Chapter 12 - Ethics and Values in Education
Introduction to Ethics and Moral Philosophy in Education
Ethics, or moral philosophy, involves thinking about the nature of morality and moral judgements, determining what is right and wrong in specific situations, and reflecting on the kinds of persons humans should be.
Educational practitioners and students must make decisions involving moral judgement and ethical considerations on a daily basis.
Philosophical tools are required to understand what is or is not ethical in educational matters and to interrogate professional standards, such as those in the Code of Conduct of the South African Council of Educators (SACE).
Case Study: Corruption and the School Curriculum
In August 2011, South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe spoke at the annual Ruth First lecture regarding the "pestilence of corruption" affecting society.
He described corruption as a "life-and-death matter" upon which the future of the nation depends.
Motlanthe claimed that effective laws alone are insufficient to win the war against corruption.
He suggested exploring creative ways of introducing subjects related to ethics into the school curriculum early in a learner's development.
This suggestion highlights the significant social and political role of ethics and the belief that education can make a difference on a national and global scale.
Critical Reasoning and Ethical Arguments
Establishing the truth or falsity of beliefs (both factual and ethical) requires assessing the arguments advanced for or against them.
An argument is defined as the expression of a piece of reasoning in language. It is a set of propositions, or declarative statements, where one (the conclusion) supposedly follows from the others (the premises).
A proposition is a statement that is either true or false.
Example: "An educator should exercise authority with compassion."
Evaluative propositions depend on the reasons given for or against a claim and may involve conceptual analysis.
Questions are not propositions; they can be relevant or irrelevant, intelligent or stupid, but never true or false.
Rhetorical questions are asked to make a statement rather than elicit an answer; while the underlying statement may be true or false, the question itself is not.
Evaluation of Arguments
Arguments are assessed as good or bad, valid or invalid, sound or unsound, plausible or fallacious.
They are evaluated based on two criteria:
Content: Determining the truth or falsity of the premises.
Form: Determining whether the conclusion logically follows from the premises.
A valid argument is one where the conclusion follows from the premises.
A sound argument is one that has both correct content (true premises) and good form (validity).
Example of a valid but questionable argument:
Premise 1: Learners involved in criminal activities should not be permitted to write exams.
Premise 2: Stationery theft is a criminal activity.
Conclusion: Therefore, learners involved in stationery theft should not be permitted to write exams.
Analysis: While valid, Premise 1 is not obviously true and may require further argument, such as whether this punishment is disproportionate.
Conceptual Analysis
Analysis means "to take or prize apart."
Conceptual analysis involves searching for criteria for applying concepts, asking what counts as an instance of a concept, and identifying the features of that model case.
Concepts are expressed in words and do not possess truth-values; they either apply or fail to apply to a situation.
Definition and conceptual analysis are significant in establishing the validity and soundness of reasoning, particularly when terms have multiple meanings (e.g., the dual use of the word "sickness" in a political vs. medical context).
Case Study: The Case of Ashley X
Early in the 2000s, a girl known as Ashley X was born with static encephalopathy, a severe cognitive handicap.
Her impairments meant she could not walk, talk, swallow food, or hold her head up.
At age six, when she showed signs of puberty, her parents sought surgical intervention to arrest her growth and development.
Procedures performed included the removal of her uterus, appendix, and breast buds (including milk glands, while keeping nipples intact), followed by high doses of oestrogen to stunt her growth.
Arguments in Favour of Intervention
Quality of Life Argument: Parents argued that God would want Ashley to have the best possible quality of life, which they believed necessitated keeping her in the state of a small child.
Benefits Argument: Remaining small would help Ashley avoid bed sores and pneumonia. Removal of the uterus eliminated menstruation and uterine cancer risks. Removal of breast buds avoided potential discomfort from fibrocystic growth or breast cancer and reduced the risk of sexual assault.
Dignity Argument: George Dvorsky argued that Ashley was cognitively incapable of experiencing a "violation of dignity." He claimed it was more "grotesque" to have a full-grown woman with the cognitive capacity of an infant.
Convenience Argument: Doctors Daniel Gunther and Douglas Diekema suggested the treatment removed obstacles to family care, allowing parents to care for her at home for longer.
Arguments Against Intervention
Moral Intuition: Paediatrician Jeffrey Brosco and others expressed that the act was "just plain wrong." Some argued that mutilating a child is indefensible and that the parents were lazy or selfish.
Slippery Slope Argument: The hospital's ethics committee considered if this would lead to "eugenics" (compulsory sterilisation used for racial/ethnic cleansing, notably in Nazi Germany). They dismissed this, as Ashley could not reproduce voluntarily.
Interference with God’s Will / Nature: Some argued the surgery violated the divine plan or natural laws. Critics of this view pointed out that taking medicine or removing an appendix also "interferes" with nature.
Bodily Integrity: Arguments were made that Ashley should be allowed to develop into a woman, though critics asked on what grounds this was necessary if she lacked the mental capacity to desire sex or children.
The Nature of Ethics: Morality and Development
Morality: The idea that certain behavior is good/right and other behavior is bad/wrong.
Ethics: Moral philosophy; the philosophical enquiry into morality, its principles, values, judgments, and problems.
Distinction Between Morality, Etiquette, and Law
Etiquette: A set of customs and rules for polite behavior; manners. Morality differs from etiquette because it deals with issues of crucial social importance rather than just taste and formalities.
Law: A system of rules developed and enforced by a government to deal with crime and business. Morality differs from law because it is not changeable or exhaustible by legislation. It can challenge existing codes and institutions.
Kinds of Ethical Enquiry
Descriptive Empirical Enquiry: Concerns the origin of morality and ethics, character formation, and stages of development (associated with psychology).
Meta-ethical Enquiry: Investigation of the meaning of key concepts (e.g., "good," "right") and the methods for answering ethical questions.
Normative Enquiry: Guided by the question "How ought I to live?" It includes theoretical investigation and applied ethics.
Phases of Moral Development
Group (Pre-conventional) Morality: Culturally determined goals and rules imposed from outside. These are instilled through social interaction.
Internalisation: Previously external rules are taken as one’s own. A conscience develops, though it is not yet fully rational. Motives like dependence and acceptance replace biological needs.
Individual (Rational or Reflective) Morality: Recognition of others’ lives and concerns. The individual is able to care and reflect on their own behavior by putting themselves in another's position.
Autonomy: The individual is no longer morally bound solely by institutional duties. They are able to criticize the norms and rules of their society. This is where moral philosophy functions naturally.
Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Theory
The theory has a masculine bias and misrepresents women’s moral reasoning, as it was based on an exclusively male sample.
It incorrectly assumes that those capable of moral development are essentially selfish, moving from egocentrism to other-regarding views.
It provides no criteria to distinguish between an unjust society at stage four and a just one.
The superiority of specific ethical theories (utilitarianism vs. deontology) cannot be settled by cognitive psychology.
Meta-Ethics: Relativism and Existentialism
Personal Relativism (Subjectivism)
Simple Personal Relativism: The view that right and wrong are determined by individual attitudes. Moral judgments are like matters of taste and are neither true nor false.
Critique: This implies everyone is infallible and makes actual moral disagreement impossible.
Sophisticated Personal Relativism (Hume): David Hume argued that moral judgments are based on sentiment (passions) rather than reason. He claimed reason is "the slave of the passions."
Motivational Argument: Factual beliefs do not have motivational content; sentiments prompt us to act.
Observation Argument: We observe facts (like bruises) but only find "wrongness" in our own internal sentiment of disapproval.
Is-Ought Gap: We cannot validly deduce an "ought" (value) from an "is" (fact).
Existentialism (Sartre)
Starting from the idea that God does not exist, everything is permitted.
Man is "condemned to be free" and is responsible for his own passions.
There is no pre-existing "human nature"; humans are "blank slates" at birth who define themselves through their deeds.
Critique: By ignoring reason, existentialism fails to account for why some choices are more rational or justifiable than others (e.g., a student choosing to become a collaborator during apartheid).
Cultural Relativism
The view that right and wrong are determined by the standards of a particular culture or society.
William Graham Sumner introduced the concept of folkways (traditionally transmitted codes) which develop into mores (prescriptive guides for social welfare).
Ethnocentrism: Viewing one's own group as the center of everything and rating others as inferior.
Cultural Differences Argument:
Premise 1: Different cultures have different moral beliefs (e.g., regarding corporal punishment).
Conclusion: Therefore, there is no objective truth in morality.
Critique: This is a non sequitur; the fact that people disagree does not mean there is no objective truth (compare to geography or biology).
Provability Argument:
Premise: If there were objective truth, we could prove it.
Premise: We cannot prove moral beliefs.
Conclusion: There is no objective truth.
Critique: This is valid but not sound; we use reason and justification to show some moral beliefs are more compelling than others.
Normative Ethics: Morality and Religion
Divine Command Theory
Morality is objective based on God's commands. "Right" means commanded by God; "wrong" means forbidden by God.
The Euthyphro Dilemma: Is it right because God commands it (making morality arbitrary), or does God command it because it is right (making morality independent of God)?
Natural Law Theory
Founded by St Thomas Aquinas. It posits that the world has a rational order with values and purposes built in by God.
Basic Principles:
The world is a rational order; everything exists for a reason.
Natural inclinations are apprehended by reason as good. Laws of nature specify how things ought to be.
Humanity is moral by being rational; even atheists are bound by morality through reason.
Critique: It involves the "is-ought" fallacy. Modern science (natural selection) suggests the natural order is a realm of facts without inherent purpose.
Egoism
Psychological Egoism
A descriptive theory that humans are constituted to always look out for their own interests.
Advocates reinterpret altruistic motives (like charity) as hidden desires for self-promotion or fear of hell.
Critique: This theory is irrefutable and thus meaningless. It confuses self-interest with selfishness and the pursuit of pleasure.
Ethical Egoism
A prescriptive theory that one should always act out of self-interest.
Ayn Rand argued it is the only view that respects the integrity of the individual life.
Critique: It fails to resolve conflicts of interest and may condone the exploitation of others if it benefits the individual.
Utilitarianism
Developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. It urges the promotion of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."
Three Tenets:
Actions are judged solely by consequences.
The only thing that matters is the amount of happiness or unhappiness caused.
No person's happiness is more important than another's (impartiality).
Proof Theory by Mill:
Mill argued that just as the only proof that an object is visible is that people see it, the only proof that happiness is desirable is that people desire it.
Critique: This is a double non sequitur; it moves from fact to value and from individual happiness to general happiness without logical necessity.
Problems with Utilitarianism:
Justice: It may require sacrificing an innocent person for the majority.
Rights: It might violate individual rights for overall good results.
Backward-looking reasons: It ignores past promises or merits, focusing only on future consequences.
Social Contract Theory (Contractarianism)
Thomas Hobbes argued morality is the outcome of an agreement between rational, self-interested people to live in a secure society.
State of Nature: A "war of all against all" characterized by four conditions: equality of power, scarcity of resources, basic needs, and limited altruism.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma: A scenario where individuals acting purely in self-interest lead to a mutually disadvantageous outcome. Morality is seen as the "bargain" we make to avoid this.
Constraints: David Gauthier suggests that "constrained maximizers" (who follow rules) do better overall than "straightforward maximizers."
Critique: It fails to account for duties to those who cannot enter contracts, such as the mentally handicapped, animals, or young children.
Kant’s Categorical Imperative
Version 1: Universalisability
Immanuel Kant argued that morality consists of absolute rules derived from reason.
Categorical Imperative: "Act solely on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
Hypothetical Imperative: Conditional commands based on desire (e.g., "If you want to lose weight, you should exercise").
Critique: Absolute rules allow no exceptions, even when lying might save a life (e.g., during apartheid).
Version 2: Respect for Persons
"Act in such a way as to treat humankind… always as an end in itself, never as a mere means."
Humans have "dignity" and intrinsic worth because they are rational, autonomous agents.
Objects have only instrumental value (means to an end).
Moral Rights and Virtue Ethics
Moral Rights: Seen as "trumps" in morality that enjoy priority over utility. They determine positive and negative duties.
Choice Conception: Only autonomous beings have rights.
Interest Conception: All who have interests have rights.
Virtue Theory: Shifts the focus from "What ought I to do?" to "What kind of person should I be?"
Aristotle defined virtues as the mean between extremes (e.g., courage is between cowardice and foolhardiness).
Feminist Moral Theory: Critiques the male bias in abstract systems and emphasizes the "private sphere" of caring, altruism, and nurturing.
African Ethics and Ubuntu
Ubuntu: A Nguni term meaning "a person is a person through others" (muntu ngumuntu nga bantu).
It emphasizes group solidarity, reciprocity, and shared humanity. It is characteristically communal rather than individualistic.
Criticisms of Ubuntu:
Exclusiveness and parochialism.
Lack of specific action-guidingness for modern dilemmas (e.g., HIV/Aids education, genetic engineering).
Anthropocentric bias: Non-human animals and the environment are only valued in relation to human flourishing.
Compatibility with questionable traditions like polygamy or virginity testing.