TEACHING ETHICS AND CRITICAL THINKING IN CONTEMPORARY SCHOOLS

Basic ethical questions, dilemmas and especially decisions do not only affect the life of an individual but can also affect lives of others. In some professional ethics, where decisions about a person's life or death are made, decisions can even be irreversible. In this contribution three ways of deciding by highlighting critical, and reflective decision-making or systematic thought process as the most effective method in ethics have been pointed out. Therefore, taking ethics as a critically reflective morality highlights the fact that we can talk about ethical exploration, so ethics is a process of thinking, not a set of established answers that need only to be passively accepted. It could be concluded that the study of, and practice in, evaluating arguments and evidence (moral decision making) via critical thinking as well as using other important skills (raising questions according to Blooms taxonomy and doing a lot of case studies) is the best way to achieve the most fundamental goal in teaching an ethical course – becoming a better person. And is therefore something that should be in every curriculum.