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Teaching Moral Values
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Words! Words! Words! Currently, there are many words spoken in many places by many people about values. The purpose and meaning behind all this talk is frequently skewed to support a particular position: liberal or conservative, pro-life or pro-choice, religious or secular. Other than mentioning the word values, the discussion of them seriously lacks depth; we all assume that everybody knows what we are talking about when we say “values.” Today's young people do not let us “off the hook” so readily. Consequently, when we link a discipline with moral values and college students we tend to “bite off more than we can chew.” Who Are Collegians? Ask college students who they are and they might reply, “Most, but not all, of us are traditional students, 18 to 21 or so, white, black, yellow; women and men. “We like to be together and when we are together we laugh a lot, we cry. We are perplexed in our search for the meaning of life—our life and life in general. “We also do; we build homes for the homeless, we collect food for the hungry, tee shirts for kids at Covenant House, we pull all nighters not only to study for exams, but also to pray for the recognition of the dignity of all, especially the unborn. “Of course, there can be many conflicts and contradictions in our culture that attack our better selves. There is time and person invested in ‘too much junk in the trunk,' wasted in excessive drinking, in self-centered thinking and doing, in sexual exploitation disguised as commitment.” What they do does not always measure up to what they hope to be. Saint Paul said it all when he said, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very things I hate” (Romans 7:15). What Are Values? Values are the foundation for what people choose to do. For example, consider decision-making. Good decisions are the result of right reason and right reason is rooted in the value of prudence. A person who worked hard all week for a wage, got involved in a game of dice and lost all the week's wages. He used essential income as discretionary income—he was imprudent. Our behavior, choices, and values are necessarily linked. Of the variety of descriptions of the word “values,” I find the cognitive representation and transformation of our needs and of societal and institutional demands to be most accurate and inclusive. Those values learned and internalized will prompt people to act consistently and morally. People who think of values in terms of feelings might not be consistent and they are more apt to be self-centered. If the person referred to above won, he probably would have felt good—but his choice was still imprudent; his action, while gratifying, was impulsive and risky for his family's well-being. Value Systems Another component of behavior and values is priority. We learn values singly, but we don't use them that way. Rokeach in The Nature of Human Values speaks of value systems. He not only showed the linkage between behavior and values but also how we prioritize values learned into value systems. Two values, freedom and equality, were items in a list of 18 values he asked people to rank. Frequently, they were among the first four listed. Those who ranked them so were thought to be people who related to others, respecting both rights and innate dignity of the human person. Others ranked one value high and the other low. This signified that some people would set aside rights to achieve equality while others would deny others innate dignity because they feared equality would be achieved at the price of their freedom. Many of us who lived during the civil rights movement experienced the social conflict emanating from these differing value perspectives. Today, we might substitute national security and freedom or prosperity and family. The complexity of value systems escapes us when we are talking singly about values. In this way the idea of “values” is easily exploited. No one would deny that national security is good; what people do differ on is how much security is necessary at the expense of freedom. Prosperity is good but does our striving for prosperity sometimes interfere with family? Values are used not singly but within our value system. Value Development Value development is always a human task. Some hold that values are absorbed from the culture we are born into. Life has its way of making us conscious of what we have absorbed and challenging what we have assimilated. Values as cognitive representations are learned. Education is not the only process that develops this consciousness, but it is very important in doing so. In secular institutions, this issue raises a bevy of concerns—should our educational institutions teach values? If so, what values? Is it possible not to present values to students? Is it possible to ignore them? All social sciences, because they study human behavior, must make assumptions about the nature of the human person. Catholic education, too, makes assumptions about the human person and the dignity of the person. The humanistic (personalistic) perspective, unlike the deterministic assumption, does not hold that all behavior is rooted in self-interest, but it supports the principle that human beings have free will and can choose. It also purports that the human person is social by nature and consequently all human persons are related in interdependence. One principle behind Catholic teaching is “Every expression of society is founded upon and must serve the good of the human person ( America, June 6-13, 2005, p. 9). Sociology, as taught in Catholic higher education, must be conscious of teaching from this perspective. The declaration that one could teach a science from a particular moral perspective is controversial. Interest in reviving moral inquiry into the social sciences has gained ground in the last decade. Sociology so taught is not “value free.” But what the teacher or the researcher looks for is not value neutrality but objectivity. Objectivity is “a willingness to recognize the viability and integrity of positions other than one's own” (chronicle.com/weekly/v.46/i02/02b00401.htm). Catholic Higher Education As long as a teacher presents the various positions and allows students to consider and formulate their position, introducing a moral perspective seems not only allowable but necessary. If higher education is Catholic higher education, it must be permeated by moral ethics. To teach Sociology from a Catholic perspective, one must embrace the church's social teaching but also know and recognize the viability and integrity of the position of others. Indeed, it has been much easier to know the position of other sociologists than it has been for sociologists to present the social teachings of the church. Much of the church's teaching was not conveniently condensed; rather it was promulgated in isolated writings and not too clearly articulated. In 1998, the American Catholic bishops, aware of this, published Sharing Catholic Teaching: Challenges and Directions. This document states that Catholic Social Doctrine is essential rather than an optional aspect of Catholic beliefs and practices. “…many Catholics do not adequately understand that the social teaching of the church is an essential part of Catholic faith.” The bishops of North and South America petitioned Rome for a “catechism” of social doctrine. Today, the English translation of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church is being promulgated. (Two significant words are compendium—a concise but complete overview—and doctrine—a stronger way of saying teachings). Just as there is a revival of moral inquiry in the social sciences, there is a concern that Catholic higher education move Catholic social teaching from the margin to the center. “Catholic social teaching is a central and essential element of our faith.” (NCCB, Sharing Catholic Social Teaching: Challenges and Directions). It is the mission of the church and also the institutions of higher education identified as Catholic. Sociology is not the sole discipline responsible, nor is theology or religious education, but these two areas are intrinsically involved in this endeavor. Saint Joseph 's College, Rensselaer, is in the cat-bird seat to center these teachings in its existing program. For the last 36 years, an interdisciplinary program, Core, has integrated the general education subjects in terms of Christian humanistic teachings. In the senior year the students study the principles of Christian humanism and their practice. As a teacher of sociology and also of courses in Core, which teach the principles and application of the church's social teaching, I have the opportunity of being challenged by students and of challenging them to consider their relationships with God, others and the environment. I am particularly blessed as a BVM to be a member of a community of religious women which for the past 40-plus years takes local, national, and global relationships seriously. About the author: Patricia Robinson, BVM (Danella) is professor of sociology at St. Joseph College, Rensselaer, Ind. Return
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