An ethical dilemma

Wednesday, 20th January 2010

NSW’s plan for ethics classes in schools fatally ignores religion’s role in Western civilisation, says Shelley Gare

Whenever I hear the words ‘ethics classes’ and ‘children’ in the same sentence, I reach for my fly swat. I know, I know, it’s like criticising kittens or attacking motherhood, but ethics, like so many things now — tomatoes, strawberries, childhood — aren’t quite what they once were.

The word used to evoke for me images like Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer resisting the Nazis; Aristotle and Socrates; or parents teaching their children integrity by example.

Now I’ve had to become used to a new sushi style of ethics; offered in attractive, commercialised portions that corporations, universities and government departments buy into with debates and courses because it allows them to keep doing whatever they were probably going to do, but with a slick of reverential, self-serving piety.

This year, the New South Wales education department is starting a ten-week pilot programme in ‘ethics classes’ for ten- to 12-year-olds as an alternative to the scripture classes or SRE (special religious education) provided in government schools by the churches. It will be a first in Australia, spearheaded and funded by the independent St James Ethics Centre which has doggedly pursued this since 2003, urged on by the NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens’ Associations.

Instead of the simplicity of the story of the Good Samaritan or Prodigal Son, children at ten test schools will debate such dilemmas as whether it’s better to tell granny the truth about her gift of an ugly home-knitted sweater, or lie to spare her feelings.

The names of Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill have been bandied about. (Mill would advocate a white lie; Kant would say bugger granny, the truth is what matters.)

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