Teaching Ethics to Non-Philosophy Students: A Methods-Based Approach

ATINER'S Conference Paper Series (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Dealing with ethical issues is a central aspect of many professions. Consequently, ethics is taught to diverse student groups in universities and colleges, alongside philosophy students. In this paper, we address the question of how ethics is best taught to such “non-philosophy” student groups. The standard way of introducing ethics to non-philosophy students is to present them with a set of moral theories. We refer to this approach as the “smorgasbord approach”, due to the impression it is likely to make on non-philosophy students approaching ethics as an academic discipline for the first time. This approach invites the assumption that adopting an ethical position is mainly a matter of choosing from this smorgasbord of different theories. We argue that this approach is problematic for several reasons, both theoretical and practical, and we suggest a methodsbased approach – focusing on methods for moral reasoning – as a more fruitful alternative. The main purpose of this paper is to explain and defend this methods-based approach to teaching ethics to non-philosophy students. In so doing, we also consider and meet some expected objections to this approach.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,323

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-12-02

Downloads
10 (#1,491,858)

6 months
10 (#394,314)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Lars Samuelsson
Umeå University

Citations of this work

Den nya syntesen och etik i undervisningen.Niclas Lindström & Lars Samuelsson - 2018 - Nordidactica: Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education 2018 (3):27-43.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The moral problem.Michael R. Smith - 1994 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.
On What Matters: Two-Volume Set.Derek Parfit - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The limits of morality.Shelly Kagan - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 19 references / Add more references