In this paper, we propose a method of teaching ethics that we developed—an innovative “flipped” case studies teaching method. To encourage the application of the flipped case study method we propose a research project, backed by theoretical perspectives of the cultural tool kit, which we expect will be more efficacious in creating, promoting, and sustaining a culture of ethical STEM research and practice than traditional case study methods or lecture-based instruction. More specifically, we address engineering contexts due to explicit calls for changes surrounding the teaching of ethics in engineering, which we further explore in the background literature. We believe that an innovative flipped case study method, which we argue supports culturally-sensitive ethics instruction to prepare students for real world ethical decision-making, will prove more effective in overall student learning and critical/analytical ability than the traditional case study and lecture-based approaches to teaching ethics.
I teach the course Becoming a Better Person that requires students to try to improve their own character traits. But how can I teach it in a way that benefits and respects students who are diverse in ability, race, class, gender, politics, and religion? I recommend three course designs. First, promote student buy-in by incorporating diverse experiences into course content and by highlighting that diverse moral and religious traditions embrace the same virtues. Second, create a culture of humble, open-ended inquiry. Although we begin in humility as learners of our authors’ best take on the virtues, the inquiry is open-ended such that students are encouraged to appeal to their own intuitions and traditions to offer improvements or challenges to the authors we read. Third, allow students to decide which virtues they want to cultivate as well as the strategies they use to do so; this avoids paternalism through student consent to the contours of the character-shaping assignment.
This paper aims to introduce a model for teaching ethics across the curriculum in higher education, developed at a research university in Latin America (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia), and to offer, drawing upon the lessons learned, actionable recommendations for integrating ethics into educational frameworks, guiding institutions and educators in fostering ethical competencies among students. The paper presents the model’s curricular and pedagogical elements as well as some recommendations for future users. The model described in this paper is built on the belief that teaching ethics fosters a positive transformation of social environments, interpersonal relationships, and individual behavior. As a result, we seek to inspire other faculty, and educators in general, to design and test new strategies for ethical training.
This exploratory study investigated the impact of brief restful activities—primarily guided mindfulness exercises—on students’ experiences during in-class medical ethics debates. Implemented in two semesters of an undergraduate course at a private R1 university, the intervention aimed to foster constructive dialogue around sensitive topics. Survey data from 40 students revealed minimal quantitative differences and uniformly positive qualitative feedback. Given the exploratory design and small sample size, the quantitative findings are best interpreted descriptively. Students reported reduced anxiety, improved focus, and a more grounded classroom ethos during sessions with restful activities. Even brief mindfulness practices appeared to enhance students’ emotional readiness for challenging discussions. This study suggests promising directions for integrating mindfulness into college teaching to promote constructive dialogue.
This paper argues that ethics can be effectively taught by motivating students to aspire toward justice as the highest stage of moral development. This involves presenting justice as the complementarity of ethical theories, showing how the ethics of virtue, duty, and utility each converge on what it means to act rightly and to live a good life. At the personal level, moral education aims to cultivate good will through character formation, encouraging students to grow in moral responsibility and practical wisdom. At the communal level, it seeks to create a kingdom of ends, a community of free and virtuous individuals united not by uniformity of values but by a shared commitment to mutual respect and the recognition of each person’s intrinsic worth. In modern democratic societies, where reasonable disagreement about the nature of the good life is unavoidable, individuals who are free to frame, revise, and pursue their own ends can nevertheless agree that justice is freedom of action, and injustice is its misuse. By grounding moral education in justice, this approach offers a coherent and integrative model for cultivating both moral agency and civic responsibility.
This paper examines Alice Mellings in Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist (1985) through the framework of relational autonomy. It argues that Alice’s turn to violence cannot be explained as either pure terrorism or individual culpability, but arises from emotional dependency, ideological mimicry, and socio-political constraint. Drawing on procedural and substantive accounts of autonomy, the analysis shows that Alice meets the material conditions of responsible agency yet fails procedurally through shallow reflection and unexamined loyalty. Her agency is shaped by structural forces but not dissolved by them, leaving her morally answerable for the harm she enables. The case exposes how compromised autonomy complicates judgments of blame and responsibility, offering a useful lens for teaching ethical reasoning in contexts of constraint, dependency, and political violence. More broadly, the paper demonstrates how literary narrative can unsettle and enrich philosophical models of autonomy, showing the value of fiction as a site for testing and refining ethical theory.
