​Welcome to SEE's Reasoning with Ethics page.  The following case  and supporting resources (below)  are provided to help facilitate class discussions or essay assignments with a focus on ethical reasoning. Ethical reasoning is one factor teachers can encourage for student character formation.  

​A free subscription with a weekly email that includes a current events case and guided questions to support ethical discussions is available.

​SEE encourages the strategy described here to be applied beyond current events cases and to included analysis of relevant cases in history, literature and life.

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Cases can be used as
• Class discussion starters
• Reading lessons
• Essay prompts 
• Social studies, health or      ethics class analysis
* See below for link to supporting resources

Riot Ethics
June 1, 2020

Riot—a tumultuous disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons assembled together and acting with a common intent.

The Merriam-Webster definition of “riot” is being demonstrated daily since the protests over the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman. It is unclear if the “common intent” clause of the definition accurately describes the many riots in multiple US cities.

​Commentators have suggested the rioters are motivated by many factors that include anger in the Floyd killing, frustration over police failures in the past, anxiety over the COVID-induced economic shutdown and personal  

Click the following link for more background:
CBS: link-- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/derek-chauvin-taken-custody-george-floyd-death-minneapolis-police-officer/
CBS Weekend report(3:19) -- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minneapolis-longfellow-neighborhood-lake-street-business-community-property-damage/

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economic stress, and simply using the event to loot or advance an anarchist agenda.

Mr. Floyd’s death and the ethics associated with police restraint and arrest procedures are one possible option for ethical analysis. However, SEE invites students to consider the activities of rioters, whatever their motivation, and whether or not there is any ethical support for the activities such as attacking police stations, breaking into businesses and burning down stores, and other property.
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If there are ethical values to support these rioting activities, are there any limits these ethical values place on the rioters? 

If there are not ethical values that support rioters, is there anything society can do to advance ethics to realistically resist or avoid this behavior in the future?

Thoughts on the case? We want to hear them!

​​​Ethics in action creates character