Hastings Center Project on the Teaching of Ethics: Summary Recommendations

Abstract

American higher education is in the throes of many difficulties at present. They include declining enrollments, increasing financial pressure, the inability of many promising teachers and scholars to gain employment or tenure, and some degree of public criticism. It may not be an auspicious moment to urge the introduction of new courses and programs, whether in ethics or in any other subject. Nonetheless, we do not hesitate to propose that the teaching of ethics be given a far more central role in the curriculum than it has had in recent decades. Although many of the current problems of higher education are practical and financial, others bear on the nature and role of the university itself. Few would openly contend that the main purpose of higher education, even of an explicitly professional education, is simply that of preparing students for better jobs and higher incomes. Yet, for many students, that is the perceived reality. Nor would many contend that questions of ethics and values should have no place in the university. Most would in a very general way assert just the opposite. Yet, the formal opportunities to pursue moral questions are often scant and episodic. Few would argue that the professions do not have moral purposes and traditions, or deny that professionals ought to serve goals that transcend the merely technical. Yet, the opportunities to examine the nature of the professions and their moral purposes are scanty.