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Students Don’t See Connections Between “Classroom Ethics” and the Real World
The "Professional Ethics" course required of all Juniors at Larchmont University has been through some serious changes in the past few years. To their credit, administrators realized that learning ethical reasoning by studying "classic texts" wasn't enough to prepare students for the ethical challenges they would face in the course of their careers. But in changing the ethics curriculum, Larchmont University has done students a disservice. Now, the course is little more than a tutorial in how to avoid breaking ethics laws.
Ethics laws are important, of course. We sincerely hope no Larchmont graduate will ever be the subject of the kinds of criminal prosecution for ethics violations we have seen recently in the medical community. But we believe that simply knowing the rules, as they exist, is not enough to produce ethical professionals. We as students ought to be prepared for the real ethical dilemmas that will face us after graduation. We must also be ready to help adapt and change ethics laws in response to new technologies and changing ideas. We need to spend time thinking about why "ethical behavior," as defined by the law, is better than unethical behavior. We need practice in putting a human face on ethics, and Larchmont University should make the required ethics class a place where this practice begins. Students should study ethics laws in various professions, naturally. But they might also examine ethical dilemmas from history, for example, learning who has been helped or hurt by ethical and unethical behavior. Real-world professionals, who deal with ethical questions on a daily basis, should be brought in as guest speakers to explain how ethical considerations have shaped their careers and lives. And those who make laws and policies regarding ethics should also be involved in the course, so students get a sense of how society shapes ethical behavior. These changes would keep the course from being an exercise in memorizing, and make it a truly useful experience for students.
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