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MOST UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS acknowl-edge the need to engender social responsibility,at least among students. College missionstatements feature this goal front and center.

Whether or not dis-honesty or irresponsi-

bility is common on campus, students mustdevelop their moral insight and reasoningskills simply to assume adult roles and themore complex responsibilities that go alongwith them. To its credit, higher education istrying to address this challenge through bothethics courses (theory) and service programs(practice). Still, most programs focus on a nar-row, pet area of the ethical network: characterand virtue; ethical problem solving or reason-ing; value awareness, self-responsibility anddiscipline; ethical role requirements withincomplex institutions; ethical codes of conduct;community service learning; ethical mentors,coaches, and role models; civic and citizen-ship education. And this has led to competi-tion among camps—a competition ofinadequacy.

A few programs offer more inclusive alterna-tives (see Colby et al. 2003), but they are notbeing adopted more widely due to the academicethos of unique originality. Each school seemsto feel it must reinvent the wheel. Looking atthe various program foci, instead, as compo-nents of a more inclusive program, let us con-sider how some main themes can be enhanced.

Responsibility focusA great contribution to ethics is the feministdistinction between responsibility and “re-sponse-ability.” A standard responsibility is afelt requirement, a debt owed, usually a burden-some duty that restricts our individual(istic)freedom. It requires us to sacrifice self-inter-ests for the interests of others, usually againstthe pull of our wills. This not only makes ethicsa hard sell motivationally, but it also reflectsthe moralistic, child-like view of ethics as im-posed taskmaster rather than as expressivetool. A nonstandard sense of responsibility ac-cords our role in relationships more due andallows us to see responsibility as the ability torespond to others—to respond well and self-gratifyingly. This transforms the restrictivedrawbacks of responsible compliance into at-tractive opportunities to shine.

A “response-ability” viewpoint makes bettersense of our responsibilities toward ourselvesas well, including our growth or developmentand our personal integrity. The standard pic-ture of self-responsibility, where we force our-selves to do things, cannot represent theself-discipline or self-determination involvedas true freedom—except through sleight ofhand abetted by self-delusion. And ethicsmust be free; it must organize voluntary coop-eration, not cooperation-or-else. By contrast,self-response-ability focuses us on our ownworth and the value of our talents or poten-tials. It enhances our self-appreciation andrests on our predictable response to what wereally are and can become.

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BILL PUKA is professor of philosophy and psychol-ogy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Teaching Ethical

Excellence Artful Response-Ability,

Creative Integrity, Character Opus

B I L L P U K A

Ethics is “majoring”in one’s life as a whole,

not just one’sstudies or career

RensselaerPolytechnicInstitute

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Compare this ethics of response and inspi-ration with “doing the right thing for its ownsake.” The latter is often held up as the onlyproper moral motivation, or as morality’s no-blest motivational ideal. But it’s an ideal thatconflicts with human nature and the laws ofpsychology. Even when we can twist our naturesomehow to generate such motives, they tendto bring out the worst in us—sheepishness,conformity, and masochism. They leave us de-fenseless in the face of raw power, aggressivecompetition, and everyday exploitation by theself-interested. Long experience with beingtaken advantage of reveals the futility of thisorientation. It thus pushes us toward personalhypocrisy, toward the use of ethics as windowdressing to hide pragmatism, and toward therelegation of ethics to the dustbin of idealismor utopian dreaming. In everyday life, theseproblems render our ethical behavior begrudg-ing, not self-affirming or fulfilling. If these arethe categories students will use to organizetheir ethics education, the task is futile andpossibly counterproductive. Thus, moving tononstandard themes and approaches is a must.

Integrity focusA second valuable distinction in ethics comesfrom moral exemplar literature (see Olinerand Oliner 1988; Colby and Damon 1992;Puka 1993). Gandhi distinguished sharply be-tween honesty and integrity, as did Aristotle inhis Ethics. For Gandhi, integrity meant livingone’s life as an open book. It meant conductinga long series of experiments in better living thatothers could analyze, learn from, and criticize.To our limited moral imaginations, this lifestyleseems difficult. So we brand it as “ideal” and

“beyond the call of duty”—the stuff of super-human effort and humanity. We need not feelexpected, therefore, to give it a whirl. Butsuch integrity is not a difficult pursuit: ourcharacter isn’t at stake if we fail. The ethicalpressure is off. All we can expect of ourselveshere is to try, and try something new, not toexert ourselves overly on tasks we already dread.

Experiments often fail and are expected todo so. Thus success is not demanded, as it isby standard ethical obligation. When we fail,we cannot really be blamed. After all, we arededicating our whole lives to our bettermentin dealing with others. What more can be ex-pected of us? Failure is automatically followedby trying again, and trying better by designand routine. Where someone is hurt in theprocess, I simply try to compensate. I apolo-gize, but have little to apologize for since myexperiments show unusual care to avoid suchconsequences. The next attempt routinelytakes greater precautions. Acquiring greatervirtues—becoming someone better—is thecontinual aim and likely consequence here,not preserving my ego or its precious moralcharacter. Contrast this ongoing routine offull-life integrity with mere honesty—withthe struggle of not telling lies or with being a“man of my word.”

Character focusIn distinguishing honesty, ethical consistency,and integrity, Aristotle saw the last as characteritself. Character is the full integration of ouradmirable traits and abilities into an admirablyfunctioning virtue system. It includes the ha-bituation of these abilities, their motivationalsupports, and their expression. It includes the

24 L I B E R A L ED U C A T I O N SU M M E R/FA L L 2005

RensselaerPolytechnic

Institute

good judgment that must retool the manner oftheir expression in unusual or especially diffi-cult social contexts, and it includes the devel-oping artfulness of social interaction. Aristotle’stwo essays on ethics, which have defined thevery term itself in western culture, pose in-tegrity as the spring of excellence in living. Theyput the art in living, in relating to others, and inbeing an exemplary type of person. The morewe adopt Aristotle’s encompassing definition ofethics as living well and flourishing, the moreand better ethics integrates with our daily lives.

To be ethical is to be practical also. It is towork well at one’s job and pursue a diligentcareer. It is to balance work artfully with fam-ily, exemplary parenting, and community in-volvement. In the liberal arts collegeespecially, students are urged to nurture excel-lence in a major concentration of study and tonurture some lesser competence in a minorarea. The rest is relegated to “literacy”—be itmath literacy or literature—the ability to un-derstand from outside what’s going on in somearea and to converse with those focusing onit. For Aristotle, ethics is “majoring” in one’slife as a whole, not just one’s studies or career.It is majoring in oneself and one’s relation-ships to make them artful, to make them thebest they can be. Ethics is making one’s contribution to society and to humanity.

Students are already convinced of the needfor competence in their education and for ex-cellence in developing the skills that will helpthem land a good job. They also understandthat there’s a good deal more than this to suc-cessful living, which also involves doingsomething that is meaningful, finding love,and belonging. Students understand that,even outside what society normally wouldterm ethics. They know that some values aresuperficial and fleeting, while others are deepand lasting. Thus, Aristotelian ethics does nothave to come out of left field and make thecase for not doing what we wish to do or whatworks. Education itself is ethics, and so too aresocial life, home life, and citizenship. Scien-tific research is ethics, as is writing. The key isto achieve balance and proportion. Thisshows integrity. This is integrity.

From this vantage point, calling for specialcourses or programs in collegiate ethics seemsodd. So do attempts to integrate ethics acrossthe curriculum. It’s already there. It must merelybe found, highlighted, and developed further.

Ethics is know-how developed in pursuits thatare worth doing. It is know-how in distinguish-ing better and worse values or goals, especiallythrough practice and experience, reflection anddiscussion with others. (This is why know-howin lying, manipulating, thieving, and the likeare not ethical; they are inferior uses of greatskills, employed for inferior ends.)

Ethics is personal entrepreneurship and in-terpersonal management at their excellent ex-tremes. It is good business in the business oflife. By contrast, look at what currently passesfor management in business and even in somebusiness courses. Arbitrary authority hierar-chies dominate, dispensing childlike incen-tives to employees—from intimidation andthreats to perquisites and bonuses. Burgeon-ing adults are reduced to children here.

The same can be said for standard parenting.We expect even our youngest children to ne-gotiate their interactions reasonably and theirconflicts fairly, not by threatening or hittingeach other, but by “using their words” and“playing nice.” Yet parents wouldn’t dream ofholding themselves to such standards evenwhen dealing with their outmatched toddlers.Well prior to so-called spanking (assault andbattery), parents resort to every small-mindedform of deception, manipulation, intimidation,and authoritarianism in the book: “becauseit’s time to go”; “because you have to”; “I’llcount to ten, and then you’ll be sorry”; “becauseI’m the mommy, that’s why.” In an Aristotelianethics curriculum, parent training would beprominent, along with childhood training (es-pecially toward aging parents). So too wouldthe arts of loving relationship generally. Afterall, what is more important or valuable? ■■

To respond to this article, e-mail liberaled@aacu.org,with the author’s name on the subject line.

REFERENCESColby, A., T. Ehrlich, E. Beaumont, and J. Stephens.

2003. Educating citizens: Preparing America’s under-graduates for lives of moral and civic responsibility.San Francisco: Josey-Bass.

Colby A., and W. Damon. 1992. Some do care. NewYork: Free Press.

Oliner, S. and P. Oliner. 1988. The altruistic personality.New York: Free Press.

Puka, B. 1993. Be your own hero. Paper presented atthe annual meeting of the Association for MoralEducation, Notre Dame University.

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