Normative Content and Ethical Reasoning
THRO cases ask students to select between competing principles and to write a satisfactory rationale justifying their choice. There is no correct or incorrect response to an attitude measure asking students to indicate on a scale of 1 to 5 their approval or disapproval of President Clinton’s response to Kosovo. After explaining why they approve or disapprove, model answers illustrate that a well reasoned argument may be offered either in praise or in condemnation of the NATO bombing. Whether the criteria applied are moral principles, legal standards, military criteria, or political norms, reasonable minds disagree over whether the war was just. Online feedback should help students learn to articulate the criteria applied and to offer a consistent rationale for their choice between two competing principles.
That instructional approach to normative issues attempts to avoid the Scylla of values indoctrination and the Charybdis of disregard for students’ ethical development. Some educators, both progressives and social conservatives, openly acknowledge their goal of teaching values; moral instruction in undergraduate education nevertheless remains widely suspect and politically controversial.8 Peace Studies faculty openly acknowledge a moral orientation, while many who teach security studies advocate objective realism. Ethics courses are required in business, medicine, and law for practitioners subject to professional standards that protect society. Service learning and intern experiences are promoted by some as vehicles for citizenship training and criticized by others for lacking academic rigor.
Human rights education can never be value neutral; instructors legitimately offer lessons intended to avert a recurrence of history’s worst atrocities. Despite their shared commitment to universal norms, human rights advocates often disagree over practical applications. THRO cases raise ethical and political dilemmas that divide human rights proponents.
Learning theorists and moral philosophers disagree over how instructors might conduct and evaluate ethical development. Krathwohl and Bloom’s work on the affective domain proposes a rarely cited taxonomy--receiving, responding, valuing, organization, and characterization.9 Kohlberg’s stages of moral development are widely known, but academics have not embraced his interview design for measuring moral judgment.10 Howard Gardner concludes that moral judgments and behaviors are not properly distinguished as a separate intelligence distinct from the cognitive domain.11
William Perry’s work on the stages of intellectual development reveals the need to cultivate uncertainty in undergraduates’ world view.12 High school graduates bring to college a dualistic mind set and ask to be taught the truth. "Professor, what is the correct answer? How can there possibly be more than one way to solve that problem and still get it right?" are questions college freshman often ask. Dualists with simplistic views of truth and justice regard attorneys as unprincipled hired guns. The case method complicates that reality.
Craig Nelson labels the elementary stage of cognitive development the "Sergeant Friday" approach, using "just the facts" to establish an unequivocal truth.13 At the intermediate level of cognitive development, Nelson describes a "Baskin and Robbins" mode when student relativists find some validity in every individual’s unique tastes and have little basis for making value judgments. At the highest level of moral reasoning, the course instructor may enlist advanced students in evaluating universal principles, cultural relativism, and situational ethics. In an undergraduate class of "Sergeant Friday" thinkers, a "Baskin and Robbins" challenge may cultivate legitimate uncertainty that promotes development of intermediate level critical thinking skills.
Conclusion
THRO cases were prepared for educators to teach substantive human rights content as well as the value of reasoned analysis and collaborative problem solving. THRO must be distinguished from uses of instructional technology that dehumanize education and replace faculty with teaching machines. Effective teaching online requires significant professional commitment to master active learning strategies. Case teaching notes that accompany each THRO problem offer specific guidance for instructors prepared to engage students online and to apply the principles of Socrates and Dewey in cyberspace.
Active Learning Rationale/Cognitive Skills/Normative Reasoning
