Intro Ethics

This fall, I’ve been teaching Intro Ethics for the first time in years. It’s a strange assignment, as though the students were previously feral and my task was to begin their moral education, age 18 to 22. Presumably, most were introduced to ethics already by their primary caregivers. At least, I hope they were.

There are difficult questions about what to teach in such a class and how. I once wrote about the risks of Intro Ethics, echoing Annette Baier’s “Theory and Reflective Practices.” “The obvious trouble with our contemporary attempts to use moral theory to guide action,” she wrote, “is the lack of agreement on which theory to apply.”

The standard undergraduate course in, say, medical ethics, or business ethics, acquaints the student with a variety of theories, and shows the difference in the guidance they give. We, in effect, give courses in comparative moral theory, and like courses in comparative religion, their usual effect on the student is loss of faith in any of the alternat…