A few weeks ago I was sitting in a classroom anticipating the start to my required ethics course when the professor walked in and posed the question, ‘What is the difference between morality and ethics?’ The students had a variety of replies, including: Morality is religious, whereas ethics are based on science; morality is personal, whereas ethics are applied to society.
After hearing these explanations, my professor said, “In my belief system, morality and ethics are not very different, but we call it (a set of personal standards) ethics to make those (value) judgments.” This statement assumes that each person has a belief system that is only true for him.
If truth is based on one’s beliefs, then if I decide something is false, it becomes false. Conversely, if I think something is true, it becomes true.
In reality, two different people often hold opposing views. The question then comes down to who is right. If truth is based on one’s own beliefs, no value judgment can be made, neither person is inherently right nor wrong.
Within democracy, determining societal right and wrong then becomes a question of numbers. For example, how many people believe murder is right vs. how many people believe murder is wrong. However, there’s a problem with this kind of thinking because peoples’ opinions don’t always match what is true.
This brings us to education. Without absolute truth educators cannot teach their pupils anything because there is no fundamentally right thing to teach.
Their job becomes oppressing their views on their students. Conversely, if there is absolute truth, and a professor claims to have a certain understanding of the truth, learning through critical evaluation can occur.
Unfortunately, even this is not possible within our current education system. Take evolution, which is taught in primary schools as a fact, without an opposing view, including that of intelligent design. Students presented with only one side of this debate are denied the tools necessary to make an educated decision. This is when education becomes indoctrination.
The American education system preaches the doctrine of naturalism, which is an understanding of the world in scientific terms without supernatural explanation. The exclusivity of this view in our education system is enforced by a miss-interpretation of Jefferson’s words, “separation of church and state,” that began in 1947 with Everson v. Board of Education.
These words are taken from a letter to the Danbury Baptists written January 1, 1802 in which Thomas Jefferson stated, “legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
Jefferson’s original intention was to prevent the federal government from interfering with the free exercise of religion. Jefferson states the same idea again in the Kentucky Resolution, 1798, “No power over the freedom of religion… (is) delegated to the United State by the Constitution.”
He states it yet again in his Second Inaugural Address, 1805, “In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general (federal) government.” Yet again he states it in a Letter to Samuel Millar, 1808, “I consider the government of the United States as interdicted (prohibited) by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions . . . or exercises.”
Jefferson’s words, originally indented to ensure the “the free exercise of religion,” have been twisted to exclude all religions, except naturalism, from American public schools.
It is time to restore a balanced classroom environment by abolishing all of the laws concerning the “establishment of religion or prohibition thereof.”
Until the judiciary repeals these laws, I challenge you, my fellow students: bring the other side of relevant moral issues back into the classroom.