The Development of Moral and Ethical Reasoning in the Law Curriculum
Developing the capacity of ethical decision making is an essential professional competence for lawyers. For assessing and providing insight into the development of ethical decision making in law students, the six stages of moral development as described by Kohlberg (1984) can provide a frame of reference. What teaching and learning activities in the law curriculum should be used to give these stages form? Inspired by international literature on legal ethics, various teaching methods and learning activities will be tried out in the law curriculum: learning activities involving conversations about moral dilemmas (I; honours teaching in bachelor and master), in-class reflection papers based on hypothetical or narrative examples (II; caput on legal Ethics), experiential learning based on own experiences in a simulation (III; practical simulation course) or based on real experiences by means of clinical teaching in a real law firm (IV; legal Clinics).
