Chapter One

Chapter One: Understanding Civics and Ethics
 Defining Civics, Ethics and Morality

 Civic Education
- In an attempt to capture and describe the educational
experiences that deal with the task of developing
democratic minded citizens different terms have been
used over the years
- The subject assumed different names and purposes
depending on countries’ ideologies and thus the definition
of the discipline vary across States.
- Terms such as Right Education (in South Africa),
Citizenship Education (in United States of America and
Germany), Citizenship and Character Education (in
Singapore), Civics and Ethical Education (in Ethiopia) are
just a few examples that can be found in the literature.
• Though the most cited definition of civic education is an
education that studies about the rights and responsibilities of
citizens of a politically organized group of people
• Different writers define it in many ways.
 For instance, Patrick (1986) defines civic education as the
knowledge of the constitutions, the principles, values, history
and application to contemporary life.
 Citizenship education can be understood as the knowledge,
means, and activities designed to encourage students to
participate actively in democratic life, accepting and
exercising their rights and responsibilities.
 United Nations Development Program (UNDP, 2004) defines
civic education as a way of learning for effective participation
in a democratic and development process
The Definition and Nature of Ethics and Morality
• What Ethics is?
 Ethics is a branch of philosophy that attempts to
understand people’s moral beliefs and actions
 Ethics also explores the meaning and the ranking of
different ethical values, such as honesty, autonomy,
equality and justice, and it considers ethical quandaries
that human beings face in the course of living their own
independent but, also, socially interdependent lives.
 Ethics refers to the philosophical study of values and
what constitute good and bad human conduct.
• Generally, Ethics is:
– The critical examination and evaluation of what is good,

evil, right and wrong in human conduct (Guy, 2001).
– A specific set of principles, values and guidelines for a
particular group or organization (Guy, 2001).
– Ethics is the study of goodness, right action and moral
responsibility, it asks what choices and ends we ought to
pursue and what moral principles should govern our
pursuits and choices (Madden, 2000).
• What is Morality?
- Morality is a complex concept.
- it is one of most frequently used terms, it can mean different
things to different people
- Morality from a dictionary definition (from Latin moralitas
“manner, character, proper behavior”)
- It can be used to mean the generally accepted code of conduct
in a society, or within a subgroup of society.
- Terms such as morality and ethics are often used
interchangeably in everyday speech as referring to justified
or proper conduct.
- But ethics is usually associated with a certain conduct
within a profession, for example, the code of ethics for the
teaching profession.
- Morality is a more general term referring to the character of
individuals and community.
Morality is:
• Those principles and values that actually guide, for better
or worse, an individual’s personal conduct (Guy, 2001)
• Morality is the informal system of rational beings by
which they govern their behavior in order to lesson harm
or evil and do good, this system, although informal,
enjoys amazing agreement across time and cultures
concerning moral rules, moral ideas and moral virtues
(Madden, 2000)
The Importance/Goal of Moral and Civic Education
• It teaches the values and sense of commitment that
define an active and principled citizen, how to make
responsible decisions, solve problems, care about others,
contribute to society, and be tolerant and respectful of
diversity.
 In higher educational institutions of Ethiopia, civics
and ethics/moral education is given with the aim of
educating students about
 democratic culture,
 ethical values and principles,
 supremacy of constitution,
 the rule of law, rights and duties of citizens
• It is also aimed at creating a generation who has the
capability to shoulder family and national responsibility
• The aim of moral/ethical and civic education is to provide
people to make decisions by their free wills.
• The need to instill citizens about their rights and duties:
The two phrases rights and duties co-exist with each
other (they are termed as the two sides of the same coin)
• The issue of fostering intercultural societies
• The issue of peace-building

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Chapter One: Understanding Civics and Ethics

 Defining Civics, Ethics and Morality

– The critical examination and evaluation of what is good,

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