The Advancement of University Education in Ethics

The Sector of Ethics, Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences runs a three-year project on the Advancement of University Education in Ethics sponsored by the HESP Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching .

The project aims to promote substantial and methodological renovation in Ethics as higher school discipline. The project is developed on the basis of annual summer schools, intersession seminars and virtual forum discussions.

The project participants are junior university teachers from Belarus, Lithuania, Russia. and Ukraine.

What are the project organizers and participants aspired for? Ethics as other traditional social and humanities disciplines has been loosing its positions in higher education. It is certainly necessary in all professions training. However, usually Ethics is presented as a simplified version of philosophical Ethics. Ethical education as an individual discipline or a part of other social and humanities disciplines should become an integral part of professional education. It should be education based on recent achievements in scholarship and up to day pedagogical technologies, opened to moral challenges of the time.

  • Ethics should be adopted to students' profile and major.
  • Ethics should applied and professionally oriented.
  • Ethics teaching should be based on new interactive methods working their students and promote their analytical skills.
  • Ethics should promote critical ethical thinking.
  • Ethics should teach students to analyze social, political, professional, and other practical issues.

The project promotes these tasks.

Well-known Russian and foreign scholars – experts in Ethics and university education take part in the project.

Project Director - Professor Ruben Apressyan.


Updated: 01.08.2006