Philosophy has consequences! Developing metacognition and active learning in the ethics classroom

The importance of enchancing metacognition and encouraging active learning in philosophy teaching has been increasingly recognised in recent years. Yet traditional teaching methods have not always centralised helping students to become reflectively and critically aware of the quality and consistency of their own thinking. This is particularly relevant when teaching moral philosophy, where apparently inconsistent intuitions and responses are common. In this paper I discuss the theoretical basis of the relevance of metacognition and active learning for teaching moral philosophy. Applying recent discussions of metacognition, intuition conflicts and survey-based teaching techniques, I then outline a strategy for encouraging metacognitive awareness of tensions in students’ pretheoretical beliefs, and developing a critical self-awareness of their development as moral thinkers.