Ethical Reasoning Overlay Assessment

Definition

Ethical Reasoning (3 credit hours)

One course addressing both:

  • different conceptions of rights and duties, the good, and justice, AND
  • methods for assessing alternative claims about these fundamental conceptions, evaluating the relative priorities of corresponding ethical principles, and negotiating the complexity of the application of those principles

Students who are double majors across colleges (i.e., one in Arts and Sciences and one in a different college) may be able to satisfy this requirement with an approved ethics course in their own college.

Assessment Criteria

In addition to submitting a sample syllabus, Ethical Reasoning Overlay Committee requires departments to answer the following questions to aid the committee in their evaluation of courses for inclusion as a Ethical Reasoning Overlay:   

Standards of Assessment

  1. General purpose of overlay, per COAS requirements: “to provide students with the tools for reasoning about moral behavior and just social arrangements, including forms of government and legal and social conventions. A good education includes not only learning about alternative ways of living but also learning to assess the ethical merits of those alternatives. It provides a wide basis for negotiating moral complexity and for critically reflecting upon fundamental normative issues in the shaping of social institutions and individual action. Thus conceived, developing the ability to reason about ethics is distinct from learning about injustices in the world and becoming motivated to do good or make change.”  
  2. Pedagogic requirements   
    1. Different conceptions of rights and duties, the good, and justice; and,  
    2. Methods for assessing alternative claims about these fundamental conceptions, evaluating the relative priorities of corresponding ethical principles, and negotiating the complexity of the application of those principles.  
  3. SLOs  
    1.  Students will develop an ability to appropriately apply ethical theories to reach principled moral judgments about what ought to be done in real-world cases.   
    2.  Students will develop an ability to use moral judgments in novel cases to critically evaluate competing systems of prioritized ethical principles or values.