At or near the beginning of many textbooks and syllabi in applied or professional ethics is a unit on philosophical moral theories (such as utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics). However, teaching such theories is of questionable value in this context. This article introduces the moral vocabulary approach. Instead of burdening students with complex ethical theories, they are introduced to the logic of elementary moral concepts. This avoids many of the drawbacks of teaching ethical theories, while preserving the benefit of equipping (...) students with the conceptual tools they need to critically analyse ethical issues. (shrink)

W artykule w trojaki sposób dowodzę odrębności profesjonalnej etyki lekarskiej, mianowicie: 1. ukazując różnice pozycji normatywnej obowiązków w etyce profesjonalnej i ogólnej, 2. uzasadniając przynależność lekarskiej etyki profesjonalnej do modelu zapożyczenia jako typu etyki aplikacyjnej, 3. podając racje za profesjonalizmem historycznym jako etyką właściwą dla stanu lekarskiego. Odrębność profesjonalnej etyki lekarskiej stanowi ważny argument za jej umieszczeniem w planie edukacji etycznej studentów medycyny i lekarzy. W końcowej części pracy rekonstruuję rzeczywiste i postulowane relacje między etyką profesjonalną a profesjonalizmem, bioetyką akademicką (...) i bioetyką publiczną. Celem rekonstrukcji jest wskazanie optymalnego dla edukacji etycznej miejsca etyki profesjonalnej w systemie kształcenia etycznego profesjonalistów. (shrink)

Recent discussion has focused on whether or not to teach moral theories, and, if yes, to what extent. In this piece the author argues that the criticisms of teaching moral theories raised by Rob Lawlor should lead us to reconsider not whether but how to teach moral theories. It seems that most of the problems Lawlor identifies derive from an uncritical, theory-led approach to teaching. It is suggested that we might instead start by discussing practical cases or the desiderata of (...) a successful moral theory, and then build up to comparing theories such as consequentialism, deontology, and so on. In this way, theories are taught but students do not take them to be the alpha and omega of moral thinking. (shrink)

Designing bioethics curriculum for international postgraduate students is a challenging task. There are at least two main questions, which have to be resolved in advance: (1) what is a purpose of a particular teaching program and (2) how to respectfully arrange a classroom for students coming from different cultural and professional backgrounds. In our paper we analyze the case of the Erasmus Mundus Master of Bioethics program and provide recommendations for international bioethics education. In our opinion teaching bioethics to postgraduate (...) international students goes beyond curriculum. It means that such a program requires not only well-defined goals, including equipping students with necessary skills and knowledge, but also it should first and foremost facilitate positive group dynamics among students and enables them to engage in dialogue to learn from one another. (shrink)

Background:This article combines foundational and empirical aspects of healthcare education and develops a framework for teaching ethical theories inspired by pragmatist learning theory and recent work on the concept of moral resilience. It describes an exemplary implementation and presents data from student evaluation.Objectives:After a pilot implementation in a regular ethics module, the feasibility and acceptance of the novel framework by students were evaluated.Research design:In addition to the regular online module evaluation, specific questions referring to the teaching of ethical theories were (...) added using simple (yes/no) and Likert rating answer formats.Participants and research context:At the Bern University of Applied Sciences, a total of 93 students from 2 parallel sub-cohorts of the bachelor’s program in nursing science were sent the online survey link after having been exposed to the same modular contents. A total of 62% of all students participated in the survey.Ethical considerations:The survey was voluntary and anonymous. Students were free to write their name and additional comments.Findings:Students consider ethical theories—as taught within the proposed framework—as practically applicable, useful, and transferable into practice.Discussion:Teaching ethical theories within the proposed framework overcomes the shortcomings described by current research. Students do not consider the mutually exclusive character of ethical theories as an insurmountable problem.Conclusion:The proposed framework is likely to promote the effectiveness of healthcare ethics education. Inspired by pragmatist learning theory, it enables students to consider ethical theories as educative playgrounds that help them to “frame” and “name” the ethical issues they encounter in daily practice, which is seen as an expression of moral resilience. Since it does not advocate a single ethical theory, but is open to the diversity of traditions that shape ethical thinking, it promotes a culturally sensitive, ethically reflected healthcare practice. (shrink)

Design ethics has been offered as a course in undergraduate design programs in Taiwan for over a decade, but research on teaching design ethics and the results of teaching these courses is scant. We conducted two tests to examine the effect of an ethics course, and the differences among the effects of design department, gender, and study year on student opinions regarding ethical design standards at the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology in Taiwan. The participants comprised 934 undergraduates (...) from the five design departments at YunTech’s College of Design from Years 1–4. The results confirmed the effect of an ethics course on student EDS opinions. In addition, we observed significant variations among students according to design departments, suggesting that the characteristics of the design departments also affected students’ EDS opinions. The results indicated that gender did not significantly affect design students’ EDS opinions; however, students in their early years of study produced higher scores than those in their advanced years of study did, based on the six EDS opinions. The implications of these results for teaching design ethics and future research are discussed in this paper. (shrink)

D Benatar argues that in the author’s recent article Moral theories in teaching applied ethics, the author overlooked important roles that could be played by moral theories in such teaching. In this reply, the cases that Benatar suggests are considered and for each an alternative approach is suggested that will avoid the costs discussed in the original paper and will also be a more effective response to that particular issue.

Joshua Greene’s dual process account contends that deontological moral judgments are the result of intuitions that are automatic, emotional and arational. Deontological intuitions cannot be trusted, Greene argues, because they are arationally acquired and deployed. However, the empirical evidence taken to support this view is methodologically flawed and does not support the utilitarianism-rational and deontology-emotional links that dual process theorists postulate. Instead, the available evidence supports a social domain account of moral development, in which the acquisition of moral intuitions is (...) a rational process. That is, one acquires moral intuitions through repeated exposure to and reasoned engagement with moral information. The deployment of moral intuitions is not arational merely because it is not easily open to introspection. Indeed, if introspection were the sine qua non of rationality, then it would follow that the deployment of consequentialist intuitions is also arational. Although deontological intuitions are not infallible, the infirmities of deontological intuitions are equally shared by utilitarian intuitions. Thus, contrary to Greene’s recommendation, one need not abandon her deontological moral intuitions. Instead, intuitions – be they deontological or consequentialist – can be useful tools to guide moral reasoning. (shrink)

InWhere the ethical action is, Hardman and Hutchinson make some interesting and compelling points about the way in which ‘the ethical’—various values and various kinds of values—are embedded in everyday life, including the everyday life one finds in clinical interactions, understood as scientific or scientifically informed activities. However, even when one considers ‘the ethical’ from within the horizon of understanding adopted in their essay, they neglect several important features of healthcare and medical education. In this rejoinder, I argue that a (...) fuller understanding would go some way to indicating the complexity of ethics and ‘ethical action’ in the clinic, as well as the nature of and need for ‘expert’ analysis and philosophical reflection on the ethical questions that modern healthcare continues to engender. (shrink)

It is increasingly common for universities to provide cross-curricular education in bioethics as part of contemporary attempts to produce 'global citizens.' In this article I examine three perspectives drawn from research into pedagogy that has been conducted from the perspective of cognitive anthropology and consider its relevance to bioethics education. I focus on: two metaphors of learning, participation and acquisition, identified by Sfard; the psychological notion of moral development; and the distinction between socialization and enculturation. Two of these perspectives have (...) been particularly fruitful in understanding the processes of teaching and learning in a variety of domains. The third perspective has been developed in relation to the formal ethical education of medical students. I examine their relevance for 'non-professional' bioethics education suggesting that if we take seriously the idea that it is part of 'educating for citizenship' then the distinction between 'ethics' and 'politics' is blurred as such programmes aim at the development of student's political subjectivity. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Rob Lawlor argues that moral theories should not be taught in courses on applied ethics. The author contends that Dr Lawlor’s arguments overlook at least two important roles that some attention to ethical theories may play in practical ethics courses. The conclusion is not that moral theory must be taught, but rather that there is more to be said for it than Dr Lawlor’s arguments reveal.

In his response to my earlier criticism, Rob Lawlor argues that the benefits I suggest can be derived from teaching moral theories in applied ethics courses can be obtained in other ways. In my reply, I note that because I never claimed the benefits could be obtained only from teaching moral theories, Dr Lawlor’s response fails to refute my earlier argument that some attention to moral theories is an option in applied ethics courses.

The aim of this paper is to offer some philosophical remarks concerning the concept of moral application in applied ethics. In doing so, I argue in favour of a philosophical approach towards applied ethics as a unitary form of moral experience. In fact every form of applied ethics, no matter how specific, moves from a problem of application and tries to fill a gap between moral theory and practice. This essential unity of applied ethics as a moral phenomenon is of (...) great philosophical interest, since it belongs to the core problem from which moral thinking itself originates. For this reason, what applied ethics may reveal to a philosophical inquiry could provide valuable insight into the nature of moral experience itself. This is why it is important to reflect on what applied ethics is and whether the way in which application is usually framed be ts the properties of moral experience or not. In the first section I submit some preliminary remarks concerning the theoretical requirements to any philosophical approach to applied ethics. In the second section I present how application is commonly understood in the applied ethics debate by discussing the deductive and the procedural models of application. Both models, however, draw upon a technological conception of application which fails to t the structure of moral experience. Finally, I brie y sketch out the main features and the future tasks of what seems to me to be the most promising approach to the issue, i.e., the hermeneutic concept of application. (shrink)