​Welcome to SEE's Reasoning with Ethics page.  The following case (scroll down) and linked pages (right margin)  are provided to help support class discussions or essay assignments with a focus on ethical reasoning.  SEE will respond to your free subscription with a weekly email that includes a current events case and guided questions to support ethical discussions during the school year. SEE encourages the strategy describe here to be applied beyond current events to included analysis of relevant cases in history, literature and life.
This ethics blog is designed to encourage student application of ethical core values in a larger process of ethical functioning.
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Ethical functioning is defined here to include:​​
  1. recognize when an ethical issue exists through analysis with a lens of core ethical values,
  2. apply core values to determine what an ethical person would do while specifically resisting rationalizations,
  3. cultivate a commitment to ethical action and recognize the skills (moral and performance) required to support ethical action. 
​The Teacher Resources link offers professional development files to use the weekly cases to strengthen student ethical functioning.  Additional consulting services are also available to support the use of these cases.
​Teacher Resources

Archived Cases

Reasoning with Ethics Quotes

​Regional Ethics Bowl
Cases can be used as

• Class discussion starters
• Reading lessons
• Essay prompts 
• Social studies, health or      ethics class analysis

Current Case

​Reasoning with Ethics begins a summer break with this last case for the 2017-18 school year. New cases will resume in the fall. Happy Summer Break!

What Leads One to Help?

June 4, 2018
Chef Jose Andres did not need to leave the comforts of his success in the United States to help the people in Haiti or Puerto Rico after their natural disasters, but he did. What core values lead a person to risk furthering his own career advancement, set aside the privileges of executive leadership for disaster area service and sacrifice time with his family for strangers in distant places.
Chef Andres’ accomplishments and awards as a restaurant owner in multiple US cities are remarkable and make his willingness to focus on the needs of others even more laudable.  He founded the nonprofit World Central Kitchen to help the people of Haiti after their 2010 earthquake and brought that experience to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017.  His vision and skill to organize volunteers in multiple kitchens leveraging local resources and donations from the government and donors is legendary.

A recent CBS 60 Minutes segment documents some of Chef Andres work in Puerto Rico and Haiti but fails to plumb the core values that motivate such passion and 
effort.  Students are asked to identify what would motivate a person to become so focused on assisting others in need.  Clearly his intellect, vision and skills are up to the enormous logistical tasks he takes on, but what core values drive such a meaningful commitment of time and labor?  Can these core values be taught to others?  If so, how might that be accomplished?
Thoughts on the case? We want to hear them!

​​​Ethics in action creates character