College Seniors Taught Right and Wrong Is Relative

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 7/08/02 | Lawrence Morahan

[kattracks]

CNSNews.com) - Three quarters of all college seniors report that their professors teach them that what is right and wrong depends "on differences in individual values and cultural diversity," a poll conducted for the National Association of Scholars (NAS) reveals.

Only about a quarter of 400 college seniors randomly selected from campuses around the country said their professors taught the traditional view that "there are clear and uniform standards of right and wrong by which everyone should be judged."

The poll was conducted in April by Zogby International, and has a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percent.

A large majority of students also report that they've been taught that corporate policies furthering "progressive" social and political goals are more important than those ensuring that stockholders and creditors receive accurate accounts of a firm's finances, the study said.

When respondents were given a list of business practices and asked, based on what they've been taught at college, which of the practices rank as the most important, 38 percent chose "recruiting a diverse workforce in which women and minorities are advanced and promoted."

Eighteen percent chose "minimizing environmental pollution," and another 18 percent chose "avoiding layoffs by not exporting jobs or moving plants from one area to another."

Only 23 percent said "providing clear and accurate business statements to stockholders and creditors" is the most important business practice.

However, 97 percent of all seniors believe college has equipped them to perform ethically in their future professional lives, the study found.

Based on what they learned, the seniors were more cynical about business ethics than those of other professions. Twenty-eight percent chose business as the profession where an "anything goes" attitude most likely leads to success; 20 percent chose journalism, and 16 percent chose law.

Moreover, 56 percent of college seniors agreed that the only real difference between executives at Enron and those at most other big companies is that Enron executives "got caught."

Stephen H. Balch, president of the National Association of Scholars, said in a statement that the results "have disturbing implications both for America's economy and its institutions of higher education."

"They suggest that our colleges and universities, however unwittingly, are contributing to, and perpetuating, the ethical laxness behind the recent scandals at Enron, Worldcom, and other major American firms," Balch said.

The foundations of ethical education are laid in the home and school, Balch noted.

"At best, universities can only confirm the lessons taught there," he said. "But they can also undermine these lessons by providing sophisticated excuses for succumbing to the temptations of greed and power.

"The revitalization and politicization of ethical standards, plus cynicism about business in general, opens the way for such excuse making," he said.

The study concluded there were "significant reasons" to be concerned with the results.

"First, it seems reasonable to believe that when students leave college convinced that ethical standards are simply a matter of individual choice, they are less likely to be reliably ethical in their subsequent careers," the study said.

"Unfortunately, three-quarters of our respondents report that this was the relativistic view of ethics they received from their professors," it said.

The NAS, which is based at Princeton, N.J., counts more than 4,000 professors, graduate students, administrators and trustees as members at its 46 state affiliates.


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[lonestar]

Reminds me of my college days in the dark ages. We were on an "honor system." Profs would pass out exams and leave. We had to write at the bottom, "I have neither given nor received aid on this exam nor have I seen anyone do so." Sometimes we could get away with "Pledge in full."

I never saw cheating--but I never looked for it, either.

Back then we were graded; an A was an A and there were no P's.

[Phantom Lord]

Three quarters of all college seniors report that their professors teach them that what is right and wrong depends "on differences in individual values and cultural diversity,"

I have to agree that right and wrong does depend on differences in individual values and cultural diversity.

Right and wrong is not black and white across the board. There are things that should be right and wrong universally. Such as murder, rape and slavery to name just a few.

But what is wrong for one culture is not for another.

[TightSqueeze]

Three quarters of all college seniors report that their professors teach them that what is right and wrong depends "on differences in individual values and cultural diversity,"…

How else would they be able to explain that their government provides abortion services and normally incarcerates pot smokers longer than murders and pedophiles. Without relativity, one would have to believe these actions are equal to insanity.

[Bigg Red]

Every time I read a piece like this I wonder why it is that there is not a large push by conservative organizations and think tanks to establish a presence on campuses to confront and discredit those who wish to undermine Western values and culture.

Instead of just documenting the lies and the perversion of American history, culture and social mores that these jerks promulgate, people like Bill Bennett or Rush Limbaugh could lead the charge. This indoctrination needs to be met with more than shaking of the head and a few choice words. How many times have we heard of some unfortunate student who has tried to stand up for what is right against the America haters only to be pilloried into silence?

And it must also be remembered that these lefties have a wider audience than just the students in their classes or the student body of their respective institutions; their garbage is also disseminated to the society at large through their various media mouthpieces -- NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc. And they are winning. Witness the acceptance, in a few short years by American society at large of many types of behaviors that would have been criticized or scorned by most Americans just 25 or 30 years ago. For example, absent the 9/11 attacks, I wonder if the recent 9th Circuit ruling regarding the Pledge would have been met with so much public indignation.

[Blood of Tyrants]

You should have written, "Who are YOU to judge whether cheating is wrong?"

[Enduring Freedom]

Good and Evil are relative?

False - Absolutely!

[AmericanInTokyo]

Like I said earlier, conservative professors (who may be few, though) who disagree with this slippery slope, should at once start to deliver big, fat 'F's on every homework assignment turned in by the most liberal students. In defense, they can state that 'things are relative' and that the 'F' is not backed up with reason or right or wrong, that's 'just the way things are.'

Subjective world, you know.

[Paleo Conservative]

College Seniors Taught Right and Wrong Is Relative

By people who have never been in the real world.

[powderhorn]

By the time someone is a senior in college, you'd think that they would have figured out some moral logic all on their own. Anyone who hasn't probably needs someone to keep telling them what's right and what's wrong for the rest of their life.

The RULES of behavior differ from one religion to the next. But some religions have immoral rules relative to basic standards of humanity. The fundamentalists of all religions are the least moral. They tend to incarcerate, rape, murder and stone people for percieved infractions of ritual behavior.

[FITZ]

They begin teaching that right and wrong are relative in grade school. If they waited until the last year of college, our society would be in better shape.

[Free Vulcan]

But it's not relativist, it's substitutionist. Leftists aren't going to fool me into thinking that they are relativist, they have their own hard system of morality just like anyone else. Thing is they don't have the balls to come right out with it, they first dissolve the current moral structure with relativism, and then come back in the second wave (once society has descended into chaos) and implement it with jackboot fervor and ferocity. Ask any hard line leftist if polluting is ok, and I bet most if not all would give an emphatic no.

[Iwo Jima]

I have to agree that right and wrong does depend on differences in individual values and cultural diversity.

I strongly disagree. Name one thing that is right or wrong (as opposed to prudent or imprudent, or appropriate or inappropriate), depending on either individual values or cultural diversity (whatever that is supposed to mean).

[Phantom Lord]

The great number of 'cultures' on this planet provide for a wide variance of what is 'right and wrong' between them. To not be able to think of 2 cultures where a multitude of things are right in one and wrong in another is to not try very hard, or at all for that matter.

I do not believe as many lefties do that no cultures are higher than or better than others. I do not subscribe to the school of 'moral equivalency'. Clearly some cultures are superior to others.

[Iwo Jima]

Cultural norms do not set the standard for what is right or wrong. Right and wrong --good and evil -- exists and is objectively verifiable regardless of the ability or willingess to acknowledge that reality.

Right and wrong is an objective, not a subjective, concept. It is not relative depending on the society in which you live. The circumstances in which you find yourself are important in determining the right and wrong of a situation, but under the same circumtances an act is either right or wrong regardless of the culture or society in which you live.

It would lead to a better discussion if you would state specific instances in which you think that the same act would be right in one culture and wrong in another culture. I deny that any such circumstances exist, but since you maintain otherwise, then you should give concrete examples so that we can discuss your views based on something other than floating abstractions.

Some cultures are superior to other cultures because they acknowledge the objective reality that certain things are right and certain things are wrong PERIOD.

[Phantom Lord]

I think it boils down to more of an acceptable vs. unacceptable comparrison than a right vs. wrong. Yes certain things are right and wrong.

I also suspect that the list of universal 'right and wrong' is a short list.

Western culture looks upon 'arrainged marriages' and teenage brides as wrong because we believe in the freedom of choice and association when it comes to marriage. Yet it is perfectly normal, acceptable, and perceived as 'right' in the cultures that practice arrainged marriages and where women are married off at young ages.

Western cultures look down upon and consider "wrong" many of the practices of island people and other 'native' tribes with their practices of body modification. They see it as normal and right.

Is it "wrong" for parents to arrainge the marriage of their children? Is it "wrong" for one to modify their body by piercing, tattooing, other forms of modification?

I say neither are 'wrong', but also neither is an 'accepted' practice of western culture.

[F16Fighter]

The agenda of the warring Left's Army continues to procede unimpeded...

As students are indoctrinated with a viewpoint that all issues are neither right nor wrong, the ulterior motive of the Marxist professors will have succeeded in the ultimate treason -- patriotism in the next generation will be systematically eradicated.

American campuses are becoming a cultural Custer's Last Stand, Waterloo, and Killing Fields all rolled up into one.

[RWG]

there are clear and uniform standards of right and wrong...welfare is bad the farm bill is good.