Rubrics that are shared with students before they begin constructing their products are good because then the students understand what they need to do in order to get the grade they want, and when we lay out the criteria it prevents arbitrary subjective grading (e.g., this “looks like” a 75%). Rubrics also help facilitate the discussion with the students as to why they got the specific grade they received. It’s all about “accountable” education.
Going back to my Philosophy teaching days, “Making a Judgement (such as “judging” a student’s essay to be a 75%),” means you have decided something has met, failed to meet, or approximated a criteria. The criteria may be explicit, as in a rubric, or implicit, but it’s there. Making the criteria explicit is always favorable, which is why rubrics are important – for the reasons I outlined above.
And this model extends to content area taught to students. Consider the example of the ethical question of whether murder is objectively wrong if there is no God:
When we make “judgements,” such as the judgement that “murder is wrong,” we make those judgements by applying either explicit or implicit criteria.
For instance, when an elementary school teacher is making a judgement as to what grade a child gets on a narrative piece of writing that the child has submitted, the teacher applies a rubric judging such things as effective use by the child of such things as:
Ideas—the main message
Organization—the internal structure of the piece
Voice—the personal tone and flavor of the author’s message
Word Choice—the vocabulary a writer chooses to convey meaning
Sentence Fluency—the rhythm and flow of the language
Conventions—the mechanical correctness
Presentation—how the writing actually looks on the page
Similarly, when a mixed martial arts judge tries to determine which fighter wins the match, they judge the fighters respective performances against such criteria as striking, grappling, and aggression.
The problem with moral judgements is that it is hard to get non-subjective criteria. In terms of murder, our culture in our time judges murder to be wrong, but other cultures in other times have approved of such things as cannibalism and feeding the Christians to the lions for sport. If we are not to just adapt an arbitrary “holier than thou” attitude from the point of view of our time, individual biases, and culture, the question is what right do we have to judge others that have a different worldview than we do?
If we are not to have moral relativism, we need to establish what the objective criteria is for judging that murder is wrong.
Morality is ALWAYS relative. Even a simple statement like “murder is wrong” has lots of relative aspects to it. What about killing someone in somewhat dubious self-defense? What about cops killing an unarmed suspect? What about bombing terrorists and the innocents associated with the terrorists? For that matter, what about blowing up the World Trade Center as an act of war against oppressive infidels?
To me part of the problem is even defining what “moral” or “good” is compared to “immoral” or “evil”. Since dictionary definitions are so inadequate I have come up with my own:
“Moral” acts are those which increase other beings’ happiness or ease other beings’ suffering. “Immoral” acts intentionally or inadvertently but knowingly reduce other beings’ happiness or causes other beings’ suffering WITHOUT JUST CAUSE.
I don’t know if most people would buy into these definitions but it does seem to reflect how most people talk about morality. Of course the “just cause” wording in my definition is a huge loophole. No way around that I can think of. I would just like people to think about their “just cause” when they do harmful or dangerous activities (such as speeding) but also let outside observers make their own determination of “just cause”. Assad may think he is fully justified using Sarin gas on his people but the international community generally does not. Consequently, bombing Syrian air bases, an inherently immoral act since it will likely kill innocent people, seems to be fully justified (at least among a majority of American people).
So, back to the question of “whether murder is objectively wrong if there is no God?” Murder is not objectively wrong whether you believe in God and the bible or not. The bible is full of instances where murder seems to be totally okay. Don’t work on the Sabbath, you could be murdered. Of course you could call it just punishment but that is just murder by another name. And Hitler could have justified his murder of millions of Jews by citing the bible where the Israelites murder just about anyone in their way to the promised land. If someone is in your way to manifest destiny, it seems okay to commit genocide, right? I don’t know how most “moral” people seem to give the Israelites a pass when talking about genocide but condemn it anywhere else.
So where did morality come from if not from God? An obvious answer seems to me when thinking about from an evolutionary context. People, in particular women, mostly have a natural affinity for caring for others, primarily their offspring and other relatives. Think about how much it takes for a women to give birth and nurse her young. This is done because of the strong urge for care-giving that is strong in most of us but particularly comes with child birth. This good-feeling about care-giving to some extent goes beyond just offspring and relatives to other people and other animals. Many people go to great lengths to protect pets and other non-related animals.
But even those people not inclined to care about other creatures are under social pressure to not harm others. Think of the “evil” brother who wants to kill his siblings. Parents and others of his society would not look kindly on that action which generally stays the hand of the “evil” brother, at least for some period of time.
Thus morality is born. But morality is not consistent. It may be totally forbidden to harm a relative or tribal member, but killing people from another tribe may be totally okay. Until you develop treaties or other relationships with the other tribe, then murdering them would not be okay. We still live in a society where killing “the enemy” is generally okay and considered morally justified. But some people consider killing anyone except in dire need for self defense is not justified. Others consider killing animals not justified, especially those closest to us, chimps, dogs, horses, whales (for some people), whatever animals we most closely relate to. You could extend that even further to insects or even plants, but very few people would consider killing a plant “murder”. Point is, murder is generally considered justified if it is the killing of some “other” (other tribe, other species, whatever) but not okay if it is the killing of something more “same”, and always subjective on whether or not the killing is justified.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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