Encouraging Self-Reflection by Business Honors Students: Reflective Writing, Films, and Self-Assessments

Authors

Stephen A. Yoder, University of Alabama at BirminghamFollow

Date of this Version

2017

Citation

Honors in Practice 13 (2017)

Comments

Copyright 2017 National Collegiate Honors Council

Abstract

I never thought that a single book had significantly influenced my teaching methods for honors students until I recently reopened my copy of The Moral Imagination, edited by Oliver F. Williams. The Moral Imagination is a collection of essays written nearly twenty years ago on how we might teach students to develop a sense of moral imagination through literature, art, and film. The book’s subtitle—How Literature and Films Can Stimulate Ethical Reflection in the Business World—elucidates the focus of the book, and a good definition for Williams’s use of the term “moral imagination” is the “uniquely human ability to conceive of fellow humanity as moral beings and as persons, not as objects whose value rests in utility or usefulness” ( Jones).