Ethics Teaching in Higher Education

THE HASTINGS CENTER SERIES IN ETHICS ETHICS TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION Edited by Daniel Callahan and Sissela Bok

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Ethics Teaching in Higher Education Edited by DANIEL CAl.LAHAN and SISSELA BOK The Hastings Center Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

PLENUM PRESS . NEW YORK AND LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Ethics teaching in higher education. (Hastings Center series in ethics) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Ethics-Study and teaching (Higher)-United States. I. Callahan, Daniel, 1930II. Bok, Sissela. III. Series: Hastings Center. Hastings Center series in ethics. . 80-24002 170'.7'1173 BJ66.E84 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4613-3138-4 ISBN-13: 978-1-4613-3140-7 DOl: 10.1007/ 978-1-4613-3138-4

© 1980 The Hastings Center Softcover reprint of the hardcover lst edition 1980

Institute of Society, Ethics, and the Life Sciences 360 Broadway Hastings-on-Hudson, New York 10706 Plenum Press, New York A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 227 West 17th Street New York, N.Y. 10011 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher

Contributors

Sissela Bok has taught medical ethics at the Radcliffe Institute and at the Harvard-M.I.T. Division of Health Sciences and Technology. She received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University, and is the author of Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life.

Daniel Callahan is the founder and Director of The Hastings Center. He received his B.A. from Yale and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard. He has taught at Brown University, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author or editor of 20 books and over 200 articles. His most recent books are Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality; Ethics and Population Limitation; and The Tyranny of Survival. Arthur L. Caplan is Associate for the Humanities at The Hastings Center, and Associate for Social Medicine in the Department of Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. He did his undergraduate work at Brandeis University, and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University. He is the editor of The Sociobiology Debate, and the forthcoming Concepts of Health and Disease in Medicine.

Thomas Lickona is Associate Professor of Education at the State University of New York at Cortland. He recently held visiting appointments at Harvard and Boston Universities and served as Research Associate with the Danforth Foundation School Democracy Project. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the State University of New York at Albany. His publications include the book Moral Development and Behavior, numerous writings on v

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social and moral education, and a forthcoming book for parents on fostering moral development in the family. Ruth Macklin is Associate for Behavioral Studies at The Hastings Center. She received her B.A. from Cornell and her Ph.D. in philosophy from Case Western Reserve University, where she taught for ten years before joining the staff of The Hastings Center. She is also Associate Professor of Community Health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she teaches medical ethics. Dr. Macklin is one of several coeditors of Moral Problem; in Medicine, and her book on the ethics of behavior control is scheduled for publication early next year. William F. May is Professor of Christian Ethics at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University. He has taught at Indiana University, and was former President of the American Academy of Religion. He cochairs the research group on Suffering, Death and Well-Being at The Hastings Center, and has taught summer seminars in management ethics and medical ethics under the sponsorship of the National Endowment for the Humanities. With the help of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1978-1979), he has been writing a book, The Public

Obligation of the Profe;;ional. Susan Resneck Parr is Associate Professor of English at Ithaca College, where she chaired her department, 1976-1979. She has just completed a year as a Visiting Associate Professor at Princeton. She received her A.M. from Wellesley, her M.A. from the University of Chicago, and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Her recent publications include essays on Faulkner, Heller, Fitzgerald, and Sexton. At present, she is writing a book for teachers which demonstrates how to teach literature with an emphasis on moral dilemmas that are inherent in the works themselves. Bernard Rosen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ohio State University. He received his B.A. from Wayne State University and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Brown University. He is the author of a recent book, Strategie;

of Ethic;. Douglas Sloan is Associate Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Editor of Teacher; College Record. He received his Ph.D. in history and education from Columbia University. He is

CONTRIBUTORS

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author of The Scottish Enlightenment and the American College Ideal, and most recently is editor of the book Education and Values. Dennis F. Thompson is Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He received his M.A. from Oxford University and his Ph.D. from Harvard. He is the author of The Democratic Citizen: Social Science and Democratic Theory in the 20th Century, and John Stuart Mill and Representative Government. Since 1969 he has taught a course on political ethics and public policy in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.

Contents

Introduction

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DANIEL CALLAHAN AND SISSELA BOK

CHAPTER 1

The Teaching of Ethics in the American Undergraduate Curriculum, 1876-1976 1 DoUGLAS SLOAN

PART I GENERAL ISSUES IN THE TEACHING OF ETHICS CHAPTER 2

Goals in the Teaching of Ethics

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DANIEL CALLAHAN

Appendix 75 Qualifications for the Teaching of Ethics CHAPTER

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3

Problems in the Teaching of Ethics: Pluralism and Indoctrination

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RUTH MACKLIN CHAPTER 4 What Does Moral Psychology Have to Say to the Teacher of Ethics? 103 THOMAS LICKONA

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5 Evaluation and the Teaching of Ethics ARTHUR L. CAPLAN

CHAPTER

133

PART II THE TEACHING OF ETHICS IN THE UNDERGRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL CURRICULUM CHAPTER 6 The Teaching of Ethics in American Higher Education: An Empirical Synopsis 153 HASTINGS CENTER STAFF

CHAPTER 7

The Teaching of Undergraduate Ethics

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BERNARD ROSEN

CHAPTER 8 The Teaching of Ethics in Undergraduate Nonethics Courses SUSAN RESNECK PARR

9 Professional Ethics: Setting, Terrain, and Teacher WILLIAM F. MAY

CHAPTER

205

PART III TOPICS IN THE TEACHING OF ETHICS CHAPTER 10

Paternalism in Medicine, Law, and Public Policy DENNIS

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F. THOMPSON

Appendix 273 Outline of a Unit on Paternalism for a Course in Practical Ethics 273 CHAPTER 11

Whisdeblowing and Professional Responsibilities SISSELA BOK

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191

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PART IV SUMMARY RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE TEACHING OF ETHICS CHAPTER 12

Hastings Center Project on the Teaching of Ethics: Summary Recommendations 299 Bibliography Index

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Introduction

A concern for the ethical instruction and formation of students has always been a part of American higher education. Yet that concern has by no means been uniform or free from controversy. The centrality of moral philosophy in the undergraduate curriculum during the mid-19th Century gave way later during that era to the first signs of increasing specialization of the disciplines. By the middle of the 20th Century, instruction in ethics had, by and large, become confined almost exclusively to departments of philosophy and religion. Efforts to introduce ethics teaching in the professional schools and elsewhere in the university often met with indifference or outright hostility. The past decade has seen a remarkable resurgence of the interest in the teaching of ethics, at both the undergraduate and the professional school levels. Beginning in 1977, The Hastings Center, with the support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, undertook a systematic study of the state of the teaching of ethics in American higher education. Our concern focused on the extent and quality of that teaching, and on the possibilities and problems posed by widespread efforts to find a more central and significant place for ethics in the curriculum. Over the course of the twoyear project, ten extended meetings were held, a summer workshop of 150 participants was conducted at Princeton University, 30 papers and independent studies were commissioned, a large file of syllabi and curriculum material was accumulated, visits were paid to a number of schools, letters containing course information and opinions on the teaching of ethics were received from well over 1,000 teachers, talks were held with the officers of a number of professional and educational organizations, and advice on the project was sought from all quarters. The bulk of the work for the project was carried out by a group of 20 people, all of whom met together regularly over a period of two years, and most of whom prepared individual studies or papers for the project. An important reason for the formation of such a group to take part in the project from its xiii

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beginning to its end was a desire to see whether some degree of agreement and consensus could be achieved on the main problems confronting the teaching of ethics in American higher education. The conclusions of that group are published in The Teaching of Ethics in Higher Education (Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y.: The Hastings Center, 1980). The papers collected in this volume form much of the background for that report. A number of motivations lay behind the decision of The Hastings Center to mount a serious study of the teaching of ethics in American higher education. Beginning in 1969, The Hastings Center devoted a considerable part of its own work to attempts to encourage the development of more formal programs on medical ethics in medical schools. At the same time, as that movement developed, the subject of bioethics gained increasingly prominent importance in the undergraduate curriculum. As it turned out, the teaching of bioethics was in many ways the forerunner of an interest in applied and professional ethics in other fields. By the mid-70S, it was clear that a broad concern for the teaching of ethics was beginning to manifest itself in almost all departments and divisions of the university. What, we asked ourselves, did this new development mean, and what problems and possibilities would it be likely to face? What are the appropriate purposes of courses in ethics? What kinds of student should such courses try to reach, and at what point in the curriculum? Who should teach such courses, and what sort of training ought they to have? How could one understand the curious fact that an interest in ethics was very high in some schools, moderate only in others, and nonexistent in still others? The work of The Hastings Center project was an effort to explore those questions, as confronted by those teaching ethics, interested observers in American higher education, and those in administrative positions wondering whether courses in ethics should be promoted within the university. The papers in this book are addressed to the issues that we found to be the most critical. In his paper, Douglas Sloan explores the checkered history of the teaching of ethics in American higher education, 1876-1976. As his paper indicates, the place of ethics in the curriculum affords a significant and interesting way of understanding the shifts and turns in the very idea of a higher education, and the broader intellectual and social currents in the society as a whole. In his paper, Daniel Callahan takes up the question of goals in the teaching of ethics. Many different ones have been proposed, and the very plethora of suggested purposes in itself has been a major point of contention. In an appendix to his paper, Callahan also examines the question of appropriate qualifications for those teaching ethics. While a considerable portion of the teaching of ethics takes place within departments of philosophy and religion, taught by those with doctorates in those fields, probably the most significant development in the past decade has been the spread of courses beyond those disciplinary contexts. That spread, in turn, has posed significant questions concerning the qualifications and credentials of those teaching such courses.

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Ruth Macklin addresses another difficult set of issues, those of indoctrination and pluralism. A major concern about the teaching of ethics has been whether, and to what extent, it is appropriate to teach courses on ethics in a pluralistic society, and whether it is possible to teach such courses without engaging in unacceptable indoctrination. Thomas Lickona addresses another problem encountered persistently throughout our project; i.e., does the field of moral psychology have a contribution to make to the teaching of ethics? That field has rapidly developed in recent years, and a great number of research findings have suggested that the perspectives of psychology can be illuminating. In his paper, Arthur Caplan considers the question of the evaluation of the teaching of ethics. Just as the problem of goals in the teaching of ethics has been troublesome, so also has that of evaluation-and the two general issues cannot be sharply separated. The second set of papers, by Bernard Rosen, Susan Parr, and William May, approach the teaching of ethics from more specific angles. Bernard Rosen analyzes the role of formal courses in ethics in the undergraduate curriculum, discussing the types of problem encountered by undergraduate teachers of ethics, and the context in which that teaching takes place. He also provides his own recommendations concerning that teaching. Yet it is by no means the case that ethics arises only in formal courses so listed. A great deal of discussion of ethics also goes on in other places in the curriculum, particularly in the humanities and the social sciences. Susan Parr discusses some characteristics of such teaching, and examines some of the particular problems and possibilities that it poses. William May takes up the broad and difficult subject of the teaching of ethics in the professional school curriculum. He notes many of the problems encountered in that particular context, and discusses them in the larger setting of professional ethics. Dennis Thompson and Sissela Bok contribute two substantive papers, on paternalism and on whistleblowing and professional responsibility. Their essays are meant not only to provide an analysis of these moral questions in their own right, but also as examples to show how certain broad ethical issues can arise in a variety of different teaching contexts. As topics for teaching, both paternalism and whistle blowing can be pertinent and useful in undergraduate institutions, as well as in professional schools. Finally, we have included in this volume the summary recommendations of the group that carried out the project on the teaching of ethics. Although the individual authors of the papers were fully free to develop their own thoughts and ideas on their topics, the project as a whole drew heavily on those papers in formulating their final recommendations. We would like to thank the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for the planning grant which enabled us to organize our project, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York for providing the two-year grant which enabled us to carry out the project as a whole. We are also very grateful to the contributors to this

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volume, to other members of the research project as a whole, and to the many people who assisted us in our meetings, and in particular read and criticized earlier drafts of these papers. SISSELA BoK AND DANIEL CALLAHAN

Project Codirectors Hastings Center Project on the Teaching of Ethics