Ethicality, Research and Emotional Impoverishment in a Technological Era

In this chapter I explore ideas about the teaching of ethics in higher education professional education programmes. I ask whether this should or even can be done; and if so, why it should be done and what dilemmas might emerge from the experience. I also raise issues about the varied discourses and representations in the iteratures regarding ‘ethical practice’. A main assumption in the literatures appears to be that it is enough to write in abstract terms about what counts as ethical practice without demonstrating how real-life practices may be understood as ethical. This situation is compounded by the fact that, within the current technological era, students are encouraged to look for quick answers rather than ask considered questions (Carr, 2010). These matters, I feel, should be a matter of priority for professional educators, who also need to ask themselves whether they are modelling the practices they endorse or whether they fall into the trap of making recommendations without showing how they live those recommendations in their real-life practice.