Teaching Moral Judgment

Abstract

Th is chapter will discuss several misconceptions about the teaching and learning of moral judgment. It will then consider the use of the dilemma as a teaching and learning tool in the development of moral judgment. Moral judgment as the term is used here will be synonymous with the term moral reasoning. We are concerned with how people think about ethical aspects of life and behaviour. Five ideas will be subject to critical review. The idea that moral judgment is not founded upon ordinary reasoning – that there is any distinction in kind between the reasoning that is used in ethical discourse and the reasoning that is used in other types of reasoning. The idea that ethical or moral reasoning is in some way radically subjective and therefore is incapable of leading to robust conclusions or progress. The idea that moral reasoning or moral judgment is merely a capacity for ex post facto rationalisation of actions taken for other reasons, whether ethical or non-ethical, and is therefore not causative. The idea that professional ethics must be ‘categorical’ and that this is because they are ‘ethics’ and that such is characteristic of ethical reasoning. Finally, that the assessment of moral reasoning poses no peculiar problems, because it is the assessment of a cognitive process and understanding just like any other subject matter – and is no more problematic than assessing the understanding of section 1 of the Law of Property Act 1925. FIVE COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS IS MORAL REASONING DIFFERENT FROM REASONING? The first misconception is founded in a prejudice in favour of formal logic as a model for reasoning. Ethical reasoning is fundamentally about action. It is therefore in this respect un-reducible to premise and conclusion. Ethical reasoning is about both why one acts and the consequences of one's acts. However, the importance of each type of consideration is disputed. Ethical discourse is, therefore, subject to radical re-framing of the issues, and no demonstrable and conclusive argument is plausible for many ethical disputes. Ethical reasoning is about the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of actions.