Page Menu



Translate this page from English...

*Machine translated pages not guaranteed for accuracy.

Click Here for our professional translations.


Print Page Change Text Size: T T T

11-06-2007: Workshop on Fostering Ethical Reasoning Across the Curriculum with Dr Linda Elder

2008 Workshop on Fostering Ethical Reasoning Across the Curriculum with Dr. Linda Elder

Foundation for Critical Thinking

Foundation for Critical Thinking
News
For Immediate Release
Contact: Hunter Finch
707-878-9100 X 17
hfinch@criticalthinking.org

The Foundation for Critical Thinking to Host Workshop With
Dr. Linda Elder On Fostering Ethical Reasoning Across the Curriculum

 

Dillon Beach, CA (November 6, 2007) – The Foundation for Critical Thinking announced today it will host a workshop on "Fostering Ethical Reasoning Across the Curriculum” at the Berkeley Doubletree Hotel and Marina near the UC Berkeley Campus on February 29 through March 2, 2008. The workshop will be administered by Dr. Linda Elder, President of the Foundation for Critical Thinking and Executive Director for the Center for Critical Thinking. 

”Ethics is the study of decisions or behavior that benefits or harms persons and creatures,” said Elder. "Human behavior can be either praised ethically if someone acts to benefit the welfare of others, or criticized ethically when someone acts so as to harm others. Ethics is not to be confused with social convention, law, or religious beliefs. For any action to be unethical, it must deny another person or creature some inalienable right. Social convention and laws, as well as religious beliefs and ideologies, in contrast, vary enormously along national and cultural lines, whereas basic ethical concepts and principles are universal. Education should empower students ethically speaking, by helping them to separate ethical principles from their counterfeits in social convention, the law, religious beliefs, and social ideologies. All educated persons, properly so called, are able to reason ethically by focusing that reasoning on the relevant concepts and principles. Educated people do not confuse ethics with other modes of reasoning,” she said. 

This workshop session will focus on fostering ethical reasoning abilities in students. The participants will begin to lay the foundations for ethical reasoning by clearly discriminating relevant from irrelevant concepts and principles. "Consider this example," Elder said. "Everyone has a right to accept or reject religious beliefs, and hence to become a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist or an agnostic or an atheist.  What we don't have a right to is to impose our religious views on others. Therefore, if I argue, you must not do X or Y or Z because this holy book forbids it,  I am not reasoning ethically, I am reasoning theologically. My reasoning, therefore, applies to me and to everyone who shares my theology. But it should not be forced on anyone who accepts a different theology or who rejects theology in its entirety. Confusions of this sort occur frequently in everyday discussion of what is and is not ethical, and so we need to teach our students how to avoid these misconceptions. Clarity at this important level will be a by-product of participating in this workshop," she said.

The Center and Foundation for Critical Thinking have together hosted critical thinking academies, workshops, and conferences for more than a quarter century. During that time, these sister entities have played a key role in defining, structuring, assessing, improving and advancing the principles and best practices of fair-minded critical thought in education and in society.

Throughout their work, the Center and Foundation have emphasized and argued for the importance of teaching critical thinking in a strong, rather than in a weak, sense. They are committed to a clear and "substantive" concept of critical thinking (rather than to one that is ill-defined); to a concept that interfaces well with the disciplines, that integrates critical with creative thinking, that emphasizes the affective as well as the cognitive dimension of critical thinking, that highlights intellectual standards and traits. They advocate a concept of critical thinking that organizes instruction in every subject area at every educational level, around it, on it, and through it.

To Register for the Workshop on Fostering Ethical Reasoning Across the Curriculum, log onto: http://www.criticalthinking.org/conference/Spring08-Ethical.cfm

For More About The Foundation for Critical Thinking, log onto:
http://www.criticalthinking.org

Photo:

Linda Elder 

Dr. Linda Elder, Executive Director of the Center for Critical Thinking, President of the Foundation for Critical Thinking:  As an educational psychologist, Dr. Elder has extensive experience in leading seminars for educators in such topics as infusing critical thinking into instruction, the affective dimension of thinking, and Socratic questioning. She currently co-authors a quarterly column on critical thinking in the Journal of Developmental Education. She has also co-authored four books, along with Richard Paul, including 'Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life' and 'Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life' as well as eighteen 'Thinker’s Guides' on critical thinking. Dr. Elder developed an original stage theory of critical thinking development. Her experience in both administration and in the classroom enables her to understand firsthand the problems facing educators. She is a dynamic presenter who reaches her audience on a person-to person level, and her workshops are highly rated.