Can and Should We Teach Ethical Behavior?

Should ethics instructors seek to teach students to act more ethically? As might be expected, teachers of ethics are divided on whether ethics instruction should have character development as a specific goal. In this article, the author elaborates three concerns by raising and answering three questions about the goal of teaching students to be ethical: (1) Is it partisan?, (2) Is it possible?, (3) Is it practical? Ultimately, the author argues that the goal of promoting ethical behavior in an ethics course borders on being a partisan affair, may well not be possible, and is impractical. For these reasons, the author argues it is best to not adopt this goal.