Ethical Reasoning

Ethical Reasoning is the development of students’ abilities to understand and critically engage the ethical dimensions of thought, knowledge, and behaviors, and to contribute ethically to the personal, professional and larger social contexts in which they live. Realizing that behavior has consequences for the welfare of others, learners assess reasoning processes and learn the ethical principles that help guide and evaluate actions. Such reasoning engages the underlying normative commitments and consequences of different traditions of ethical thought, of fields of knowledge, of contexts that transcend individual interest, with an appreciation for the kind of complexity that goes well beyond the binaries such as “right and wrong.”