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Teaching Ethics In An Atmosphere Of Skepticism And Relativism, W. Bradley Wendel Apr 2002

Teaching Ethics In An Atmosphere Of Skepticism And Relativism, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

I would like to do several things in this essay. First, I am interested in the sources of students' wariness about moral reasoning and claims about objectivity and truth in ethics. Sometimes I feel like a teacher of geography who must confront a deeply entrenched belief that the earth is flat. The earth is not flat, nor is ethics just a matter of opinion, but one wonders why students persist in thinking the opposite. Teaching effectively requires an understanding of where students are coming from. Accordingly, the opening section of this essay is structured around a series of hypotheses to …


Ethics For Skeptics, W. Bradley Wendel Jan 2002

Ethics For Skeptics, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

One of the themes of the 2002 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools ("AALS") has been that we, as teachers, must do better at engaging our students "where they're at." A number of speakers on various panels addressed the consumerist mentality among students, the desire of a population raised on MTV for multimedia lectures that resemble rapidly paced entertainment with high production values, and the suspicion of students toward claims of authority by teachers that are not backed up by respect and hard work. In addition, I would add a further observation as a teacher of ethics …