Clinical psychology and physiological psychology teaching methods

Utilitarianism applies to the utility of the end result. There are, at least, two models that are similar in content: Mill and Benthams's Principle of Utility. Mill stated that it was the consequences of the good or bad action to the individual that determined morality of that action, whilst Bentham proposed moral consequence arising from "the greatest good for the greatest number of people." Pain and pleasure, he wrote, are our masters; and the hedonistic (or 'felicific') calulus should be used to determine this greatest happiness principle (Dinwiddy, 1989). Both Mill and Bentham advocate a system of ethics that depended on dissemination of the greatest amount of good to the largest quantity of people.

In this case we have at least three individuals to consider: the psychologist himself, the students, and the department chair. Each -according to utilitarianism -- will need to consider the best that is (a) for the recipient, (b) for the greatest majority of people. The greatest majority of people and the recipients in this case would be the students: they either receive a course on physiological psychology or do not. One can theoretically add to this ' greatest' amount of people / recipients by adding the clinical psychologist's family to the list: they would certainly benefit by his earning more money. Likewise, the department chair and his or her family too would benefit by the added compensation achieved by smooth ongoing of course.

Utilitarianism would balance this by considering the scenario of the course being dropped and of the students receiving no instruction in physiological psychology whatsoever.

The fact that it is a clinical psychologist, rather than anyone else outside the psychology discipline, who is offered the course shows that he or she is not as ignorant of psychological physiology as heretofore supposed. Psychology is his expertise and any course in psychology necessitates a grounding (however meager that may be) in the physiological content. Moreover, the individual's expertise in the clinical section may well have associations with the physiological area in at least one element, particularly so if the psychologist deals with the brain, with intelligence, with hearing and so forth. One would need to know more about the individual's particular expertise in order to decide whether a connection exists, and if a connection does exist the individual can easily connect the course to his expertise providing the students with illuminating and informative instruction. Either way, the psychologist is not as ignorant as heretofore supposed and the course, being, anyways, an introductory course, will benefit from the professor's input. Being that the majority, in this case, would benefit from existence of the course, utilitarianism suggests that the clinical psychologist proceed in instructing the material.

Kant's Formalist Theory

Ethical formalism, in specific, Kant's formalist theory applies universal laws to ethics. If something is wrong, it is wrong all the time. And the reverse too: a meritorious prescription -- something that is right -- is right all the time regardless of circumstance, place, and time. If death for instance is wrong, then it is a universal law that the wrongness of death applies to each and every situation, but if kindness is just, one should be kind to each and every individual regardless of specific case. Logical laws or 'universal prescriptions', rather than the specific content of the situation, define ethical judgment and reaction.

In the case of the clinical psychologist teaching the class, overt application of Kant's law seems to denote that the department chair would be wrong in asking the psychologist to lead the class, and likewise the psychologist would be wrong in accepting. After all, it is never the case that a psychologist- or that anyone for that matter - assumes a subject that he is unfamiliar with. Furthermore, the APA psychological code of ethics prohibits a psychologist from entering into terrain that he or she is unfamiliar with. It is never right for a psychologist to do so, and therefore it would be incorrect, in this situation, for the psychologist to instruct students in a subject matter that is beyond his ore her expertise. This is so even assuming that by virtue of her education (as noted before) the psychologist has some familiarity with the subject. Teachers- in the world of academia -- are selected by virtue of a combination of prior experience and subject expertise. These are the coda of selection of professor, The very fact that the psychologist lacks both - unfamiliarity in teaching experience in psychological physiology and unfamiliarity with subject itself -- should according to Kant's formalism eliminate him from teaching the subject.

Of course, all of this depends on the specific country and historical period in which the individual is asked to teach the class; namely on prescriptive norms that exist within that specific society. If clinical psychologists are ordinarily enlisted in teaching psychology classes unrelated, or partially related, to their discipline and/or if such is the case to other disciplines too, where practitioners only peripherally related another field, are commonly engaged in teaching the discipline (regardless of their unfamiliarity with subject), Kant's law of ethics may dictate that there may be, likewise, no problem here in the psychologist assuming the class. After all, it is always right (i.e. It is a universal law) in this situation that the individual, howsoever unfamiliar he may be with subject terrain, teach, and, therefore, the psychologist can too.

Wallace's Ethical Contextualism