1. Introduction
Many ethical and pedagogical problems of teaching ethics are dependent on
culture and society. For example, pedagogical questions related to ethnic differences
do not arise in environments that are ethnically homogenous. Homogenous cultures,
on the other hand, have problems that are quite foreign to more diverse ones.
Moreover, due to cultural differences, the acceptability of pedagogical solutions may
differ from a society to another. Although many ethical ideals behind teaching – like
fairness and justice – are universal, their practical realizations may and often must
differ from one society to another.
The following considerations are based on experiences of teaching ethics at the
University of Turku in southern Finland. I will first discuss the aims of teaching
ethics in general and in Finland in particular. After that I will more explicitly turn
into ethical and pedagogical problems typical of teaching ethics in the Finnish
Cultural dependency in the teaching of ethics 279
society. The most discussed feature of the Finnish teaching environment is its
homogeneity; the students – and the teacher – typically share a very similar
cultural and social background.