Ethics Critical Thinking

problems of education in the 21st century

TEACHING ETHICS AND CRITICAL
THINKING IN CONTEMPORARY SCHOOLS
Bojan Borstner, Smiljana Gartner
University of Maribor, Slovenia
E-mail: [e-mail], [e-mail]

Abstract
Basic ethical questions, dilemmas and especially decisions do not only affect the life of an individual but can also affect lives of others. In some professional ethics, where decisions about a person’s life or death are made, decisions can even be irreversible. In this contribution three ways of deciding by highlighting critical, and reflective decision-making or systematic thought process as the most effective method in ethics have been pointed out. Therefore, taking ethics as a critically reflective morality highlights the fact that we can talk about ethical exploration, so ethics is a process of thinking, not a set of established answers that need only to be passively accepted. It could be concluded that the study of, and practice in, evaluating arguments and evidence (moral decision making) via critical thinking as well as using other important skills (raising questions according to Blooms taxonomy and doing a lot of case studies) is the best way to achieve the most fundamental goal in teaching an ethical course – becoming a better person.
And is therefore something that should be in every curriculum.
Key words: authority, critical thinking, ethics, decision-making, intuition, teaching ethics.

Introduction

On a daily basis people are confronted with questions such as “Should we euthanize our dog?”, “Is disclosing personal data of another ever right or wrong?”, “Am I a good person if I do not tell on a colleague who stole a tomato no one will miss?” and as a consequence to that make ethical decisions every day, which is why many people think of ethics and reasoning as part of critical thinking as unnecessary scientific disciplines and teaching of ethics and critical thinking as even less necessary since “everyone does it” anyway.

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