But whatever the pedagogical hope of the individual instructor, it is the instructional objective that
provides quantifiable criteria for whether the instruction in a particular course has been successful or not.
Instructional objectives articulate specifically what the instructor hopes to accomplish in the course.
Whatever we might hope about the future ethics of our students, their moral righteousness is not a
legitimate course goal. It is, therefore, not an instructional objective that can be adequately evaluated at
the end of the term.
Our course goals, and the specific goals for each class that amplified course goals, were presented in
Section 3. These goals included objectives that we wished the students to achieve. The goals also
implicitly detail the steps of moral analysis that we wished the students to learn. These steps in moral
analysis include:
1. Describe the action(s) that raises an ethical question.
2. Determine whether the action conflicts with relevant scientific conventions.
3. Articulate any relevant social or professional responsibilities that the actor has in the situation.
4. Discuss what kinds of alternative actions would be morally prohibited and why they would not be
acceptable.
5. Identify a series of alternative actions that would be morally permitted in the specific case and
discuss why they would be acceptable.
6. Identify which actions would be morally encouraged in the specific case and discuss why certain
actions are better than others.