Why should MC require ethics class?

We are a diverse community here at Maryville College. Our halls and commons resemble an ant colony, and each of us has a job to do and a place to go. However, one uniform experience brings us all together. For many of us, it is our last semester at Maryville College, and we are required to take a strange class called ETH490: Ethics. But why? 

To answer this question, I got to work investigating the mysteries of the ethics class, and what better place to begin than with Professor of Philosophy and the Ralph W. Beeson Professor of Religion at MC, Dr. Bill Meyer. 

Meyer expressed that the ethics class “is a capstone of our core curriculum” and that it “equips our students to be more reflective.” He believes that ethics at Maryville College invites us to reflect on “what is worthwhile, what is good, and what is just.” 

This isn’t just isolated to our school life. Meyer wants us to be reflective in all parts of our lives, including our “personal life, professional life and as a member of a community.” This is, to Meyer, what it means to be a “liberally educated person.” The goal of a liberal education isn’t merely to pick up a trade or bits of specialized knowledge, but to become a better, more educated member of any community your travels take you too. 

As we start to piece together what ethics means to Meyer and the goal of ethics at Maryville College, we must ask ourselves if this applies to everybody’s belief systems, and, more importantly, can somebody get this same value if they believe ethics to be subjective or nonexistent? 

“Some questions are not individual, subjective or preferential questions,” Meyer said.

“We may have been doing things for many years, like the iPhone, that have had adverse effects on human beings, and the objective effects are becoming quite clear.”

The idea that someone can hold subjective ethical beliefs doesn’t keep that person from having to answer objective evaluative claims about what is good or bad for human beings. 

Meyer thinks that even if ethics is subjective, it is objectively the case that some things are harmful or beneficial to all subjects, like the ability to reflect and think deeply about questions of value, purpose or ethics. 

Perhaps this is the case, but we must broaden our search to include another Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Dr. Andrew Irvine. 

Irvine was quick to respond that the reason we teach ethics to all majors is that “ethics is everybody’s business.” He said the point of ethics with all majors is, “to share their expertise and think more broadly about what sort of human society we are trying to build.” 

This approach views ethics as a kind of community exercise where everybody’s opinion is valued, and we must work together to tackle the difficult questions. This leads us to the conclusion that the study of ethics is both a reflective activity for ourselves and a community-building activity for all people to participate in. 

However, how will learning about random old philosophers help me with any of this stuff? Are we supposed to combine all of them together to find ethics, or is it through picking which one sounds best? Irvine found this question amusing, stating, “ [the philosophers] often offer mutually exclusive answers.”

“In encountering these philosophers, it’s not simply to learn the philosophers, but to start thinking about what [the student] really thinks.” 

In other words, philosophy isn’t about memorizing certain philosophers or completely adhering to one of the ethical systems put forth, but learning to think about these moral questions. 

 “The goal of the course is for students to look at their life from a moral perspective and want to build a good life that is good for the world as well,” Irvine said.

After spending time learning about and understanding why ethics is so important to these professors, it is clear why Maryville College is so unique. This isn’t merely a class, but an attempt to instill a way of life—a life where one cares deeply about reflecting upon, inquiring into and defending ethical questions. 

Maryville College seeks to put ethics back into the limelight, even for a few moments, so that when one is making a business decision, political action or biological study, ethics always stays nagging for due consideration. To study ethics is to study how to think, reflect and value ourselves, our wider community and even the whole world.