Quandaries of ethics education

Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, Feb 2013

Bert Gordijn, Henk ten Have

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Quandaries of ethics education

Bert Gordijn 0 1 Henk ten Have 0 1 0 H. ten Have Paris, France 1 B. Gordijn (&) Dublin, The Netherlands - If we are to believe Plato, Socrates seems to have had a rather cheerful outlook on ethics teaching. In the Protagoras he argues that virtue consists entirely of knowledge. More specifically, Socrates develops a hedonistic view, in which pleasure determines happiness. Virtue is the knowledge needed to attain pleasure and happiness. Thus, virtues and having a virtuous character mean that we have knowledge of what yields pleasure overall. However, Socrates not only thinks that knowledge is a necessary condition for virtuous behavior; it is also a sufficient condition (cf. Homiak 2011). This Socratic view is not in accord with common sense. The latter suggests that achieving a virtuous character and displaying good behavior call for more than just the acquisition of knowledge. If one rationally believes something to be right, this insight alone cannot guarantee that one behaves virtuously. After all, people do not always act rationally and are often encouraged by temptations of all kinds to act against their better rational judgment. If they are incontinent or weak-willed, they may therefore easily sway from the right track. Unfortunately, incontinence (acrasia) is widespread, at least according to common sense (cf. Homiak 2011). Contrary to the mainstream view Socrates holds that people who leave the right track are not weak-willed but ignorant. Acrasia is not possible, at least not with someone who has true knowledge. If somebody really knows good what will bring long term pleasure at the end of the day and evil, nothing will overpower him so that he acts against his insights. If one truly masters the art of measuring pleasure, equally considering current and future pleasures and pains, why would one choose a suboptimal course of action (cf. Woodruff 2010). no man voluntarily pursues evil, or that which he thinks to be evil. (Plato, Protagoras). Actions taken in ignorance are involuntary. Therefore, they are not blameworthy. If Socrates is right in holding that knowledge is sufficient to guarantee virtuous behavior, moral improvement can be achieved through appropriate education. In fact, Socrates regards this as his personal mission as he constantly endeavors to educate his fellow Athenians (Plato, Apology). However, Socrates is not convinced that he has true knowledge of the virtues. Therefore, teaching ethics cannot merely be a matter of transferring knowledge. Instead it is essential to have elaborate discussions about the virtues. Only through thorough debate can we gain true understanding of the virtues. That is why Socrates is one of the most influential ethics teachers everwithout having left behind one single written word. Aristotles outlook on ethics teaching is less upbeat, but most likely more realistic. Knowledge alone does not guarantee good behaviour. Acrasia is a reality. Both peoples behaviour and character are in large part the product of habituation. Aristotle clearly sees the limits of Socrates exclusively intellectual approach to moral improvement: argument and teachingare not powerful with all men, but the soul of the student must first have been cultivated by means of habits (Aristotle, X 9). In order to enhance the changes of an appropriate upbringing legislation is needed: it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue if one has not been brought up under right laws; for to live temperately and hardily is not pleasant to most people, especially when they are young. For this reason their nurture and occupations should be fixed by law (Aristotle, X 9). However, not only minors need legislation. Good laws are equally vital for adults: they must, even when they are grown up, practise and be habituatedwe shall need laws for this as well, and generally speaking to cover the whole of life; for most people obey necessity rather than argument, and punishments rather than the sense of what is noble (Aristotle, X 9). In his view there should be no ethics classes for wrongdoers; instead offenders are to be put in jail or otherwise punished. This does not mean that Aristotle gives up on ethics teaching. It will just not be effective, if habituation has gone wrong in the first place. Accordingly, he states at the beginning of Nicomachean Ethics: any one who is to listen intelligently to lectures about what is noble and justmust have been brought up in good habits (Aristotle, I 4). Although Aristotles ideas of the prospects of ethics teaching are more moderate than Socrates, he still operates on the assumption that the study of ethics tends to improve moral behaviour of apprentices, barring students who are completely spoiled by bad upbringing. At least that is his stated goal in the Nicomachean Ethics: we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good (Aristotle, II 2). Similar ideas about moral reflection and the study of ethics and thei (...truncated)


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Bert Gordijn, Henk ten Have. Quandaries of ethics education, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 2013, pp. 1-2, Volume 16, Issue 1, DOI: 10.1007/s11019-012-9457-x