My online ethics classes have restarted for the new year. Today I just have the original ages 10-12 classes. The topic for the week is “Are some things just wrong”? The idea is to talk about whether morals are absolute or relative, by introducing the concepts slowly and building up to that question near the end of the class.
I start with a story about different foods that people of different cultures like eating. Is it okay for some cultures to eat dog meat, or is it wrong for them to do that? Is it okay for some cultures to eat beef, if some other cultures think that’s wrong? Is it always wrong to eat dogs, and any culture that thinks it’s okay is incorrect? Is it always okay to eat cows, and any culture that thinks it’s wrong is incorrect? Or does it all depend on your culture: it’s okay for some people to eat dogs/cows, but not other people?
Is it wrong to criticise someone else’s culture? Always? Or is it okay sometimes?
We move on to discussing things like stealing or murdering. Is it possible for everyone to agree that these are wrong? If someone thinks murdering is morally okay, are they incorrect, or is that a valid point of view?
So… could it be that some things are morally objective, while some other things are morally subjective? How do we know which is which? These are pretty deep questions – hopefully the kids will appreciate the trickiness of them!
Prior to the evening’s lessons, I mostly worked on Darths & Droids writing, trying to build up a bit more of a buffer before I get stuck into the teaching too much. It was warm today, but still not really summery hot. I checked the records, and discovered that the temperature hasn’t even reached 30°C here in Sydney since last February, which is extremely unusual. By January we should be having a few days in the high 30s or even 40s. Although I’m not missing the extreme heat – the lower temperatures are more pleasant!
New content today: