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Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority

Ethical Capability

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  1. 9-10

Levels 9 and 10

Levels 9 and 10 Description

In Levels 9 and 10, the curriculum focuses on developing the knowledge, skills and understandings to analyse and evaluate ethical problems and their resolution and to identify and manage contestability in ethical matters. Students reflect on whether there are ethical concepts and principles common across people, groups and cultures.

Levels 9 and 10 Content Descriptions

Understanding Concepts

  1. Investigate the connections and distinctions between and the relative value of concepts including fairness and equality, and respect and tolerance (VCECU019)
    Elaborations
    1. discussing whether fairness and equality are the same thing, and if not, which is more important, using examples such as affirmative action, concessions for those with special needs, or differences in tax rates
    2. discussing whether there are distinctions in attitudes of respect and tolerance, in relation to, for example, different views on child vaccination
    3. discussing why punishments may be unequal and whether this is fair, for example, if applied to the same case in court or in a sporting tribunal
  2. Explore a range of ethical problems and examine the extent to which different positions are related to commonly held ethical concepts and principles, considering the influence of cultural norms, religion, world views and philosophical thought (VCECU020)
    Elaborations
    1. identifying and discriminating the ethical concepts and principles raised by people or groups in a globally significant debate such as responses to people movements, poverty or climate change
    2. identifying and analysing why members of the same religious tradition may hold different views, for example, on capital punishment
  3. Distinguish between the ethical and non-ethical dimensions of complex issues, including the distinction between ethical and legal issues (VCECU021)
    Elaborations
    1. assessing a complex ethical issue that is, one, such as euthanasia, that involves more than one question and area of contestability, a range of diverse people, and/or is part of a wider problem or historical context, to discriminate and explain those features that are of ethical significance, using these questions: who is involved, what are their intentions and what gave rise to the intention (including relevant dispositions)?, Is there something inherently right or wrong in the act itself or interpretation of the issue?, Is there a duty at stake (for example arising out of a perceived right or a particular relationship such as friend to friend, parent to child or doctor to patient)?, What are the possible consequences?, Who is likely to be affected?
    2. examining and comparing the ethical significance of codes of conduct, protocols, and legal responsibilities as preparation for undertaking research or working collaboratively
    3. exploring a response to an issue such as the use of someone else’s ideas, conditions of factory workers overseas, or the rescuing of adventurers, to identify if there is no legal, but arguably an ethical, obligation

Decision Making and Actions

  1. Discuss issues raised by thinking about consequences and duties, in approaches to decision-making and action, and arguments for and against these approaches (VCECD022)
    Elaborations
    1. defining and comparing ethical terms such as deontology and consequentialism, identifying the main contestabilities and applying findings to discuss the costs and benefits of a proposal such as diverting money from a planned pedestrian crossing to a hospital, or from the foreign aid budget to domestic farmers, or from programs that respond to health problems to those that claim to prevent health problems
    2. using hypothetical ethical dilemmas to compare consequential and duty-based approaches to decision-making and their contestabilities, for example the trolley problem, where a switch can be flipped to divert a runaway carriage that would crash into five railway workers, but would instead kill one person standing on the other line (from Philippa Foot), or whether to stay and look after a family member or go and fight evil forces (from Sartre), or a politician lying in an attempt to protect citizens from harm (from Machiavelli - the problem of Dirty Hands)
    3. examining issues in fiction that show problems with consequence and duties-based approaches to decision-making, such as conflicts between rights or duties or potentially causing the suffering of the few for the sake of the majority, for example, in “The Hunger Games” or “Les Miserables”, for example, when Jean Valjean faces the decision of whether to save the person mistakenly identified as him
  2. Investigate how different factors involved in ethical decision-making can be managed by people and groups (VCECD023)
    Elaborations
    1. identifying an ethical problem and how a social and/or private institution negotiates different points of view, for example NGOs working in local communities, or government organisations such as local councils with a planning or development issue
    2. analysing a range of fiction and non-fiction texts such as autobiographies to compare and reflect on how characters/people internally managed the interaction of factors such as feelings, reasoning, experience, dispositions and conscience

Levels 9 and 10 Achievement Standard

By the end of Level 10, students explain connections and distinctions between ethical concepts, identifying areas of contestability in their meanings and relative value.

Students analyse and evaluate contested approaches to thinking about consequences and duties in relation to ethical issues. They examine complex issues, identify the ethical dimensions and analyse commonality and difference between different positions. They explain how different factors involved in ethical decision-making can be managed.

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