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Can Ethics
Be Taught?
by Derek C. Bok THIS ISA
Change Report
See inside
back cover
have few rivals in their willingness to that transmit moral standards have declined in im-
portance. Churches, families, and local communi-
talk openly about ethical standards. They are
preached in our churches, proclaimed by public of- ties no longer seem to have the influence they once
enjoyed
ficials, debated in the press, and discussed by pro- in a simpler, more rural society. While no
fessional societies to a degree that arouses wonderone can be certain that ethical standards have de-
clined as a result, most people seem to think that
abroad. Yet there has rarely been a time when we
have been so dissatisfied with our moral behavior or
they have, and this belief in itself can erode trust
and spread suspicion in ways that sap the willing-
so beset by ethical dilemmas of every kind. Some of
these problems have arisen in the backwash of the ness to behave morally toward others.
scandals that have recently occurred in govern- In struggling to overcome these problems, we
ment, business, and other areas of national life. will surely need help from many quarters. Business
Others are the product of an age when many new organizations and professional associations will
groups are pressing claims of a distinctly moral na- have to take more initiative in establishing stricter
ture-racial minorities, women, patients, consum- codes of ethics and providing for their enforcement.
ers, environmentalists, and many more. Public officials will need to use imagination in seek-
It will be difficult to make headway against these ing ways of altering incentives in our legal and reg-
problems without a determined effort by the leaders ulatory structure to encourage moral behavior.
of our national institutions. But the public is scarce- But it is also important to look to our colleges
ly optimistic over the prospects, for society's faith and universities and consider what role they can
in its leaders has declined precipitously in recent play. Professors are often reluctant even to talk
years. From 1966 to 1975, the proportion of the about this subject because it is so easy to seem cen-
public professing confidence in Congress dropped sorious or banal. Nevertheless, the issue should not
from 42 to 13 percent; in major corporate presidents be ignored if only because higher education occu-
from 55 to 19 percent; in doctors from 72 to 43 per- pies such strategic ground from which to make a
cent; and in leaders of the bar from 46 to 16 percent. contribution. Every businessman and lawyer, every
Worse yet, 69 percent of the public agreed in 1975 public servant and doctor will pass through our col-
that "over the past 10 years, this country's leaders leges, and most will attend our professional schools
have consistently lied to the people. " as well. If other sources of ethical values have de-
It is also widely believed that most of the sources clined in influence, educators have a responsibility
to contribute in any way they can to the moral
DEREK C. BOK is president of Harvard University.
development of their students.
26
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8
E
Change/October 1976 27
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C
u
O)
28 Ethics
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This attitude is puzzling. It may be impossible to achieving the strength of character to put these
arrive at answers to certain ethical questions values into practice. Since such matters are not
through analysis alone. Even so, it is surely better easily taught in a classroom, they question whether
for students to be aware of the nuance and complex- a course on ethics can accomplish anything of real
ity of important human problems than to act on importance. It is this point of view that accounts
simplistic generalizations or unexamined premises. for the statement of one business school spokesman
Moreover, many ethical problems are not all that in explaining why there were no courses on ethics in
complicated if students can only be taught to rec- the curriculum: "On the subject of ethics, we feel
ognize them and reason about them carefully. How- that either you have them or you don't."
ever complex the issue, analysis does have impor- There is clearly some force to this argument. Pro-
tant uses, as the following illustrations make clear: fessors who teach the problem-oriented courses do
In one Harvard class, a majority of the stu- not seek to persuade students to accept some pre-
dents thought it proper for a government official to ferred set of moral values. In fact, we would be un-
lie to a congressman in order to forestall a regres- easy if they did, since such an effort would have
sive piece of legislation. According to the instruc- overtones of indoctrination that conflict with our
tor, "The students seem to see things essentially in notions of intellectual freedom. As for building
cost-benefit terms. Will the lie serve a good policy? character, universities can only make a limited con-
What are the chances of getting caught? If you get tribution, and what they accomplish will probably
caught, how much will it hurt you?" This is a very depend more on what goes on outside the classroom
narrow view of deception. Surely these students than on the curriculum itself. For example, the
might revise their position if they were asked to moral aspirations of Harvard students undoubtedly
consider seriously what would happen in a society profited more from the example of Archibald Cox
that invited everyone to lie whenever they believed than from any regular course in ethics. Moreover, if
that it would help to avoid a result which they be- a university expects to overcome the sense of moral
lieved to be wrong. cynicism among its students, it must not merely of-
The New York Times reports that many young fer courses; it will have to demonstrate its own
people consider it permissible to steal merchandise commitment to principled behavior by making a
because they feel that they are merely reducing the serious effort to deal with the ethical aspects of its
profits of large corporations. At the very least, investment policies, its employment practices, and
analysis will be useful in pointing out that theft is the other moral dilemmas that inevitably confront
not so likely to diminish profits as to increase the every educational institution.
price to other consumers. But it is one thing to acknowledge the limitations
Courses in moral reasoning can also help stu- of formal learning and quite another to deny that
dents to avoid moral difficulties by devising alter- reading and discussion can have any effect in de-
nate methods of achieving their ends. This is a veloping ethical principles and moral character. As
simple point, but it is often overlooked. For exam- I have already pointed out, problem-oriented
ple, many researchers commonly mislead their hu- courses encourage students to define their moral
man subjects in order to conduct an important ex- values more carefully and to understand more fully
periment. Careful study can often bring these in- the reasons that underlie and justify these precepts.
vestigators to understand the dangers of deception Unless one is prepared to argue that ethical values
more fully and exert more imagination in devising have no intellectual basis whatsoever, it seems like-
ways of conducting their experiments which do not ly that this process of thought will play a useful role
require such questionable methods. in helping students develop a clearer, more consis-
Even in the most difficult cases- such as de- tent set of ethical principles that takes more careful
ciding who will have access to some scarce, life-sus- account of the needs and interests of others. And it
taining medical technique- progress can be made is also probable that students who fully understand
by learning to pay attention not only to the ulti- the reasons that support their ethical principles will
mate problem of who shall live, but to devising pro- be more inclined to put their principles into practice
cedures for making such decisions in a manner that and more uncomfortable at the thought of sacri-
seems reasonable and fair to all concerned. ficing principle to serve their own private ends.
To be sure, no one would deny that ethical values
and moral character are profoundly dependent on
many forces beyond the university- on family in-
There are
courses can other skeptics
help students whomore
reason concede that
careful-
fluences, religious experience, and the personal ex-
ly about ethical problems. But these criticsample argue of friends and public figures. But this is true
that moral development has less to do with reason- of all of education. Everyone knows that outstand-
ing than with acquiring proper moral valuesing and
lawyers, businessmen, and public servants suc-
Change/October 1976 29
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ceed not only because of the instruction they re- equipped to train a fully qualified instructor. Pro
ceived as students but because of qualities of lead- fessors of law or business may understand judicia
ership, integrity, judgment, and imagination that procedures and corporate finance- they may ev
formal education cannot hope to supply. Neverthe- be masters of the Socratic method- but they w
less, we still have faith in the value of professional rarely have much background in moral philosoph
schools because we believe that most students pos- Philosophers in turn will usually know virtual
sess these personal qualities in sufficient measure nothing about any of the professions and may ev
to benefit from professional training and thereby lack experience in teaching problem-oriente
become more effective practitioners. In the same classes. If moral education is ever to prosper, we
way, we should be willing to assume that most stu- will have to find ways of overcoming these deficien-
dents have sufficient desire to live a moral life that cies by creating serious interdisciplinary programs
they will profit from instruction that helps themfor to students seeking careers of teaching and schol-
become more alert to ethical issues, and to apply arship in this field. Fortunately, the time is ripe for
their moral values more carefully and rigorouslydeveloping
to such programs, since professional
the ethical dilemmas they encounter in their profes- schools are beginning to recognize the moral de-
sional lives. mands being made on their professions while phi-
Even if we are prepared to agree that these prob- losophy departments are finding it more and more
lem-oriented courses on ethics have a valuable con- difficult to place their PhDs in traditional teaching
tribution to make, there is a final, practical objec- posts.
tion to consider. To put it bluntly, much of the But is the effort worth making? I firmly believe
skepticism about these courses probably arisesthat notit is. Even if courses in applied ethics turned
from doubts about their potential value but from out to have no effect whatsoever on the moral de-
deeper reservations as to whether those who teach velopment of our students, they would still make a
the courses are really qualified to do so. Unfortu- contribution. There is value to be gained from any
nately, it is simply a fact that many courses incourse ap- that forces students to think carefully and
plied ethics have been taught by persons with little rigorously about complex human problems. The
qualification beyond a strongly developed social growth of such courses will also encourage profes-
conscience. Of all the problems that have been con- sors to give more systematic study and thought to
sidered, this is the most substantial. Poor instruc- a wide range of contemporary moral issues. Now
tion can harm any class. But it is devastating to a that society is expressing greater concern about
course on ethics, for it confirms the prejudices of ethics in the professions and in public life, work of
those students and faculty who suspect that moral this kind is badly needed, for it is surprising how
reasoning is inherently inconclusive and that
little serious, informed writing has been devoted
courses on moral issues will soon become vehicles
even to such pervasive moral issues as lying and
for transmitting the private prejudices of the in-
deception. But beyond these advantages, one must
structor. certainly hope that courses on ethical problems will
What does a competent professor need to knowaffect
to the lives and thought of students. We cannot
offer a course of this type? To begin with, instruc-
be certain of the impact these courses will have. But
tors must have an adequate knowledge of moral
certainty has never been the criterion for educa-
philosophy so that they can select the most useful tional decisions. Every professor knows that much
readings for their students and bring forth the mostof the information conveyed in the classroom will
illuminating theories and arguments that have been soon be forgotten. The willingness to continue
devised to deal with recurrent ethical dilemmas. In teaching rests on an act of faith that students will
addition, teachers must have an adequate knowl- retain a useful conceptual framework, a helpful ap-
edge of the field of human affairs to which their proach to the subject, a valuable method of analy-
course is addressed. Otherwise, they will neither sis,
beor some other intangible residue of intellectual
credible to students nor succeed in bringing value.
stu- Much the same is true of courses on ethical
dents to understand all of the practical implications problems. Although the point is still unproved, it
and consequences of choosing one course of action does seem plausible to suppose that the students in
over another. Finally, instructors must know how these courses will become more alert in perceiving
to conduct a rigorous class discussion that will ethical issues, more aware of the reasons underlying
elicit a full consideration of the issues without de- moral principles, and more equipped to reason care-
generating into a windy exchange of student fully in applying these principles to concrete cases.
opinion. Will they behave more ethically? We may never
These requirements are not insuperable, but they know. But surely the experiment is worth trying,
present real difficulties because in most universities for the goal has never been more important to the
there is no single department or program that is quality of the society in which we live.
30 Ethics
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