Agency
Agency
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DOI：
10.1080/00091380903479323
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发表时间：
2010-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
M. Miller
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文献类型：
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作者：
M. Miller
麦道夫时代的商业道德，”2009年11月/12月）一直困扰着我：道德行为不仅仅是性格的函数。这也是一个能力的问题，它包括事实知识，认知科学家大卫帕金斯称之为“思维工具”，以及一般的智力技能。第一类是一般知识和学科知识。在“心智”的范畴中，有一种知识技能，它伴随着对某一学科的深入学习而来，比如科学程序、证据规则、统计原理知识、逻辑等等，这两种技能是教师们通常认为他们在课堂上要传授的。一般智力技能的清单，不太清楚任何人的责任，几乎总是包括国家教育目标6 B（v）中确定的核心能力：通信（包括写、说、听，以及与不同的人一起工作），问题的形成和解决（包括真实的生活中发生的各种乱七八糟的问题），以及批判性思维（包括拥有复杂而高的真理标准）。但是，正如瓦巴什国家文科教育研究所提出的和欧内斯特·帕斯卡雷拉在他的文章中所描述的那样，文科教育的智力目标不仅仅是认知的：包括道德品质（“学生在解决道德问题时使用高阶道德推理的程度”），探究倾向与终身学习（“学生参与和享受努力的认知活动的倾向”），跨文化有效性（“学生对文化和种族多样性的开放程度，以及他们在多大程度上喜欢接受不同观点、价值观和思想的挑战”），以及个人福祉（“自我接纳，个人成长，生活目标，与他人的积极关系，环境控制和自主权”）。这份清单给我留下深刻印象的是它所弥漫的能动性感觉美好生活（注意“享受”这个词的重复）需要相信自己的个人力量能够带来改变。帕克·帕尔默（Parker Palmer）在2007年11月/12月发表的《变革》（Change）文章中指出，对权力的信念对人们在工作场所的道德行为至关重要，在工作场所，人们往往表现得好像他们做什么都不会改变他们的组织。哈里·博伊特也将培养这种能动感作为我们培养学生公民能力的核心工作（见《改变》，2008年5月/6月）;这是伯里克利计划课堂上明显发生的事情之一，正如简·利斯在本期中所描述的那样。为了有效地发挥公民的作用，大学毕业生需要相信，通过“努力的认知活动”，他们可以有所作为。在某种程度上，一种能动感也取决于一种培养出来的想象力。任何公民的投票在任何选举中都不算超过一票的胜利只有这个人作为更大的社会整体的一部分的行为。在这种背景下看到自己的力量需要一个想象力的飞跃，在胡-
Business Ethics in the Age of Madoff,” November/December 2009) has stuck with me: that ethical behavior is not simply a function of character. It’s also a matter of competence—or competencies, which comprise factual knowledge, what cognitive scientist David Perkins calls “mindware,” and general intellectual skills. In the first category is general and disciplinary knowledge. In the “mindware” category are the intellectual skills that come with advanced study of a discipline, such as scientific procedures, rules of evidence, knowledge of statistical principles, logic, and so on. These two are what faculty generally think they are in the classroom to transmit. Lists of general intellectual skills, less clearly anyone’s responsibility, almost always include the core competencies identified in National Education Goal 6B (v): communication (including writing, speaking, listening, and working in groups with people unlike oneself), problem formulation and solving (including the kinds of messy problems that occur in real life), and critical thinking (including having a sophisticated and high truth standard). But the intellectual goals of a liberal education as laid out by the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education and as described by Ernest Pascarella in his article here, go beyond the merely cognitive: They include moral character (“the extent to which students use higher-order… moral reasoning in resolving moral issues”), inclination to inquire and lifelong learning (“a student’s tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity”), intercul tural effectiveness (“students’ openness to cultural and racial diversity, as well as the extent to which they enjoy being challenged by different perspectives, values, and ideas”), and personal well being (“self-acceptance, personal growth, purpose in life, positive relations with others, environmental mastery, and autonomy”). What strikes me about this list is the sense of agency that pervades it—the sense that the good life (notice the repetition of the word enjoy) requires a belief in one’s own personal power to make a difference. Parker Palmer, in a previous Change article (November/December, 2007), argued that a belief in that power is critical to people’s ethical behavior in the workplace, where they all too often behave as if nothing they can do will change their organizations. Harry Boyte has also identified nurturing that sense of agency as our core job in developing the civic capacities of students (see Change, May/June, 2008); this is one of the things that clearly happens in Project Pericles classrooms, as described by Jan Liss in this issue.In order to function effectively as citizens, college graduates need to believe that through “effortful cognitive activity” they can make a difference. And to some degree, a sense of agency depends upon a cultivated imagination as well. Any citizen’s vote does not count in any election won by more than a single vote—only that person’s behavior as part of a larger social whole. To see one’s own power in that context requires an imaginative leap that study in the hu-