An Open Letter to Ethics Students

Over the years, the students in my ethics courses have complained. I don’t have time today (or in this lifetime) to address all their complaints. So let me just handle one. It goes something like this:

“You require us to write all these papers, engage in discussions, lead discussions, and do all these other things. But it’s just the same things over and over again! We talk about autonomy, justice, beneficence. We apply these concepts. We talk about and apply the APA Ethics Code. We talk about cases—using the same concepts. It gets redundant! Why not just require one paper?”

Here's one possible response:

Dear Students,

I appreciate your comments. They show that you’re thinking about the course and how we can all get the most out of it. I believe we’ve been doing some good work, and we can find ways to make our learning more effective.

As for redundancy, however: I’m afraid we’re still going to be writing, talking, discussing, and exploring over and over again using the same concepts (of course, with different cases and topics). Let me share my reasoning.

Think about basketball (or yoga, or cooking, or chess, or any other metaphor). If our goal were to learn about basketball, writing one paper on, say, shooting the ball, would be enough. There’d be little reason to write about it again. You could say, “I already demonstrated my knowledge of this topic.” BUT: Our goal is to learn how to play basketball. Thus, when you shoot the ball once, it doesn’t work to say, “I’ve already shot a basket. Now I know how to shoot a basket.” To get good at basketball we need to do more. We know that learning skills takes repetition.

Our goal in this course is to learn how to play ethics! Like basketball (or cooking or chess), the activity of ethical choice making involves a multitude of skills. These skills include self-reflection, the exercise of humility (and prudence and other virtues), the application of new concepts such as the principles of justice and beneficence, and the integration of technical documents—including the APA Code, state laws, etc. Let’s practice them enough so they become habits that you are good at.

We can take the basketball analogy one more step, just for fun: The short papers involve two-point shots. The longer research paper involves three-point shots. Class discussions and student-led discussions involve guarding your classmates and passing the ball. You get the idea.

Thanks for your engagement, honesty, hard work—and for your willingness to play the game. See you in class.