The Ethical Function of Research and Teaching

Bibliographic Data

ID8856514
AuthorsPedro Tabensky (0000-0003-4015-4293, Rhodes University, corresponding author), Pedro Alexis Tabensky (Rhodes University)
Year2012
Volume46
Issue1
Pages100-111
Publication date2012-01-17
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducational Philosophy and Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-1857 • E-ISSN: 1469-5812
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00813.x
OpenAlexW4243296716, W2031676792
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited3

It is the epistemic as well as the ethical responsibility of academics to aim to approach their research and teaching with a proper understanding of the ultimate ethical purpose or telos of their defining activities and products,which is the practical aim of promoting human flourishing. Minimally, academics should aim at understanding, and a key component of understanding is to understand the ideal ethical purpose of what is being researched and taught. For instance, sadistic Nazi medical researchers and teachers—Mengeles of sorts—in addition to having reprehensible commitments,would be significantly ignorant about their own intellectual concerns by virtue of their abject (belief-expressing) commitments. I will show that insights drawn from extreme cases such as this one apply across disciplines and in less extreme cases.Keywords: research and teachingethical and epistemic responsibilityteleologymacro objectivesalignmentmeaning of knowledge

Autonomy · Beneficence · Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Flourishing · Function (biology · Ideal (ethics · Pedagogy · Political science · Sadistic personality disorder · Sociology · Telos · Virtue · Engineering · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Legal Education and Practice Innovations · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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