Colleges Ethics in care and education
College 1 – Introduction. Moral reasoning; relativism and egoism 13-09-2021
Program
1. Applied ethics
> why do we need ethics in care and education?
2. Meta-ethics
> What is the nature of moral statements?
> How do we gain moral knowledge?
- Relativism
- Subjectivism
3. Normative ethics
> What is the right thing to do?
Part 1. Applied ethics
Why do we need ethics in care and education?
Why ethics?
To get us thinking about ethics she has collected some news items from the last months. They
all explicitly deal with moral issues in education. She wants to train us to become aware of
ethical/moral problems.
First: online tool which monitors students when doing online exams. Some universities in the
Netherlands have that. Students need to turn on their camera, but students are worried about
their privacy.
Other problem: during coronacrisis children disappeared, because teachers couldn’t connect
with them. Online learning is a problem. Some students don’t have a safe space to learn.
Lot of debate about vaccination program. Some schools in US have ordered vaccines to
vaccinate all the children who come to school.
These are all moral issues. They have to do with conflicting rights. Case of missing students
in online education: safety and right to education. Exams at home with camera: privacy and
justice in getting an exam done in a manner that students can’t cheat. Vaccines: autonomy of
students and notion of safety. Complex issues with values that compete each other.
Codes of conduct
How do you deal with a pupil diagnosed with impulse control issues who benefits from
being in a classroom, but frequently disrupts the learning process of peers?
How do you deal with parents protesting against ‘Coming Out Day’ celebrations in
school?
How should we regard expensive institutes offering shadow education in schools?
These examples are on 3 levels. First one is classroom/client moral dilemma. The second
example is on a level that is a bit higher, organizational level. Institute that you work in for
example. The last one has to do with nation wide issues. You can have dilemmas on different
levels.
, These issues are everyday dilemma’s for people working in children’s care and
education
They are ethical challenges: they have to do with notions of equality, care, inclusion,
respect, etc.
These dilemmas can be solved by asking instrumental questions
However: in this course we provide an ethical perspective
By instrumental she means the way in which we sometimes ask ourselves, what is the most
effective/best way?
Ethical perspective: moral/values behind it.
Codes of conduct
Guidelines to make a decision. We don’t have one for teachers. Some other countries do have
one, US for example. Why do we need ethics when someone has taught about it and these
things are listed?
Code of conduct is never a single way that tells you how to act.
From the code of conduct: (only 3 points from a whole list from US)
1. The professional educator strives to create a learning environment that nurtures to
fulfillment the potential of all students.
2. The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks
to resolve problems, including discipline, according to law and school policy.
3. The professional educator complies with written local school policies and applicable
laws and regulations that are not in conflict with this code of ethics.
These are just 3 element from the code of conduct.
Case study 1: the cheating student
Imagine you are a school teacher. Student has important scholarship coming up. Student has
worked very hard for years, poor background. Only one way to get scholarship: student needs
to have average of 7. You catch this student on cheating in one test. Student has never done
this before. School policy: whenever student cheats, he gets a 1. But this ruins his chances on
the scholarship.
From the code of conduct:
1. The professional educator strives to create a learning environment that nurtures to
fulfillment the potential of all students.
-> You might want to argue, this was only one time. I see a lot of potential in the
student. I’ll have a talk with the student and not officially give him a 1.
, 2. The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks
to resolve problems, including discipline, according to law and school policy.
-> Here you’ll get stressed. If you’re dealing with this specific case, it doesn’t help.
What is considerately and justly in this case?
3. The professional educator complies with written local school policies and applicable
laws and regulations that are not in conflict with this code of ethics.
-> This part tells you that no matter who the student is, this test should be graded with
a 1. Part 1 and part 3 are contradicting each other.
Code of conduct is not like mathematics. It won’t give you direct solution. Interpret and put
into practice. It needs a lot of thinking and weighing of norms and values. You need to think
about final judgement. Reason carefully. Code of conduct might be beginning of moral
dilemma.
Moral judgements must be backed by good reasons
A moral argument sound argument, without logical fallacies.
Beware of reasoning that misuses analogies, turns to ‘slippery slopes’, etc.
Important strategy in moral thinking: thought experiments (support of a theory,
provide counterexamples, develop moral argument)
Thought experiment is a good way to think about it.
Applied ethics
Begins with a specific problem; then looks at values, principles or other normative
standards involved
Professional ethics: a community of professionals is always are moral community as
well. Professionals share values, implicit or explicitly listed in codes of conducts or
protocols. Using these will inform their decision making process.
Part 2. Meta-ethics
Meta-ethics is standing/helicopter above field of ethics and think about it. What do we do
when we think morally?
From the code of conduct:
1. The professional educator strives to create a learning environment that nurtures to
fulfillment the potential of all students.
2. The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks
to resolve problems, including discipline, according to law and school policy.
3. The professional educator complies with written local school policies and applicable
laws and regulations that are not in conflict with this code of ethics.
These moral claims in code of conduct give us a guideline.
What makes a claim ‘moral’?
Moral claims need first to be distinguished from factual ones: they describe and can be
true or false
These claims are prescriptive, not descriptive: what you ought to do
But how do we know moral statements are true?
Two questions:
, How do we gain moral knowledge?
What is the nature of moral statements?
These questions are ‘meta-ethical’ questions: What is the nature of ‘norms and values’?
Where do moral rules come from? Etc.
How do we know that we should do something?
1. How do we gain moral knowledge?
Does it depend on person, cultural preference? How do we get to know moral issues?
There are two models of understanding how to gain knowledge.
- Methametical model. It’s the same for everyone. Not depending on our own personal
preference. It’s objective and real and out there.
- Cultural surroundings of people. Any culture that has a certain ritual or religion might
also be said to have shared idea of morality.
Moral realism/objectivism
Values are ‘real’
The idea of goodness is universal
Mathematics model has the idea that morality is real. Some sort of objectivism in morality.
Important element is that the idea of goodness is universal. No matter where you come from,
there is one thing that is good. Plato emphasizes that what we might see in reality is some
people being pretty good, others being less good. But in reality you never have the ideal idea
of goodness. The ideal idea is more abstract. It is not something we can see. People engage
with each in different ways, different cultures, thus different interpretations. However, Plato
says that there is one idea of being good and goodness. We have to gain access to morality.
Intuitively you might think it is appealing, realism or objectivism because at the end of the
day people share some basic idea of what a good life is. It doesn’t matter where you live, we
all think safety for example is important. There is something universal about goodness that we
all share. That is the intuitive about realism/objectivism.
You can come up with some counterexamples to the thought that morality is universal.
Ideas of morality have changed throughout the history.
Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism: right and wrong is always tied to a specific culture. Therefore: it is
always wrong to impose moral ideas on another culture -> inconsistency.
Pseudo-relativism: there is at least one universal value and that is the right each
culture has to moral self-determination
Morality is bound to specific time and culture. Cultural relativism is opposite of realism.
Right and wrong is always bound to specific culture.
Issue when you look at the line of reasoning. If you look at the right and wrong reasoning for
example. Inconsistency in reasoning (one hand tight to culture, other hand universal
statement). Wolff argues that most people engage in pseudo-relativism. Pure cultural
relativist, difficult to position these people. You accept different point of view. At the same
time you believe that there a loads of other ideas.
College 1 – Introduction. Moral reasoning; relativism and egoism 13-09-2021
Program
1. Applied ethics
> why do we need ethics in care and education?
2. Meta-ethics
> What is the nature of moral statements?
> How do we gain moral knowledge?
- Relativism
- Subjectivism
3. Normative ethics
> What is the right thing to do?
Part 1. Applied ethics
Why do we need ethics in care and education?
Why ethics?
To get us thinking about ethics she has collected some news items from the last months. They
all explicitly deal with moral issues in education. She wants to train us to become aware of
ethical/moral problems.
First: online tool which monitors students when doing online exams. Some universities in the
Netherlands have that. Students need to turn on their camera, but students are worried about
their privacy.
Other problem: during coronacrisis children disappeared, because teachers couldn’t connect
with them. Online learning is a problem. Some students don’t have a safe space to learn.
Lot of debate about vaccination program. Some schools in US have ordered vaccines to
vaccinate all the children who come to school.
These are all moral issues. They have to do with conflicting rights. Case of missing students
in online education: safety and right to education. Exams at home with camera: privacy and
justice in getting an exam done in a manner that students can’t cheat. Vaccines: autonomy of
students and notion of safety. Complex issues with values that compete each other.
Codes of conduct
How do you deal with a pupil diagnosed with impulse control issues who benefits from
being in a classroom, but frequently disrupts the learning process of peers?
How do you deal with parents protesting against ‘Coming Out Day’ celebrations in
school?
How should we regard expensive institutes offering shadow education in schools?
These examples are on 3 levels. First one is classroom/client moral dilemma. The second
example is on a level that is a bit higher, organizational level. Institute that you work in for
example. The last one has to do with nation wide issues. You can have dilemmas on different
levels.
, These issues are everyday dilemma’s for people working in children’s care and
education
They are ethical challenges: they have to do with notions of equality, care, inclusion,
respect, etc.
These dilemmas can be solved by asking instrumental questions
However: in this course we provide an ethical perspective
By instrumental she means the way in which we sometimes ask ourselves, what is the most
effective/best way?
Ethical perspective: moral/values behind it.
Codes of conduct
Guidelines to make a decision. We don’t have one for teachers. Some other countries do have
one, US for example. Why do we need ethics when someone has taught about it and these
things are listed?
Code of conduct is never a single way that tells you how to act.
From the code of conduct: (only 3 points from a whole list from US)
1. The professional educator strives to create a learning environment that nurtures to
fulfillment the potential of all students.
2. The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks
to resolve problems, including discipline, according to law and school policy.
3. The professional educator complies with written local school policies and applicable
laws and regulations that are not in conflict with this code of ethics.
These are just 3 element from the code of conduct.
Case study 1: the cheating student
Imagine you are a school teacher. Student has important scholarship coming up. Student has
worked very hard for years, poor background. Only one way to get scholarship: student needs
to have average of 7. You catch this student on cheating in one test. Student has never done
this before. School policy: whenever student cheats, he gets a 1. But this ruins his chances on
the scholarship.
From the code of conduct:
1. The professional educator strives to create a learning environment that nurtures to
fulfillment the potential of all students.
-> You might want to argue, this was only one time. I see a lot of potential in the
student. I’ll have a talk with the student and not officially give him a 1.
, 2. The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks
to resolve problems, including discipline, according to law and school policy.
-> Here you’ll get stressed. If you’re dealing with this specific case, it doesn’t help.
What is considerately and justly in this case?
3. The professional educator complies with written local school policies and applicable
laws and regulations that are not in conflict with this code of ethics.
-> This part tells you that no matter who the student is, this test should be graded with
a 1. Part 1 and part 3 are contradicting each other.
Code of conduct is not like mathematics. It won’t give you direct solution. Interpret and put
into practice. It needs a lot of thinking and weighing of norms and values. You need to think
about final judgement. Reason carefully. Code of conduct might be beginning of moral
dilemma.
Moral judgements must be backed by good reasons
A moral argument sound argument, without logical fallacies.
Beware of reasoning that misuses analogies, turns to ‘slippery slopes’, etc.
Important strategy in moral thinking: thought experiments (support of a theory,
provide counterexamples, develop moral argument)
Thought experiment is a good way to think about it.
Applied ethics
Begins with a specific problem; then looks at values, principles or other normative
standards involved
Professional ethics: a community of professionals is always are moral community as
well. Professionals share values, implicit or explicitly listed in codes of conducts or
protocols. Using these will inform their decision making process.
Part 2. Meta-ethics
Meta-ethics is standing/helicopter above field of ethics and think about it. What do we do
when we think morally?
From the code of conduct:
1. The professional educator strives to create a learning environment that nurtures to
fulfillment the potential of all students.
2. The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks
to resolve problems, including discipline, according to law and school policy.
3. The professional educator complies with written local school policies and applicable
laws and regulations that are not in conflict with this code of ethics.
These moral claims in code of conduct give us a guideline.
What makes a claim ‘moral’?
Moral claims need first to be distinguished from factual ones: they describe and can be
true or false
These claims are prescriptive, not descriptive: what you ought to do
But how do we know moral statements are true?
Two questions:
, How do we gain moral knowledge?
What is the nature of moral statements?
These questions are ‘meta-ethical’ questions: What is the nature of ‘norms and values’?
Where do moral rules come from? Etc.
How do we know that we should do something?
1. How do we gain moral knowledge?
Does it depend on person, cultural preference? How do we get to know moral issues?
There are two models of understanding how to gain knowledge.
- Methametical model. It’s the same for everyone. Not depending on our own personal
preference. It’s objective and real and out there.
- Cultural surroundings of people. Any culture that has a certain ritual or religion might
also be said to have shared idea of morality.
Moral realism/objectivism
Values are ‘real’
The idea of goodness is universal
Mathematics model has the idea that morality is real. Some sort of objectivism in morality.
Important element is that the idea of goodness is universal. No matter where you come from,
there is one thing that is good. Plato emphasizes that what we might see in reality is some
people being pretty good, others being less good. But in reality you never have the ideal idea
of goodness. The ideal idea is more abstract. It is not something we can see. People engage
with each in different ways, different cultures, thus different interpretations. However, Plato
says that there is one idea of being good and goodness. We have to gain access to morality.
Intuitively you might think it is appealing, realism or objectivism because at the end of the
day people share some basic idea of what a good life is. It doesn’t matter where you live, we
all think safety for example is important. There is something universal about goodness that we
all share. That is the intuitive about realism/objectivism.
You can come up with some counterexamples to the thought that morality is universal.
Ideas of morality have changed throughout the history.
Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism: right and wrong is always tied to a specific culture. Therefore: it is
always wrong to impose moral ideas on another culture -> inconsistency.
Pseudo-relativism: there is at least one universal value and that is the right each
culture has to moral self-determination
Morality is bound to specific time and culture. Cultural relativism is opposite of realism.
Right and wrong is always bound to specific culture.
Issue when you look at the line of reasoning. If you look at the right and wrong reasoning for
example. Inconsistency in reasoning (one hand tight to culture, other hand universal
statement). Wolff argues that most people engage in pseudo-relativism. Pure cultural
relativist, difficult to position these people. You accept different point of view. At the same
time you believe that there a loads of other ideas.
