Is acting ethically a skill?"Skill, to put it another way, is not a

'theory' informing action. Skill is a way of dealing with things, not a derivation from theory ... knowledge helps only

when it descends into habits." Jerome Bruner, The Culture of

Education p. 152

Not a theory

“… reflective criticism should basically go in a direction opposite to that encouraged by ethical theory. Theory looks characteristically for considerations that are very general and have as little distinctive content as possible …”

Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy p. 116

informing action

“Theory (so to speak) is not a foundation on which we can safely construct Practice; rather it is a way of bringing our external commitments into line with our experience as practitioners.”

Stephen Toulmin, Return to Reason, Loc 1762-63

A way of dealing with things

Three Models of Ethics and Efficacy

1.Rest & Narvaez (1991)

2.Richard Moorhead et al (2012)

3.Mary Gentile (2012)

Rest & Narvaez (1991)

• Moral Sensitivity – awareness of the moral dimensions of the situation;

• Moral Judgement – ethical reasoning, familiar to us from Kohlberg’s work on the subject;

• Moral Motivation – wanting to act morally - which may involve putting concerns about ethical rectitude above e.g. money, or professional success, or the approval of superiors;

• Moral Character – the ability to see it through.

Moorhead, Hinchly, Parker, Kershaw, Holm (2012)

Interaction betweenCharacter - refers to the values and attitudes held

by individuals. Capacity - refers to the ability to reason ethically.

Context - refers to the ethicality of the environment within which people work (and live).

Mary Gentile (2012)

Post decision making – (after perception, judgment and motivation)

Effectiveness – a curriculum for effectively giving voice to values which involves

1. Pre-scripting2. Practice3. Coaching

Is acting ethically a skill?

Not independent of context“These, and innumerable others, died not

despite their valour but because of it”Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved p. 63“A young German did not become a committed

SS man only by reading pamphlets. He had to be bound up in a network of common practices.”

Neitzel and Welzer, Soldaten Loc. 6066

Is acting ethically a skill?

Certainly not a single skill, nor only a skill – although it involves cognitive skills and social skills

Practical Art – phronesis (Greek) Prudence (from the Latin)

Is it time for: “… the practitioners to turn the tables, and look the theoreticians squarely in the face.”

Toulmin, Return to Reason Loc1365

Consequences 1: What is one trying to teach when one teaches ethics?

• Not about the right answer• Not about meta-ethics• Not about clever argument• Not about know what• About seeing, reflecting, judgment, caring, feeling

able to act, knowing how to act • About situation, culture, what we care about, our

sense of ourselves and the groups we identify with

Consequences 2: How does one teach ethics?

How does one learn that which is not reducible to propositions and logical relations?

In groupsExperientiallyThrough discourseThrough practiceThrough reflection

Consequences 3: Where does one teach ethics?

“The activity in which knowledge is developed and deployed, it is now argued, is not separable from or ancillary to learning and cognition. Nor is it neutral.

Rather, it is an integral part of what is learned. Situations might be said to co-produce knowledge through activity. Learning and cognition, it is now possible to argue, are fundamentally situated. “

Brown, Collins and Duguid, Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning 1989