The Pedagogic Value of General Moral Principles in Professional Ethics

General moral principles, such as the principle of utility and Kant’s principle of respect for persons, have had a major role to play in the teaching of applied and professional ethics over the past twenty years. However, in recent times there has been some criticism of such “principlist” approaches to teaching.¹ It is alleged by some critics (i) that abstract and rationalistic principles don’t connect with the concerns of professional practitioners who confront real life moral dilemmas and (ii) that principlism misses the point of morality, which is the formation of virtuous ethical subjects. Hence, they claim that we should eschew the use of general moral principles in the teaching of professional ethics.