily embraced by officers such as firearms, criminal law, pursuit driving, arrest tactics, etc. Limited training time means that police administrators must make important choices concerning what to teach. A solid ethical base provides the grounding framework for all succeeding law enforcement subjects. Ethics can and should be taught.
(1) McIntyre, S. R. (Ed.). (1997). The Nicomachean Ethics Book VI: Intellectual Virtue, Judgement, Right Discrimination of the Equitable: The Place of Intuition in Morals. Aristotle. (from William David Ross's translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Clarendon Press. published in 1908) Retrieved June 6, 2003 from http://nothingistic.org/library/aristotle/nicomachean/nicomachean19.html (2) Joseph, C. (2003). The Six Stages of Moral Judgment, (from Lawrence Kohlberg, Essays on Moral DevelopmentVolume 1: The Philosophy of Moral Development, 1981). Retrieved June 11, 2003 from http: //www.ccp.uchicago.edu/grad/Joseph_Craig/kohlberg.htm (3) Rest, J. R. (1982, February). A Psychologist Looks at the Teaching of Ethics. Hastings Center Report. 12 29-36.
Kardasz, F. (2008). Ethics training for law enforcement: Practices and trends. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag. ISBN: 3639001567. ISBN-13: 9783639001563. Available from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3639001567/ |
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| WHY BOTHER TEACHING ETHICS? |
Dr. Frank Kardasz P.O. Box 45048 Phoenix, AZ 85064 e-mail: kardasz@kardasz.org blog: www.kardasz.org/blog/ resume |