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davidh
August 12th, 2006, 06:14 PM
"Sloan (1 980) marks the early
19th century as an important period in American higher education when, as
he notes, moral philosophy began "to appear to be the central point in the
college curriculum"


LONGER QUOTATION

The Historical Setting
According t o Bok (1976), Powers and Vogel (1980), Sloan (1 9801, and
Rossouw (1 994), the teaching of moral philosophy once held an important
and distinguished place in the higher education curriculum in the USA.
In the nineteenth century, it was commonplace for [American]
college presidents to present a series of lectures to the senior
class expounding the accepted moral principles of the time. . . .
Partly because of their positions of authority, and partly because
of the force of their personalities many presidents seem t o have
left a deep impression on the minds and characters of their
student. (Bok, 1976, p. 27)
Sloan rates the required course in moral philosophy as the most important
course in the 19th-century college curriculum-a capstone of the curriculum:
"It aimed to pull together, t o integrate, and to give meaning and purpose to
the students' entire college experience and course of study" (p. 2).
Although it is possible t o trace back to ancient times a tradition of
respect for the academic discipline of moral philosophy, the early 1800s is a
suitable starting point for this brief review. Sloan (1 980) marks the early

13
19th century as an important period in American higher education when, as
he notes, moral philosophy began "to appear to be the central point in the
college curriculum" (p. 3). He suggests that this time period is significant
because social leaders and ordinary citizens in the United States assumed
that, to survive and prosper, a set of social and moral values common to al1
members of the nation was necessary. Furthermore, it was a widely held
social view that moral education had the power to instill a sense of national
community and provide a social mechanism to create shared social values.
Thus, in higher education the course in moral philosophy took on a special
status.
According to Sloan (1 980)' "Moral philosophy also served to promote
intellectual harmony by introducing into the curriculum a wide range of new
subject matter and attempting to exhibit for the student its ethical
dimensions" (p. 6). Also, the study of moral philosophy helped form the
moral character and disposition of the individual student. This required the
moral philosophy teacher to attempt to awaken the learner's ethical
sensitivity and to provide theoretical ground from which the graduate would
be able to continue his or her own development through life experience.
Finally, the moral philosophy teacher provided concrete examples of the
ethical concerns of society and the conduct expected of social leaders.
Man y topics central to the present-day areas of social science
specialization were discussed in the 19th-century moral philosophy class. At
the time also the high value placed on 'scientific method' demanded
"increased precision in argument and greater delineation of related fields of
study" (Sloan, 1980, p. 61. Through the century subjects such as political

science. economics, and psychology began to split out of moral philosophy.
and, in so doing. they took along the moral and ethical imperatives
connected to them. Both Sloan and Rossouw (1994) agree that the
preeminence of moral philosophy in undergraduate instruction did not survive
the 19th century. Sloan attributes the decline of moral philosophy. in part,
t o an interna1 weakness as a discipline in that "philosophy had cast a false
patina of unity over the curriculum, which it was powerless to maintain"
(p. 8). Knowledge was expanding rapidly, and the discipline of moral
philosophy became increasingly fragmented. The consequence of
fragmentation would bel as philosophers predicted. increasing neglect of the
ethical foundations of the pursuit of knowledge.

END OF LONGER QUOTATION

University of Alberta
lndoctrination and Business Ethics
Kathleen Elizabeth Byrne
O
A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education
in
Philosophy of Education
Department of Educational Policy Studies
Edmonton, Alberta
Fall 1997

Judy G. Russell
August 13th, 2006, 09:42 PM
Right. And what do we have now? Something on the order of 80% of graduate and undergraduate students admitting to cheating...