Introduction to Ethics

In teaching Introduction to Ethics, I have found that my students prefer exposure to more ways of thinking about ethics, and to this purpose, I have found adopting Shafer-Landau’s Fundamentals of Ethics and The Ethical Life to be fantastic for that purpose, as they go over not only the “big three” moral theories (Kant, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics), but also W.D. Ross’ theory of Prima Facie Duties, Feminist Ethics, and Social Contract theory, which enrich the classroom discussions. Furthermore, the sections on the good life and metaethics are also fantastic for making distinctions while also examining the presuppositions and structures of moral theories themselves. In using these textbooks, I also work with my students to help them to develop the skills to be critical of the authors of textbooks as well, seeing them as works of their own to be engaged with, rather than merely providing Knowledge or Truths to be memorized.

At the start of the course I have my students engage in a collective, reflective values exercise in order to generate lists of the values that they hold at the stat of the course, with those values ranked and defined. We refer back to the lists throughout the course and reflect on hoe the different theories engaged with challenge or support their values, ending the course with a discussion about how they might change their lists now having gone through all the material.