Exercise 1: Are there universal norms?

Time:

30 min
 

The goals of this exercise:

• to teach students the basic concepts related to social rules,
• to make them aware that rules can be relativized,
• to make them aware that people can differ on moral rules
   

Teaching methods

Discussion
 

Instruction for teacher

Discuss with students the key concepts: rules, norms and values, as well as their relativization (situational and personal). Ask if there are any rules that are universal and cannot be relativized. Once you have an example from the class you can ask the rest of the students, if the rule can be somehow relativized. You can also suggest possible ways to relativize it. To start the discussion, you can propose an example that is easy to relativize and later invite students to come up with their own examples, e.g.:

• rule: thou shalt not kill
• situational relativization: you can kill in self-defense
• personal relativization: you can kill if you work as an executioner in a jail
   

Commentary

Students might come up with rules that refer to biology (e.g. you have to breath in order to live) and therefore are not really social rules. In some cases, you might reach a disagreement between the students, e.g. prohibition of torture: some will claim that tortures should be prohibited, as they are against human dignity, some will justify torture, e.g. when the tortured person has information crucial to save other people (e.g. has set a bomb and does not reveal the place where it is located). Often the core of these discussions depends on the values that the participants believe in (e.g. one will support access to abortion on the grounds of leaving the choice to the woman, while another might disagree believing that one shall not kill a child).

By discussing different examples and different ways of explanation whether they are universal or not, you can show the students that:

• there are hardly any universal norms, i.e. norms that cannot be relativized under any circumstances
• people differ on what norms are universal.
• in case of moral norms, these differences can lead to clashes or conflicts, as moral norms are linked to judgements on what is right and what is wrong.