Allen Mooneyhan
Politics of Education
Personal Reflections
Set #3
Dr. Mitchell Holifield
Arkansas State University
June 21, 2001
The discussion that occurred in class concerning the trackster who was also a stripper left me intrigued. I find the case particularly interesting because there seems to be no clear-cut answer to what is and is not ethical. On the one hand, there is an indication that the decision to strip and continue that activity after she had been told to stop was not entirely ethical. On the other hand, it was probably unethical for the coach to impose his values onto others in the institution. The fact that I agree with what his personal views probably were does not preclude me from accepting the fact that the trackster had a right to be the exclusive authority in her personal life.
I wish that I had examined this case in detail under the ethical reasoning model for the case study completed in class. I believe that this case would have been much more difficult to work through because there is no clear indication as to what the most ethical decision is. Further, as this is a case which involves dealing personally with moral choices, it would be more difficult for me to remove from the evaluation of the situation, my moral beliefs and values. Therefore, I believe using this case would have been a test in my ability to distance myself from my personal convictions in order to arrive at the most ethical answer.
Finally, I am not completely sure as to what the most appropriate course of action would be in this case. I believe that it would be more ethical for the school to allow the stripper to continue to be a part of the track team despite what she does on her own time. However, I cannot be completely sure of what course of action I would consider ethical until I considered the decision through each lens of the ethical reasoning model. For example, it is possible that I would conclude that kicking the stripper off the team was unethical with regard to rights, justice, and categorical imperative but that it was ethical with regard to utility and caregiving. At this point, I would have to apply the priority principle. I believe my ultimate decision would be that it is unethical to kick the trackster off the team. However, I would not decide this before putting the decision to scrutiny in terms of applying each lens of the ethical reasoning model.