Teaching the New Ethics Curriculum

Course description
Designed for teachers of Ethics under the new CHED General Education Curriculum, the
seminar course serves as training also for those who will further guide other ethics teachers
throughout the country, particularly in their service areas / schools.

Thus the course deals with both the substance as well as the pedagogy of ethics. The former
concerns the principles of ethical behavior in modern society at the level of the person, society,
and interaction with the environment and other shared resources (CMO 20 s2013), while the
latter pertains to the various methods of teaching the course, as well as the skills necessary to
accomplish it, in a way that incorporates the most recent principles of and insights into teaching
in the college level.

Learning Outcomes:
• different between moral and non-moral problems;
• explain the influence of Filipino culture on the way the students look at moral
experiences and solve moral dilemmas;
• describe what a moral experience is as it happens in different levels of human existence;
• describe the elements of moral development and moral experience;
• make sound ethical judgments bases on principles, facts, and the stakeholders;
• develop sensitivity to the common good;
• understand and internalize the principles of ethical behavior in modern society at the
level of the person , society, and interaction with the environment and other shared
resources;
• demonstrate the skill necessary and appropriate in the teaching of the ethics in the college
level, such as identifying and managing group dynamics, and facilitating discussions.

Exercise:
• What is the most important reason why you teach the Subject Ethics? (if you haven’t
taught it, what would be your #1 goal?)
• Do you think the way you teach Ethics is accomplishing your goal? Why yes, why no?
• What is the most important change you ,will introduce in the way you teach Ethics?

Processing Techniques:
• Ask the question, and please take note that the answers should parallel to the questions.
• Clarify the answers which are not clear to you, so that the students will become aware of
their answers and make it particular (deductive approach).
• Don’t drop any hanging answers if the answers are not clear for both the facilitator and
the students.
• Make the answers of the students to be the current theme of the session.
Critical Thinking on Ethics
• Carefully read the text / concepts (facts, something, situation, text, person)
• Don’t create an opinion if you are not aware on the physical evidence (Anecdotal)
• The goal is to understand
• Critical / critique (puna) (ayaw o gusto)

ETHICS CAN BE TAUGHT!

(Socrates, James Rest,
Lawrence Kohlberg)

Ethics
• “We must start with the student experiences and the culture of the professional world and
then build the theories from there” (Werhane, 2002).
• Ethics require cognition (reason), moral imagination, and will.
• Ethics teach us to become prudent (prudentia-practical knowledge)

Ethics and Cognition

• Ethical judgment is not about the feelings, it’s all about the facts, and cognition (reason).
• Course that help the students to think after the feelings. Moral judgment.

Ethics and Moral Imagination

• Must be creative in presenting the theories and cases.

Ethics and Will

• Develop the students to think if there is/are moral dilemma/s.
• The willingness to absorb the moral dilemma/s

How should we teach ETHICS?

Heuristic Approach (find / discovery)

• Start from the students’ questions, their experiences not ours.
• They will remember it better because the will be emotionally
attached to the matter and not treat it as something to be memorized.
Heuristic approach needs different skill sets:
• Listening
• Asking the right question
• Opening one’s self to different experiences
• Synthesizing (tying up the discussion and relating it to the theories we have mastered as
EXPERTS)

Summary
Why Ethics?
To capacitate students so they:
• become aware of their moral dilemmas.
• Critically examine their ethical traditions and standards, and consequently “OWN” and
CHANGE them.
• Make reasonable value-based ethical decisions. Sensitive, Analytic, Willful.

How?
• A different course outline
• Methodologies and Tools
• Culture and environment scanning
• Case analysis using a mix of cases progressing from individual to organizational to
systematic
• Individual and group drills
• Assessment

Teaching Ethics…
We want to teach our students to be mindful of those situations of hard choices. Matuto silang
mabagabag; TO CONFRONT these and articulate them.

Teaching Ethics…
We must help them to make control of each ethical dilemma as a way of defining their character,
their lives, and their country’s future; and to make them see that these situations are not
occasional isolated instances where they have to choose between good and evil.

Teaching Ethics…
The course is all about developing phronesis. To do so we must provide the occasions, the tools,
the staging area choose, with the singular goal of helping from them into ethical human beings.
Key Concept

Outline:
1. Why Rules
2. Difference between Moral and Non-Moral standards Morality and Ethics
3. Dilemmas

Rules: Imagine and Think (Activity No. 1)

The rules you find most constricting
1.The reason behind these rules?
2.What your school would be without rules? Your org? Your home? Your country?

Why Rules
• Order
• Get things done
• We are being with others (Esse est co-esse)

Usual Rules of Our Lives

• Etiquette- standards by which we judge manners to be good or bad; normally dictated by

a socio economic elite
• Legal- standards by which we judge legal right and wrong; in a democracy, formulated
by the representatives of the people
• Language- standards by which we judge what is grammatically right or wrong; evolve
through use
• Aesthetics- standards by which judge good and bad art; usually dictated by a small circle
of art connoisseurs/experts
• Athletic- standards by which we judge how good or bad a game is played; usually
formulated by governing bodies

How are non-moral standards different from

• Rules mandating fair treatment of all races
• Rules that give women equal rights with men
• Rules forcing management to treat workers fairly
• Rules prohibiting parents from abusing (verbally, emotionally, physically and sexually)
their children
Moral Standards

What distinguishes moral standards form amoral standards?

1.Moral standards deal with matters that can seriously injure or benefit human beings. E.g. theft,
rape, fraud, slander, murder.

2.The validity of moral standards rests on the adequacy of reasons to support and justify them,
not on decisions of majority or authoritative bodies. E.g. that one ought to tell the truth does not
defend on how many people will vote on it nor on the legislature. One indication of justification
is the consensus of participants in communication. (Habermas)

3. Moral standards are to be preferred to other values, including self-interest. E.g. honesty is to
be preferred than cheating, although cheating can make me graduate.

4. Moral standards are based on impartial considerations this is ‘universalizable’ or taking the
point of view of an ‘ideal observer.’ Still, this impartially must be balanced with partiality
towards those we have a special relationship (family and friends) and the poor and the disabled.

5. Moral standards are associated with special emotions such as ‘guilt,’ ‘shame,’ ‘remorse,’
‘praise,’ ‘indignation’.

What is common to all five characteristics? None other than society taken in its broadest sense,
or in philosophical terms, the ‘other.’

In other words, individual responsibility cannot be taken in isolation from social responsibility.

Non-compliance with moral standards seriously injure us as human beings. Nababawasan

ang pagkatao

The challenge of moral standards is that in violating them, effect is not always immediate and
visible

Morality and Ethics (Velasquez)

Morality: pertains to standards of right and wrong, usually inherited from a community
BUT
Ethics: studies standards of right and wrong, the act of making a decision, the nature of the agent
who makes the decision.
WHAT , HOW , WHO
Moral , Ethics, Procedural (Habermas)
Question concerning right and wrong:

Procedural = standard is optimality / efficiency

Ethical = standard is ethos, pertaining to the good life
Moral = standard is justice, how others are affected by actions

The Study Of Ethics

1.Ethics entails a reflective distance to critically examine standards

• It looks values beneath these moral standards (WHAT or WHY) e.g. We take for granted
that we should marry in church.

But have we asked why? If we do, this will affect our attitude to divorce, etc.

Value: lifelong commitment?

2. It looks at the agent who makes the moral decision: Mature? Level of moral development;
(WHO)

3.It is about the moral decision making process (HOW)

Ethics is not about theoretical knowledge but application of that knowledge, transforming it to
action in everyday life.

Dilemmas from di- "two" + lemma "premise, anything received or taken,"

Dilemma’s ‘double proposition’ has technical meanings in rhetoric and logic. In rhetoric,
a dilemma is an argument that forces a person to choose between two undesirable alternatives.
(Oxford Dictionary)

Dilemmas Signaled by being “bothered” - nababagabag

Why am I bothered?
When did you last have that “bothered” feeling?

Activity No. 2

(5 minute sharing- what did you do?)

What is a dilemma?
Dilemmas are experiences where an agent is confused about the right decision to make because
there are several competing values that are seemingly equally important and urgent.

Feelings and Dilemmas

Strong feelings signal the presence of a dilemma.
BUT many people do not always “catch” the dilemma behind the feeling.
One can be conditioned to be indifferent so that what used to be NAKAKABAGABAG is no
longer dilemma.

Dilemmas are not about competing solutions

• We normally handle the “pagkabagabag” by immediately offering solutions instead of

articulating the competing values or issues e.g. should I cheat or not cheat

Consider:

Ramon, a Grade 5 student at an al boys’ Grade School allows Jose, a large, burly boy seated next
to him, to peek at his math quarterly exam. Unfortunately, Teacher sees this and immediately
gives both boys a failing mark for the quarter exam. Ramon feels that a great injustice has been
committed; that Jose should have been punished more severely than him.

Why does Ramon feel this way about Teacher’s punishment?

Why did Ramon allow Jose to copy?
How should we handle a moral dilemma?

Certainly not through feelings

Upsurge of Feelings cannot be prevented
What we do with them separates the mature from the immature moral agent
“ Teach students how to handle themselves to the Dilemma”.

Using reason and impartiality

Reason Defined
• A faculty (ability)
• A way of dealing with issues
• Moral judgments are not a matter of personal preferences or tastes
“…the morally right thing to do, in any circumstance, is determined by what there are the best
reasons for doing . ” Rachel’s, “What is Morality”
Impartiality Defined
• Every stakeholder’s interest is equally important
• There are no special interests or people, thus in making every moral decision, each
stakeholder interest should be considered.
• One must not be arbitrary.
• Every person should be treated the same way unless there is good reason not to do.

Why Reason? Why Impartiality?

Because dilemmas are complex experiences; hard to make a good decision.

An agent is confused about the right decision to make because there are several competing
values that different stakeholders protect.

The Case of Baby Jane Doe (Seatwork)

In late 1983 there was a great public controversy over an infant known to the public only as Baby
Jane Doe. This unfortunate baby, born in New York State, suffered from multiple defects
including spina bifida (a broken and protruding spine), hydrocephaly (excess fluid on the brain),
suggesting that part of the brain was missing. Surgery was needed for the spina befida; however,
the doctors who examined the baby disagreed about whether the operation should be performed.

Dr. George Newman believed that surgery would be pointless because the baby could never have
a meaningful human life. Another physician, Dr. Arjen Keuskamp, did not think the baby’s
condition was hopeless and advocated immediate surgery. (Both were pediatric neurologists).
The parents decided to accept Dr. Newman’s recommendation, and refused permission for
surgery. Dr. Keuskamp then withdrew from the case.

Because such cases have become common, the plight of Baby Jane Doe would not have received
much attention had it not been for the intervention of third parties. Shortly after the parents made
their decision, Lawrence Washburn, a lawyer associated with some conservative right-to-life
groups, petitioned the courts to set aside the parents’ wishes and order that surgery be performed.
The New York State Supreme Court granted that request, but a higher court quickly overturned
the order, calling Washburn’s suit “offensive.”

The court was impressed by Dr. Newman’s testimony: he told the court, “The decision made by
the parents is that it would be unkind to have the surgery performed this child…, on the basis
of the combination that are present in this child, she is not likely to ever achieve any
interpersonal relationships, the very qualities which we consider human.”

After Mr. Washburn’s suit was dismissed, the federal government got in the act. The
Department of Justice filed suit demanding access to the hospital’s records in order to determine
whether a “handicapped person” –the infant– was being discriminated against. This suit was also
dismissed, with the judge declaring that the parents’ decision “was a reasonable one based on
due consideration of the medical opinions available and on a genuine concern for the best
interests of the child.”

The parents did eventually agree to the use of a shunt to remove the excess fluid from the child’s
brain. But the major surgery, for the spina befida, was not performed.

Activity No. 3

 Was the parents’ decision correct?

 What are the facts of the Baby Jane Doe case.

 If you were the parents (the moral agents), what was your dilemma.

 Who are the two other stakeholders contesting the parents’ decision?

 What was the value/ behind their position?

Why are we the only moral agents?

Because only human being are free
Summary: To be Ethical Requires
Pause
1. to get hold of emotions before they do damage and
2. distance from what everyone else is saying

Critical Thinking
1. to analyze the situation, consider stakeholders interest make the right choices
2. to see the bigger picture and align the choice with what the values important to me

Courage
1. To ACT DELIBERATELY AND WITH CONVICTION on what reason says is the right
thing to do