Editor's Note: The Public Interest Section of the American Accounting Association is pleased to publish the following blog post by Steve Mintz, Professor Emeritus, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Please contact lawrence.chui@stthomas.edu with questions, comments, or suggestions about our blog, or to express interest in our organization. Disclaimer: When you read the comments of our columnists, please keep in mind that they only speak for themselves. They are not expressing the positions of the AAA or of any other party.
[This blog first appeared on Steve's blog site, “Ethics Sage.”]
Does teaching ethics work? If teaching ethics does no
good, then why are we doing it? The answer may lie in knowing what are (or
should be) the goals of teaching ethics.
First, let’s discuss what ethics education is not and
should not be expected to do. One thing I’ve learned from over thirty years of
teaching ethics is it should not be expected to make students more ethical. Yes,
we can teach ethics. Most of us do so all the time because positions we
advocate reflect our values and values are the foundation of ethical behavior.
We need to realize that our focus on teaching students
the particulars of various ethical reasoning methods may not be sufficient to
get students to act ethically. Why? Most students typically enter ethics
classes as moral relativists and don’t feel comfortable advocating for the
truth of one moral position over another. Moreover, students may lack the
confidence to discuss moral issues, especially if they have not taken a course
or two on philosophy.
So, what can ethics do to make students appreciate
that moral issues arise in our personal lives and in the workplace that must be
dealt? We need to focus our education on more than moral thinking. We need to
pay attention to moral action.
How do we do this? We should start by inculcating
values in students. This is extremely important because our society has morphed
into one that is based on self-interest, not the interests of the broader
community. In accounting, this is antithetical to the public interest dimension
of the work of an accountant and auditor.
Perhaps we don’t spend enough time understanding what
values mean. Values are things that have an inherent worth in usefulness or
importance to the possessor. Moral values then means the standards of behavior
determined through principles of right and wrong with regards to proper
conduct. It is related to a virtuous, ethically upright, principled way of
doing things.
But let’s be clear. It’s not just any values we should
teach. To do so just adds strength to the notion that it is alright to promote
any values—the moral relativists view.
One of the reasons I like to use virtues in my
discussions about values is the terms are similar, at least with respect to characteristic
traits of behavior that make for a morally good person. There are certain virtues
that are commonly accepted as the right way to behave including honesty,
kindness, compassion, fairness, civility, diligence, responsibility, and, most
important for accountants, integrity.
Beyond values education, there are reasons why
teaching ethics is important. On a practical level, we live in a time where
financial scandals abound—witness the subprime mortgage mess of 2008-2009 that
triggered a major financial recession. It seems financial scams are increasing
as well, and a good example is the fraud in the government’s PPE program during
the coronavirus and the paycheck protection program. We need to address these
real life issues in our ethics classes because students can relate to them.
Using specific events to teach values makes ethics education real.
Another reason to teach ethics is to give students the
tools to counteract the possibility that faulty rationalization and external
pressures will lead to unethical decisions. We’ve heard it before.
Rationalizations given include to be a team player, it’s standard operating
practice, the item in question is not material, and just go along this one time
and you won’t be asked to do it again.
Perhaps the most important reason to teach ethics is
to help students develop the critical thinking skills that will enable them to
give voice to their values formed by character-based education. The ethical
reasoning methods have a role to play here but we should realize that just
because a student can figure out what to do and why, that doesn’t mean they
will act that way when push comes to shove.
The role of ethics education is not to make students more ethical, but rather expose them to ethical dilemmas that will allow them to develop their own ethical decision-making process. We want them to be more confident in engaging in ethical dialogue. By doing so, we provide students with the skills and knowledge needed for them to make ethical decisions throughout their lives.