... philosophy professors with whom I have spoken suggest that the overwhelming majority of college freshmen in their classrooms view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture.
A misleading distinction between fact and opinion is embedded in the Common Core.What I didn’t know was where this attitude came from. Given the presence of moral relativism in some academic circles, some people might naturally assume that philosophers themselves are to blame. But they aren’t. There are historical examples of philosophers who endorse a kind of moral relativism... But such creatures are rare. Besides, if students are already showing up to college with this view of morality, it’s very unlikely that it’s the result of what professional philosophers are teaching. So where is the view coming from?
A few weeks ago, I learned that students are exposed to this sort of thinking well before crossing the threshold of higher education.
Read the rest of the article here:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com//2015/03/02/why-our-children-dont-think-there-are-moral-facts/
Comments by another philosophy professor...
This confirms my impression from decades ago when I first began teaching philosophy, as a graduate student at UNC. So many students come to college with their minds already made up about complex questions in the branch of ethics called “metaethics,” and they take it as common sense that, since people disagree about moral claims, they have no right to assert them as pertaining to others, or to other cultures. Read on here:
http://ncethicalsociety.org/comment-on-why-our-children-dont-think-there-are-moral-facts/
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