25 Things - Ethics

Click on the image to view Google presentation

Haverford senior students conclude their upper school experience by participating in a series of workshops called "25 Things Every Man Must Know". These workshops are designed by teachers in collaboration with student feedback and center around such skills as resume building, financial awareness, dance, email etiquette, and mindfulness. Since my youngest daughter was born in 2018, I volunteered with my wife and Carmen Epstein to lead a session on Baby Care, but less temporarily, I joined Tom Trocano in building a session around the topic of Ethics. In 2018 Mr. Trocano and I designed the course around the classic ethical dilemma of "The Trolley Car" scenario, which prompted tons of great debate and analysis. But afterward we agreed that we wanted to engaged the students in discussion that was more real to their lives and less theoretical. So I redesigned the workshop to focus on the most pressing ethical dilemmas university students face in the first few years in school. Borrowing from dilemmas noted by real college students in the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics program at Santa Clara University in California, the students and I reflected on their understanding of the ethical roles and motivations they would experience in the dilemmas and then learned the language of the academic university-level philosophy they were describing to better shape and structure their views. We explored the nature of normative ethics, the trade off issues of ethical egoism versus ethical altruism and ethical consequentialism in general, considered the parameters of classic Utilitarianism and the Social Contract, reviewed Aristotle's Virtue Ethics and Kant's Duty Ethics, and introduced the complex world of Meta-Ethics before concluding in revisiting the dilemmas again to to see how perspectives had changed. The workshop prompted at times passionate debate but we were able to maintain and environment of critical, constructive thought and reflection, which continued with a small group of students well after the workshop concluded. It was a fascinating experience for all involved.