EDUCATION AND ETHICS PROGRESS

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EDUCATION AND ETHICS PROGRESS

• Diego Gracia, MD, PhD
• Complutense University,
• Madrid, Spain

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UNESCO AND ST

• UNESCO has as one of its main goals the promotion
  of social and ethical responsibility in Science
  and Technology (ST).
• The need of education in value questions, due
  to the fact that ST arent value-free but
  value-laden activities.

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THE VALUE-FREE IDEAL

• The positivistic ideal of the 19th and the 1st
  part of the 20th Centuries ST as value-free,
  neutral and beyond good and evil activities.
• The II World War and the crisis of this model
• Hiroshima Nagasaki and the crisis of Physical
  sciences.
• Auschwitz Dachau and the crisis of Biomedical
  sciences.

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SCIENCE AS POWER

• Science means knowledge, and knowledge means
  power, which cant be lefts in the sole hands
  of scientists.
• Society has the responsibility of controlling ST
  developments.
• The need of educating society in the ethical
  implications of ST.

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UNESCOGoals in this field

• 1999 Declaration of the World Conference on
  Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge.
• The UNESCOs World Commission on the Ethics of
  Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) has
  committed itself to put this Declaration into
  action.

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UNITED NATIONS

• 2002 UN World Conference on Sustainable
  Development in Johannesburgh.
• UNESCO was designed as the leader agency for the
  promotion of the Decade of Education for
  Sustainable Development, starting in 2005.

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COMEST

• 2003 COMEST Report The Teaching of Ethics.
• The need of promoting ethics courses and PhD
  degrees in Science and Ethics in Universities.
• The need of supporting ethics teaching in
  developing countries.

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UNESCO EEP

• Following all these recommendations, UNESCO has
  started an Ethics Education Program (EEP) in the
  biennium 2004-2005.
• The program will initially focus on university
  education, promoting
• New ethics teaching programs.
• Quality assessment certification system.
• Schools of ethics (networks of experts).
• Others.

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ADVISORY EXPERT COMMISSION

• Need of qualified experts in ethics teaching to
  give advice.
• 2004 Creation of the Advisory Expert Commission
  for the Teaching of Ethics
• Core curriculum in the area of ethics
• Standards for evaluating teaching programs
• Developing a system of certification

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MODELS OF TEACHING ETHICS
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TWO TRADITIONAL MODELS

• Two traditional and opposite models of teaching
  ethics
• The indoctrination model
• The toleration model
• Looking for a new and better model
• The deliberation model

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INDOCTRINATION

• To indoctrinate somebody means to make him have a
  particular set of beliefs, especially by teaching
  which exclude all other points of view.
• The traditional way of indoctrinating people has
  been catechisation.
• The traditional model in some religious,
  philosophical, and political groups.

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TOLERATION NEUTRALITY

• It was promoted by the Liberal thinkers of the
  17th and 18th Centuries.
• Personal beliefs and values are private
  matters, and public teaching must remain
  neutral.
• The only thing permitted is the so-called value
  clarification.

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MAX WEBER, 1919

• One can not demonstrate scientifically what the
  duty of an academic teacher is. One can only
  demand of the teacher that he have the
  intellectual integrity to see that it is one
  thing to state facts, to determine mathematical
  or logical relations or the internal structure of
  cultural values, while it is another thing to
  answer questions of the value of culture and its
  individual contents and the question of how one
  should act in the cultural community and in
  political associations. These are quite
  heterogeneous problems. If he asks further why he
  should not deal with both types of problems in
  the lecture-room, the answer is because the
  prophet and the demagogue do not belong on the
  academic platform.

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• The best lack all convictions, while the worst
• are full of passionate intensity (Yeats)
• This model entered in crisis during the II World
  War.
• Values are not completely rational, but they
  should be reasonable.
• Therefore, discussion about values is possible
  and necessary.

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THE DELIBERATION MODEL
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DELIBERATION

• Deliberation is the method of practical
  reasoning.
• It is the way of analyzing the reasonableness of
  our values and beliefs.
• Its goal is not to reach a consensus, but to
  increase the practical wisdom or prudence of our
  decisions.

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DELIBERATION PRECONDITIONS

• The capacity of assuming that in value questions
  nobody has all the truth.
• The possibility of thinking that the others can
  help me find the way of being more wise and
  prudent.
• The unusual capacity of listening the others,
  those who dont agree with my values and points
  of view.

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ARISTOTLE

• Aristotle considered deliberation as the method
  of ethics, and the way to take wise decisions.
• What we decide to do is what we have judged to
  be right as a result of deliberation.

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DELIBERATION AS ALTERNATIVE

• Deliberation is the best alternative to
  indoctrination and to neutrality.
• There is a plurality of values, and homogeneity
  in this field is impossible.
• Only by testing the reasonability of our values,
  can we be sure that they are, at least, wise and
  prudent.

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DELIBERATION AS DUTY

• Deliberating with ourselves and with all others
  is a moral duty.
• We all have the moral duty of assuming the more
  reasonable moral values.
• Discussing all together, we will be capable of
  establishing a core set of values peacefully
  assumed by all.

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THE METHOD OF DELIBERATION

• Deliberation is an articulated method of
  reasoning and taking decisions.
• It takes into account not only principles and
  values, but also circumstances and consequences.
• A wise decision must balance all these elements,
  looking for the best possible solution.

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THE SOCRATIC PROCEDURE

• Deliberation was the method used by Socrates.
• Its goal is that everyone may give the best of
  his self.
• This procedure, with was in its beginning the
  real method of ethics, disappeared shortly after,
  being substituted by the other two
  indoctrination and neutrality.

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LOOKING FOR A DELIBERATIVE SOCIETY

• It is time to amend that situation and promote
  its use, training people in the deliberative
  skills from the very beginning, in the years of
  primary school, until the highest levels of the
  educational process.
• This should be the UNESCOs lemma during the
  decade of ethical education which is now
  beginning.

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DELIBERATIVE EDUCATION

• UN have established the promotion of sustainable
  development as one of its goals.
• UNESCO should design a complementary program,
  avoiding both extremes in value education
  indoctrination and value neutrality.
• The Goal Promotion of Sustainable Development
  through Deliberative Education.
• This is, at least, my proposal.