On Ethics and Ethical Development: Liberal and Professional Education-Two Solitudes?

Abstract

Many have argued that ethical development could be achieved only within the context of a traditional liberal education. This view has created within modern American higher education #two solitudes," coexisting but not comminglingliberal education and professional education. Such a view is outdated and, as philosopher Mortimer Kadish has argued, is dangerous in that it actually works against the very goal of moral and ethical growth, both among those within the academy-students, faculty, and staff-and between the academy and the professions.