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How Does Strike, Haller, And Soltis Teach Ethical Reasoning?

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A foundation in ethics is a critical tool for any education administrator because of the necessity to make sound decisions which ultimately affect the lives of students. In their book, The Ethics of School Administration (2005), Strike, Haller, and Soltis provide a general overview of the various schools of ethical reasoning. They use engaging case studies to teach ethical reasoning concepts in a way to which every-day practitioners can relate. They then take their teachings a step further by presenting disputes of the issues from multiple perspectives, introducing critical concepts that are necessary to understand in order to process the situations presented in each case, and giving analyses of the cases. Strike, Haller, and Soltis’s methods are pertinent to educators because …show more content…

They are first presented as the Principle of Benefit Maximization and the Principle of Equal Respect. The Principle of Benefit Maximization states that in decision-making, the best decision is the one that benefits the most people, whereas the Principle of Equal Respect “requires that we act in ways that respect the equal worth of moral agents. It requires that we regard human beings as having intrinsic worth and treat them accordingly” (Strike, et al, 2005, p. 17). The connections of these principles to the terms consequentialism and nonconsequentialism are made on page 19, in the conclusion of the “Intellectual Liberty” chapter. Introducing these concepts there, rather than earlier on in the text somewhat downplays the importance of this connection rather than presents it as being an important aspect of ethical reasoning. That conclusion also states that benefit maximization and equal respect are a part of most people’s moral reasoning; they may be dependent on one another, or may conflict; and that benefit maximization may seem to presuppose equal respect (page

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