Virtue ethics and moral philosophy

Virtue

What is the main problem in the field of higher education today, according to Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers?

Sommers is concerned about several things that take place on college campuses in America. She is aware that students cheat rather than do their own work, for one thing. She reports on a survey by the Boston Globe that revealed a shocking 75% of high school students have admitted to cheating; the percentage of college students that cheat is 50% and the percentage of college-age students that would steal from their employers is 34%.

All of this shocking to Sommers but she believes the source of these negative statistics is the fact that students are not being taught ethics. Instead the students are enrolled in courses in moral relativism and social justice (along with other social issues); very little was being taught regarding morality, personal morality and taking responsibility for person behaviors.

Her passion for teaching students ethical truths and moral facts comes through this article very powerfully. The fact that students believe there are "no plain moral facts" is somewhat astounding to Sommers and leads her to believe this is a root cause for cheating and lying among today's college students. She offers suggestions for solving this problem, beginning with the thought that students should be required to take classes on "the philosophy of virtue" -- and a good start would be to teach Plato, Augustine, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. On top of that -- even though younger people may not be able to relate to some of those philosophers -- she believes that children at the elementary and secondary level should be reading biographies of "great men and women." Teaching "moral stories" has gone out of date but Sommers' view is that teachers at that level should be teaching moral stories. Would that be brainwashing? She scoffs at that notion. Teachers should emphasize "civility, kindness, and honesty" and teachers should be told stories "that reinforce goodness" because students' "own character is at stake."

Reading through the essay by Rigterink and Louzecky it is clear they reject Sommers' suggestions as simplistic and unworkable. Moreover, they assert that Sommers' "statistical evidence fails" to answer key questions regarding why students cheat. She doesn't realize that students are in the "midst of coming of age" and it is perfectly "understandable how, amidst all this turmoil," students have trouble "…naming and foundational beliefs." In short, the authors of this article suggest that Sommers is using anecdotal stories and references that just don't stand up, that don't really prove anything. The authors suggest that reading Aristotle (in terms of learning what virtue is really about) won't help students learn about ethics; instead, students learn by doing, they insist. They mention that the Japanese "…instill the basic values of their society within their school system" -- not in a classroom, but "throughout the entire day" in terms of student behaviors that are expected by school administrators and teachers.

Sommers is "misguided" and by the way "…even uninspired students can become engineers" or doctors or lawyers, they point out. And in fact, they continue, the American culture has not been devoted to virtue and there is now assurance that teaching values will change anything. They advocate "moderation" in the teaching of ethics and they clearly think teaching values and virtue is the job of families, not schools; and moreover, society is built on "a desire for more consumer goods."