When to learn ethics
When Is Ethics Best Learned? The question of when ethics is best learned depends to what extent ethics can be learned at all. This latter question is very old. Almost 2500 years ago, Socrates debated the issue with his fellow Athenians, and took the clear position that ethics can be learned. Plato arrived at a more ambiguous position, however, grappling with the question in his dialogues Meno and Protagoras. Many modern thinkers believe that training in ethics can increase sensitivity to the presence of moral questions, and can also improve skill in moral reasoning. Heightened sensitivity comes both through the discussion of ethical issues and through the examination of cases. Improved reasoning comes through systematically presenting principles and methods for handling ethical questions.
So is these aspects of ethics can be taught, when are they best learned? The answer requires at least some understanding of moral development. Most models for moral development focus on children, but some also describe the changes that take place throughout adult life. Many of these models also include aspects of development that go beyond moral behavior. For example, Eric Erickson lays out eight "psycho-social" stages [1,2]. Each stage resolved a certain kind of psychological tension, like trust versus mistrust, intimacy versus isolation, and social responsibility versus stagnation. The psychologist Jean Piaget, on the other hand, lays out five stages of cognitive development with names like "sensorimotor," "concrete operational "and" post-formal operational" [3]. Since thinking clearly enters into moral decisionmaking, such a theory speaks at least indirectly to ethics [4]. Some of these models, like those of Erickson, Roger Gould [5] and Daniel Levinson [6], assume that growth stages originate from the natural process of maturation, and depend mostly upon age. Other approaches suggest that moral development can slow or stop independent of a person's age. Piaget's model, along with those of Lawrence Kohlberg [7], James Fowler [8], and Jean Loevinger [9] use this idea. Among all these models, Kohlberg's is most concerned with moral growth. Kohlberg's core theory includes six stages, ending where a person acts according to universal rational principles.
Clearly there are differing understandings of moral development, which inevitably leads to differing opinions about when various aspects of ethics should be learned. Nevertheless, the fact that there exists the possibility of ongoing moral development even in adults suggests that learning about ethics should continue throughout life.
Notes
1. Erik Erickson, "Eight Ages of Man," in Childhood and Society, 2nd ed. (New York, W.W. Norton, 1963).
2. For a summary, see Daniel A Helminiak, Spiritual Development: An Interdisciplinary Study (Chicago, Loyola University Press, 1987), ch. 3.
3. Jean Piaget, The Origins of Intelligence in Children (New York, Norton Library, 1963, originally published in 1936).
4. Jean Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child (New York, The Free Press, 1965, originally published in 1929).
5. Roger L. Gould, Transformations: Growth and Change in Adult Life (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1978).
6. Daniel Levinson, The Seasons of a Man's Life (New York, Knopf, 1978).
7. Lawrence Kohlberg, "The Child as Moral Philosopher," Psychology Today , September 1968, 25-30; "The Implications of Moral Stages for Adult Education," Religious Education 72 (1977) 183-201; "Stages and Sequence: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Socialization," in Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research, D. A. Goslin, ed. (Chicago, Rand McNally, 1969).
8. James Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning (San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1981).
9. Jane Loevinger, Ego Development (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1977).
