Why is ethics important in history education?A dialogue between the various ways of understanding the relationship between ethics and historical consciousness

Advances in ethics education in the history classroom: after intersections of moral and historical consciousness

“…Students' answers can be typologised, for example, using models like Kohlberg's (1984) or Rest's (Rest et al 1999) where the central concern is difference between arguments referring to personal interest, maintaining norms, and ethical principles. As suggested by Milligan et al (2018), the philosophical study of ethics can provide tools for students' moral judgment, and their judgments of Major Trapp may include utilitarian, deontological, care ethical, or virtue ethical arguments, for example (see Edling et al 2020). In the research, moral judgment-making occurred in the main in response to question 1 and sporadically in answers to other questions.…”

“…Even though refining students' skills of moral reasoning is not the primary aim of teaching controversial history, teaching controversial historical topics and events aims to promote certain values by supporting students' democratic dispositions, like tolerance and open-mindedness (Misco 2011). Discussions on values and moral judgments can not reasonably be detached from teaching controversial history (Edling et al 2020). Moreover, controversial history is often painful history in that it triggers responses that evoke moral emotions, like empathy, guilt, or shame.…”

“…This seems like a promising strategy in developing students' ability in moral reasoning and moral judgment-making in the history classroom. Depending on what theories of ethics are chosen as the conceptual framework, different questions in what concerns the controversial topic may be placed in focus (Edling et al 2020). In addition to finding ways of refining students' conceptual resources in the moral-philosophical analysis of moral dilemmas, it is important for the teacher to consider how people respond to moral dilemmas, and to design pedagogical solutions with this in mind.…”

“…The pasts and presents may be major historic events but also everyday-life experiences. Connecting 'high' and 'low' history such narratives of historical change and continuity show that people can both change history and be changed by history (Edling et al 2020).…”

“…The connection between historical consciousness and ethics and the processes of moral judgment-making remains relatively unexplored. However, there are different perspectives on it in history education theory, and an identified need for empirical studies to be conducted in this area (Ammert et al 2017;Edling et al 2020).…”