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Morality In The University Peter Term Paper

A college educated doctor, for example, needs to understand his or her obligation to the patient to do no harm, to be honest about conditions and medications, not to put any outside interests over patient health, to keep confidentiality, to treat fairly with co-workers, not to steal drugs from his workplace, and all other such ethical constraints. Regardless of whether or not it may be "moral" to spare someone from suffering, for example, a college-educated doctor should know that it is not ethical to euthanize someone without their consent. Likewise researchers should know about the ethics of research where it concerns honesty, good treatment of test subjects, and other such issues. Even those studying business or other fields without such strict ethical codes should be trained in ethics for their field -- a corrupt accountant, for example, may not feel personally that they are being immoral (perhaps they consider that "no one is being hurt") but college should have taught them that the ethics of their field require honesty. In all fields there is a form of morality. In fact, this is precisely what is being said by Rochester when he claims there is an "ascetic morality inherent in the very notions of research, discovery and scientific truth." (Steinfels) This is not a morality -- it does not deal with personal and spiritual ideals of what is...

This is an ethic, for it deals with the forms and methods which scientists must follow. Certainly, a scientist might make of science a religion and from there develop a personal morality based on science -- but that morality is not required to be a scientist. That ethic, however, is necessary.
In conclusion, one wishes that all the professors involved in this debate would sit back for a moment and reconsider their positions. Do they truly wish to be teaching morality, which concerns absolute and personal values of right and wrong, or do they wish to teach ethics, which concerns the proper behavior of a productive member of society? My hypothesis is that both sides of this argument would actually agree that ethics ought to be taught in schools and that morality ought not to be -- and it is a misunderstanding of the difference between these that has provoked this entire debate. Unfortunately, the fact that the difference cannot be understood by these people probably indicates that those who do not wish morality taught are also not teaching ethics (a terrifying thought to anyone hoping to go to a doctor educated in these schools), and that those who do wish to teach morality are teaching ethics as if it were morality, which is to say as something that is personal and relative. In either case, it's a bad outlook.

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