NCJ Number
170184
Date Published
1996
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This paper critiques Kenneth Winston's general observations about the methodology of teaching ethics through the use of cases (NCJ-170183).
Abstract
The author believes there is much to be gained by using the case method in teaching practical ethics. Winston and other practitioners of this method do involve students in the dynamics of ethical decisionmaking in the context of real-life events, and this has significant instructive value. Moreover, the use of cases affords students an opportunity to deliberate about moral dilemmas that carry the complexity, confusions, and subsidiary problems characteristic of moral quandaries in daily life. It is questionable, however, whether students are prepared to think constructively about these practical cases without having first had some exposure to ethical theory. Winston asserts that the instructor's role in an ethics case discussion should not include the presentation of ethical theories, but without any theory at all, it is not realistic to expect that students will develop the capacity to think critically about the principles they discover by induction. Their discussions will tend to rely on their pre-reflective code moralities. Further, if it is true that some moral judgments are sound and others are grounded only in irrational prejudice, this distinction can only be drawn by appealing to ethical theory. 4 notes