Next under my preliminary points, I want to just note the extraordinary differences in the settings in which this teaching is going to go on as represented by the diversity of occupations and roles and interests at our meeting. We are talking about teaching in industrial firms, primary, secondary and undergraduate education. We are talking about faculty workshops. The Times got a hold of some course evaluations. There are differences in setting and the old lecture method which I'm hitting you with has its place, but it's a pretty small place.
Good teaching has to adjust to the specifics and the particularities of a given setting.
With this said, I want to mention four convictions of mine about the teaching of ethics, and some of this is going to be very commonsensical. As one Bishop said, we always preach to ourselves, and one of the things that I'm doing is talking to myself who is trained on the sort of ethics, theology, philosophy side of it rather than the science side, but I do believe the points I'm going to make are generalized. Treat the people you are working with as morally serious and reflective persons from whom you will learn. It is a great temptation for a teacher of ethics to assume the position of the expert who comes into an audience of persons who are not expert. That's always problematical in teaching, but in ethics of all things, you are setting yourself up for simple disaster, and it is a terrible insult to the people with whom you are working.