Teaching Business Ethics, or the Challenge of a Socratic-Nietzschean Self-Transcendence for Teachers

Author: Dion M.

Source: Teaching Business Ethics, Volume 4, Number 3, August 2000 , pp. 307-324(18)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

Business ethics courses often focus on the path to ethical behaviour. This paper discusses why teachers ask to themselves how to modify major aspects of the personality (values, virtues, moral principles) of their students. There are two basic motives behind such an obsession of results: (1) the claim that we can modify the personal value systems of our students;(2) the desire and anxiety to be, as teachers, counter-cultural agents. We will use a philosophical framework, and will define self-transcendence for teachers (as well as for students) as including both a Socratic radical doubt about reality and knowledge (the awareness of our illusory understanding of reality, and the ability to question our most cherished beliefs and values) and the Nietzschean ``Overman'' (the ability to assess things, people and events in focusing on their ``worth for life'', in getting rid of our will to believe and our will to truth).

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: Faculté de théologie, d'éthique et de philosophie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, boul. Université, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada E-mail: m.dion@courrier.usherb.ca

Publication date: 2000-08-01