Teaching ethical decision making to students as 21st-century professionals

Ethical decision making by professionals is an important element in working towards a sustainable future. This chapter explores the different learning goals which apply to professional ethics education, highlighting a historical shift from a focus on purely cognitive reasoning to include a wider focus to also include emotional and relational goals. It then explores the most commonly cited methods of ethics education, highlighting the existing evidence on the effectiveness of these methods as well as discussing how specific pedagogical approaches are linked to different learning goals. Finally, it locates professional ethics education in the wider context of the culture of professional education; drawing on data from engineering education in particular, it identifies that even excellent ethics education may have little impact if the wider culture of professional education diminishes the importance of ethical and sustainability issues.