Are We Living in a MORAL STONE AGE?

• Author: Sommers, Christina Hoff
• Position: Students need to be education in morals

"Too many young people are morally confused, ill-informed, and adrift. This confusion gets worse, rather than better, once they go to college."

A lot is heard today about how Johnny can't read, can't write, and the trouble he has finding France on a map. It also is true that Johnny is having difficulty distinguishing right from wrong. Along with illiteracy and innumeracy, deep moral confusion must be added to the list of educational problems. Increasingly, today's young people know little or nothing about the Western moral tradition.

This was demonstrated by "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno, who frequently does "man-on-the-street" interviews. One night, he collared some young people to ask them questions about the Bible. "Can you name one of the Ten Commandments?," he asked two college-age women. One replied, "Freedom of speech?" Leno said to the other, "Complete this sentence: Let he who is without sin...." Her response was "Have a good time?" Leno then turned to a young man and asked, "Who, according to the Bible, was eaten by a whale?" The confident answer was "Pinocchio."

As with many humorous anecdotes, the underlying reality is not funny at all. These young people are morally confused. They are the students I and other teachers of ethics see every day. Like most professors, I am acutely aware of the "hole in the moral ozone." One of the best things schools can do for America is to set about repairing it--by confronting the moral nihilism that is the norm for so many students.

Schools at all levels can do a lot to improve the moral climate of our society. They can help restore civility and community if they commit themselves and have the courage to act.

When you have as many conversations with young people as I do, you come away both exhilarated and depressed. Still, there is a great deal of simple good-heartedness, instinctive fair-mindedness, and spontaneous generosity of spirit in them. Most of the students I meet are basically decent individuals. They form wonderful friendships and seem to be considerate of and grateful to their parents--more so than the baby boomers were.

In many ways, they are more likeable than the baby boomers, being less fascinated with themselves and more able to laugh at their faults. A large number are doing volunteer work (70% of college students, according to one annual survey of freshmen). They donate blood to the Red Cross in record numbers and deliver food to housebound elderly people. They spend summer vacations working with deaf children or doing volunteer work in Mexico. This is a generation of youths that, despite relatively little moral guidance or religious training, is putting compassion into practice.

Conceptually and culturally, though, today's young people live in a moral haze. Ask one of them if there are such things as "right" and "wrong," and suddenly you are confronted with a confused, tongue-tied, nervous, and insecure individual. The same person who works weekends for Meals on Wheels, who volunteers for a suicide prevention hotline or a domestic violence shelter, might tell you, "Well, there really is no such thing as right or wrong. It's kind of like whatever works best for the individual. Each person has to work it out for himself." The trouble is that this kind of answer, which is so common as to be typical, is no better than the moral philosophy of a sociopath.

I often meet students incapable of making even one single confident moral judgment, and the situation is getting worse. The things students say are more and more unhinged. Recently, several of my students objected to philosopher Immanuel Kant's principle of humanity--the doctrine that asserts the unique dignity and worth of every human life. They told me that, if they were faced with...