Teaching Today's Students how to Examine Ethical Issues and Be More Actively Involved in the Learning Process

Abstract

In response to the difficulty of teaching an increasingly large number of students who are ill prepared for the sort of abstract thinking and well-structured essay writing that are essential to the field of Philosophy, I have discovered a five-step method for teaching students in my “Philosophy and Social Ethics” course how to examine any ethical issue and write well-structured essays discussing the issue. Just as important, students are now required to take more responsibility for the learning process which, I believe, is an appropriate goal for a course in Ethics.