Ethical RE e

thics right and wrong good and evil commandments precepts

d

ecisions dilemmas

m

orality

religion happiness self-sacrifice values

virtu

es com

mitm

ents

lov

e

Edited by Lat Blaylock

Ethical RE 11/08.indd 1 8/12/08 12:11:49

This book is about the ways in which religious education provides for learning about ethics,

especially in relation to religious ethics, and pro-vides opportunities for the moral development of any pupil. It’s the ninth and last in RE Today’s series ‘Engaging with Secondary RE’. Each book in the series takes a current curriculum issue that teach-ers face, and addresses it through numerous well-worked practical activities for the classroom. We want to enable pupils to learn about ethics in RE in ways that are profound, broad minded and open hearted.Here you will find classroom activities that use visu-al learning, thinking skills, writing frames, contem-porary case studies and methods from philosophy, sociology and religious studies. We have included examples of lessons on prejudice, justice, peace and conflict, the sanctity of life and the green ethi-cal issues. These are not new issues for RE, but we have provided new ideas about how to teach them.Wouldn’t it be good if pupils really understood for themselves the challenges of thinking about ethics and trying to do what they think is good? We hope these pages will help you to make that sort of RE happen in your classroom. Lat BlaylockSeries Editor

ContentsPage Section

2–4 Ethical RE: frequently asked questions

5 Ten aspirations for ethical RE

6–11 Steps towards respect: can discrimination and prejudice be replaced with tolerance and mutual understanding?

Lat Blaylock

12–14 Responses to injustice:learning ethics for 11–14s in RE

Leila Hedges

15–19 Exploring global issues of peace and conflict

Joyce Mackley

20–25 Ethical questions from acase of conjoined twins

Stephen Pett

26–32 Wealth, poverty and climate change: a million little actions might just save the world

Anne Fayter

Ethical REIntroduction

1

Ethical RE 11/08.indd 3 8/12/08 12:11:52

2

Ethical RE: frequently asked questions

1. Will RE make young people behave well? Should it?‘Teaching the difference between right and wrong’ is an oft-quoted aim of moral education, but it isn’t simple. RE teachers know that forming ethical views is a very subtle process. To listen to some commentators, you would think that teachers the whole nation over are busy peddling an absolute relativism in which Mystic Meg, the Pope and the Dalai Lama are all equally valuable (or useless). There’s no differ-ence between the merits of learning the Sermon on the Mount, or the vitamin list on the cereal packet, or the lyrics of Britney’s latest. In fact, the business of draw-ing alongside young people, getting their restive questions in one hand, and the treasures of some of the great religions of the world in the other, and bringing these together, is a subtle but possible task. Doing ethical RE brings its own reward: young people thinking profoundly about what is true, what is good, what is worthy of love. In RE, we don’t teach pupils to be good, but sometimes the subject shows them what it means, and helps them be clear about the good that they seek for themselves.

2. What is ethics?Ethics is, by one account, that part of philosophical enquiry which is concerned with the meanings and applications of ideas about good and evil, right and wrong. In another significant sense, ethics is a practical enquiry about what we ought to do, and for some it’s a dimension of religion. Others suggest that ethics is about action, doing what is good rather than merely talking about it. In RE, all these views of ethics are significant, but the curriculum especially uses dilemmas that might be close to the lives of learners to enable critical and personal reflection on different views about right and wrong, good and evil. It is sometimes helpful to distinguish ethics – a study of principles and alternatives – from morality – the more practical application of ideas about goodness to life.

3. How is ethics related to religions?‘In various different and complex ways’ is the only possible answer here. For ex-ample, in Buddhist tradition, there are ‘skilful means’ to approach enlightenment, including for instance the practice of compassion. This looks like ethics to ‘West-ern’ readers, but inside Buddhist traditions the word is not often used. Atheist critiques of religious ethics often attack them for being rule-based, authoritarian and dogma-dependent, but the expression of Christian love, for example, can be an experience of freedom for the believer. Theistic religions often make strong links between their teachings about God and their visions of ethics, but it is also per-fectly possible to develop an ethical understanding of human life without religion. One slogan that the British Humanist Association likes to promote is ‘good with-out God’. The relationships between beliefs about humanity and the transcendent and ideas about ‘the good’ is always contested. However, by long practice, and by natural linking, RE is one of the most important areas where ethics is studied in the curriculum, precisely because all religions offer their followers some ethical ideas to pursue.

Engaging with secondary RE: Ethical RE

Ethical RE 11/08.indd 4 8/12/08 12:11:55

Engaging with secondary RE: Ethical RE

7. Shouldn’t RE be replaced by ethics in the curriculum?From the point of view of the contributors to this book, the answer is ‘no’. Here are three justifications.• Religions provide the raw material of diversity for ethical learning. Where

personal and social education goes wrong, pupils get the feeling they are be-ing presented with two answers to every problem, one right and the other both wrong and dangerous (sex, drugs, rock-n-roll – ‘just say no’ seems to be the mes-sage). In studying religious ethics, the diversity of human accounts of the good is always available to the learner.

• Religion is about more than good and evil. Transcendent beliefs, the pursuit oftruth, the exploration of human nature and community are not merely ethical. Dropping RE for ethics would exclude huge and vital areas of human experience. These biggest explorations of the meanings human beings make for life are them-selves part of the essential backdrop to ethics.

• For human beings, the will to do good is a far bigger issue than the judgementof what is good (Mark Twain: ‘It’s not the commandments that I don’t under-stand that are a problem for me. It’s the ones I do understand.’) Without being coercive, a religious education worthy of the name will take this seriously, and will show pupils how to think and live more carefully and ethically, in the light of the moral teachings and visions of some great spiritual figures and movements. Might it be good to explore the idea that religion can empower human ethics? What else does this? Should hypocrisy be on the curriculum (it is part of all reli-gions, after all, and even some Humanists fall short of the Golden Rule)?

6. Does RE promote relativism by taking the varied ethics of different traditions on board?Relativism is hard to define. Try this: ‘Moral relativism is the conviction that right-ness and wrongness are properly and inevitably defined subjectively or inter-subjec-tively, according to variables of time, place, context, perception and so on. Relativ-ism denies (as naive or doctrinaire) all claims to a universally accessible vantage point from which to morally judge actions or value systems. Relativists defend the claim that human beings make ethics, rather than discover them.’ (Thanks to Eliza-beth Templeton for this description.) If this description is as close as you can get in 70 words, then RE might promote relativism, and that might be no bad thing. The role of the subject, and the teacher, is more to try and be an honest broker be-tween ethical theories than a proponent of any one of them. And the trouble with ethical behaviour is that it comes in all varieties (though it’s always very different from unethical behaviour). In Christian and Jewish scripture, for example, Daniel refused the dinners cooked by foreigners, while Esther slept with a foreign king. Both are commended. The ethical action of each contributed to the salvation of a nation. Tricky.

4

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Ten aspirations for ethical RE

5

Ten

asp

irat

ion

s fo

r et

hic

al R

E W

ou

ldn

’t it

be

go

od

if p

up

ils

go

t m

ore

RE

like

this

?

Enla

rgin

g m

ora

l im

agin

atio

n: R

E sh

ould

sho

w p

upils

the

won

derf

ul t

hing

s th

at fl

ow f

rom

bei

ng g

ood:

goo

dnes

s m

akes

fri

ends

, mak

es h

arm

ony,

mak

es

love

. It’

s ne

ver

easy

, but

eth

ical

com

mit

-m

ent

can

enla

rges

the

hum

an s

piri

t an

d bu

ild u

p hu

man

hap

pine

ss.

Eth

ical

RE

sho

uld

cla

rify

th

e m

ora

l is-

sues

an

d p

rin

cip

les

invo

lved

in h

um

an

life

and

exp

erie

nce

: So,

for

exa

mpl

e, w

e m

ight

get

pup

ils t

o us

e st

illne

ss t

o m

edi-

tate

on

a ba

r of

fai

rly

trad

ed c

hoco

late

an

d an

‘ord

inar

y’ b

ar. C

hoco

late

look

s lik

e ju

st c

hoco

late

, unt

il th

e et

hics

, so

ofte

n hi

dden

by

mar

kete

ers,

are

exp

osed

. Whe

n so

me

pupi

ls in

the

‘Woo

dcra

ft F

olk’

stu

ck

a po

ster

on

the

scho

ols’

cho

cola

te m

a-ch

ine

sayi

ng ‘D

ead

baby

wit

h ev

ery

bar.

Boyc

ott

Nes

tle’

, sho

uld

they

get

a c

erti

fi-

cate

of

mer

it o

r be

exp

elle

d?

Incr

easi

ng

aw

aren

ess

of

the

linke

d a

nd

cr

eati

ve t

ensi

on

s b

etw

een

th

e sp

iri-

tual

an

d t

he

mo

ral:

We

know

tha

t th

e H

uman

ist

visi

on o

f au

tono

mou

s et

hics

ca

n tr

ansf

orm

hum

an li

fe, a

nd s

o ca

n th

e pa

th o

f th

e Bu

ddha

or

the

Ten

Com

-m

andm

ents

. How

can

thi

s in

sigh

t be

m

ore

thou

ghtf

ully

sha

red

wit

h pu

pils

, so

that

the

y se

e th

at d

iffer

ent

belie

fs c

an

lead

to

insp

irin

g be

havi

our?

Enco

ura

gin

g a

su

btl

e d

is-

crim

inat

ion

an

d a

war

enes

s o

f m

oti

ves,

act

ion

s an

d c

on

-se

qu

ence

s: W

heth

er p

upils

pr

efer

con

sequ

enti

al e

thic

s, o

r so

me

syst

em o

f th

e ru

le o

f lo

ve,

the

abili

ty t

o se

e th

e ot

her

side

of

an

ethi

cal a

rgum

ent

is p

re-

ciou

s, a

nd b

oth

side

s ne

ed t

o le

arn

to d

o it

.

The

dee

per

exa

min

atio

n o

f al

tru

ism

in it

s va

rio

us

form

s,

incl

udin

g th

at o

f M

othe

r Te

re-

sa, G

andh

i and

Mar

tin

Luth

er

King

(th

e RE

tea

cher

s’ T

rini

ty?)

, bu

t al

so t

he c

lose

-to-

hom

e re

c-og

niti

on t

hat,

for

man

y, it

’s m

y m

othe

r w

ho li

ves

for

othe

rs in

a

way

tha

t I c

an in

tim

atel

y ob

-se

rve,

and

she

’s t

he o

ne w

ho

insp

ires

or

chan

ges

me.

The

exp

lora

tio

n a

nd

dev

elo

pm

ent

of

mo

ral c

ou

rag

e am

on

g le

arn

ers:

To

will

wha

t is

goo

d, t

o pu

rsue

it w

ith

com

mit

men

t, is

mor

e im

port

ant

in

relig

ion

than

to

know

it. A

s M

arx

says

‘t

he p

hilo

soph

ers

this

far

hav

e on

ly

inte

rpre

ted

the

wor

ld. T

he p

oint

is t

o ch

ange

it.’

Shou

ld t

his

idea

ani

mat

e m

oral

dev

elop

men

t in

RE?

Bal

anci

ng

co

oln

ess/

ob

ject

ivi-

ty w

ith

pas

sio

n/e

ng

agem

ent:

G

ood

ethi

cal R

E do

esn’

t pr

o-du

ce s

tuff

ed m

inds

and

em

pty

hear

ts, b

ut r

athe

r en

cour

ages

m

oral

gro

wth

and

pas

sion

, on

the

basi

s of

rat

iona

l und

er-

stan

ding

and

wid

e sy

mpa

thy.

Gre

ater

aw

aren

ess

of

bo

th c

on

text

an

d u

niv

ersa

ls: H

ow c

an w

e en

able

le

arne

rs t

o se

e w

hy a

nti-g

ay r

ap m

u-si

c ha

ppen

s in

Jam

aica

, and

is lo

ved

by s

ome

16-y

ear-

olds

, as

part

of

the

cult

ure,

but

is w

rong

eve

ryw

here

? RE

m

ust

aspi

re t

o ex

plai

n et

hica

l con

text

s.

Why

isn’

t th

eir

sens

itiv

ity

to a

nim

al

crue

lty

mat

ched

by

man

y in

the

adu

lt

Chr

isti

an c

omm

unit

y? W

hy d

oes

it fi

nd

an e

cho

in H

indu

ref

eren

ce f

or a

ll lif

e?

Gro

win

g r

atio

nal

ity

in t

he

exp

lora

tio

n o

f et

hic

al q

ues

-ti

on

s so

tha

t RE

mov

es a

way

fr

om ‘p

ool y

our

igno

ranc

e’

disc

ussi

on o

f bu

llyin

g, a

nd

enab

les

the

sam

e ri

gour

in

mor

al e

nqui

ry t

hat

scie

nce

asks

for

in s

cien

tific

enq

uiry

, an

d a

grow

ing

unde

rsta

nd-

ing

of e

thic

al t

heor

y.

Incr

easi

ng

sen

siti

vity

to

th

e p

lura

lity

of

mo

ral e

xper

ien

ce: A

s m

y Je

wis

h Bi

ble

prof

esso

r pu

t it

, mor

al b

ehav

iour

com

es

in d

iffe

rent

for

ms.

Dan

iel w

on’t

eat

the

Ba

bylo

nian

s’ lu

nche

s, w

hile

Est

her

slee

ps

wit

h th

eir

king

. Bot

h ar

e co

mm

ende

d by

Jud

aeo-

Chr

isti

an s

crip

ture

. But

mor

al

beha

viou

r is

cle

arly

opp

osit

e to

imm

oral

, se

lfish

and

des

truc

tive

beh

avio

ur. M

aybe

w

e ne

ed t

o lo

ve t

he m

oral

que

stio

ns in

th

eir

ambi

guit

y fo

r a

whi

le b

efor

e w

e ca

n fi

nd t

he a

nsw

ers.

Ethical RE 11/08.indd 7 8/12/08 12:11:57

Nine steps up towards a fairer society: where are you on the stairs?

Stairs to respect: how far up are you?This helpful diagram shows that people can be more or less nega-tive, and more or less positive, about other groups. Think of some-one you know from the world of the movies who is prejudiced. Where on the stairs would they fit? How about Hitler? Or Nelson Mandela? How about you? Hans Olssen, a Swedish sex and relationships educator, suggested in 2005 that the process of building tolerance and respect could be represented on his ‘stairs of tolerance’. This picture is based on his writings.

Steps towards respect

7© 2009 RE Today ServicesPermission is granted to photocopy this page for use in classroom activities in schools that have purchased this publication.

Ethical RE 11/08.indd 9 8/12/08 12:11:58

Attitude

Celebration of diversity

Mutual understanding

Respect

Acceptance

Tolerance

Dislike

Prejudice and fear

Discrimination

Hatred and violence

‘I’m enthusiastic about all the varieties of people on the planet. I’m com-mitted to diversity: it is inspiring, challenging and fun. We’re all different, but we’re better off together. I’m not better than others, just different. That’s cool.’

‘Having learned from members of groups different from myself, I know that the differences between us are real. I think I understand where they are coming from, and I want them to understand my point of view too. Both sides need to “get it”.’

I have a positive regard for the viewpoint of the other group. I can see that their experience is valuable. I can see that as people they deserve their own rights and space. I don’t want to be anyone one else, but it’s fine that they are different.’

‘I don’t always think these people are doing things right, and I’ve got my arguments with them, but I can see that “live and let live” is a fair way forward. We’re all human beings, after all.’

‘I am fine putting up with this group of people. I don’t want to be like them, or spend time in their company perhaps, but there they are: each to his own. Some people might say that’s a bit grudging. Well, maybe it is, but it’s how I see it.’

‘I don’t like this group of people. They’re different, and I wish they weren’t. This is a private attitude. I’m not out there doing anything about it, I won’t hurt them. It’s just the way I am. I don’t like any of them.’

‘I think these people are all the same, and they always want things their own way. They are trying to take over, and that’s scary stuff – why should they? They all seem the same to me, and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind. That’s how I see it.’

‘If it’s down to me then I would make sure members of this group don’t get on particularly well. Actions which make life harder and more difficult for them seem fair enough to me, though I might keep them secret, to keep a clean image.’

‘This group are dreadful. They only cause problems for me and others like me. I can’t stand them. Nothing will change my view. We should kick these people out. Nothing’s too bad for them, they deserve everything I intend to do to them.’

What does this mean? (A matching activity)

Engaging with secondary RE: Ethical RE

8 © 2009 RE Today ServicesPermission is granted to photocopy this page for use in classroom activities in schools that have purchased this publication.

Ethical RE 11/08.indd 10 8/12/08 12:11:59