©Teaching Ethics 2014. All rights reserved; ISSN 1544-4031. pp. 151–172 Teaching Ethics 15:1 (Fall 2014) DOI: 10.5840/tej2014111311 Teaching Being Ethical Lisa Kretz University of Evansville Abstract: Teaching ethics at the university level in the Western tradition tends to focus on teaching ethical theories, or—in the case of applied ethics—applying theories. Success in ethics courses is occasioned by the ability to articulate, and in some cases apply, ethical theories. Ratio- cination about ethics is the focus. I contend that in so far as one of the goals of ethical education is becoming more ethical, current pedagogical models leave much to be desired. This paper makes a case for teaching being ethical. I recommend developing the skill sets required for enact- ing ethical behavior. Problems with historical methods of testing ethical development are assessed, and methods for testing ethical behavior are considered. I explore fertile sites for research and practice regarding the intersection of moral education and moral behavior. In particular I focus on the role of emotion, active learning techniques, moral exemplars, and addressing the relevance of self-concept. Introduction I read a paper a number of years ago that illuminated what I believe to be a vi- tal and understudied dimension of teaching philosophical ethics. In “Teaching Goodness: Moral Development Theory and the Teaching of Ethics,” Robert Hal- liday and Linnéa Franits wonder whether people who take a philosophical ethics course become more ethical citizens or professionals (Halliday and Franits 2006: 81). 1 The focus of Halliday and Fanits’s testing was on increased moral reasoning skills as opposed to changed behavior. Part of the justiication presented for this focus was 1) philosophy courses teach moral reasoning rather than behavior, and 2) there are reliable and valid assessment tools to measure moral reasoning but not for measuring moral behavior (Halliday and Franits 2006: 85). Such consid- erations prompted, for me, serious concern about why most Western philosophy courses teach moral reasoning rather than moral behavior. Why don’t philosophy courses facilitate both critical thinking skills and the associated tools for behavior change—behavior that relects the results of that critical thinking? Moreover, why aren’t there reliable and valid assessment tools to measure moral behavior? If there were, what would they look like?