Paul, Richard; Elder, Linda
Journal of Developmental Education, v33 n1 p38-39 Fall 2009
The development of ethical reasoning abilities is vitally important--both for living an ethical life and creating an ethical world. In this article, the authors set out some of the foundations of ethical reasoning. Their aim is to introduce some important intellectual tools and understandings for insightfully reasoning through ethical issues and problems. They highlight native egocentrism as a fundamental barrier to ethical reasoning.

Paul, Richard; Elder, Linda
Journal of Developmental Education, v33 n2 p42-43 Win 2009
In the last column we introduced the idea of ethical reasoning (see Paul & Elder, 2006) and discussed its importance to education, assuming the intention is to cultivate fairminded critical thinking. We also discussed the problem of intrinsic egocentric thinking as a fundamental barrier to ethical reasoning. In this column we focus on conceptual distinctions essential to skilled ethical reasoning and, consequently, to fostering the educated mind.

Paul, Richard; Elder, Linda
Journal of Developmental Education, v33 n3 p36-37 Spr 2010
In the last two columns the authors introduced the idea of ethical reasoning and discussed its importance to education. They dealt with the problem of egocentric thinking as a barrier to ethical reasoning. And they focused on the importance of distinguishing ethics from other modes of thought with which it is often confused, namely social conventions, religious ideologies, and the law. In this column they focus on language as a guide to ethical reasoning, pointing out that ethical concepts, and their implications, are implicit in ordinary or natural languages (as distinguished from technical languages). They also discuss the connection between ethical concepts and principles.

Elder, Linda; Paul, Richard
Journal of Developmental Education, v34 n1 p36-37 Fall 2010
In the last three columns, the authors introduced the idea of ethical reasoning, discussed its importance to education, and briefly dealt with a number of understandings essential to skilled ethical reasoning. In this column, the authors continue this discussion. They distinguish between simple and complex ethical questions and reason through an example complex ethical question. Next they discuss the fact that, when dealing with complex ethical issues, data should often be analyzed from multiple perspectives. Finally, they illuminate some important ways in which humans distort information and facts to maintain their views or serve their interests (and in so doing, often reason unethically).