In case anyone has not noticed, faculties of professional schools are under fire. The question being posed with increasing urgency is why students are being prepared to enter into the professions without adequate training in ethical decision making. We have become superbly expert in training our students as to what they can do; and as a consequence these young professionals are anxious to attack the 21st century with a vengeance. But we have failed to prepare these same students to decide what they should do when faced with the improprieties of financial manipulation, the agonies of the homeless, or the invidiousness of functional illiteracy. The extent of our ethical knowledge, as noted by the venerable Earl Latham many years ago, "is roughly at about the stage medicine was in when the cure for typhoid was a ritual dance by a man with deer horns and a rattle." (Employment Forum, April 1947).

If not much has changed since then, is it not reasonable to conclude that we may be asking the wrong question? Rather than discussing how young professionals are to be taught to calculate the value of ethical variables in the strategy of decision making, maybe we should wonder if ethical decision making should be discussed at all in the professional schools. Why even attempt to teach ethics if the gap between theory and practice is roughly comparable to the gap between the space explorer and the witch doctor? And, indeed, even if one is inclined to insist on the universal value of formal ethical training in the professional schools, can the gap between that which t can do and that which I should do ever be closed? In other words, why bother about the "should" if, in the final analysis, what I will do is determined solely by the calculable strategies of what 1 can do?

One homey strategy for decision making in political circles is eloquent in its simplicity: Who's glad? How glad? Who's mad? How mad? What this basic dogma of prudential pragmatism has to recommend it self is that it makes the decision maker critically conscious of the political realities of policies, programs, and organizational operations. But even the most savvy political realist would admit that the answers to this pragmatic formula cannot be taught; they can only be learned by those who are always consciously aware of its all pervasive presence and importance.

Much the same, it would seem, can be said about ethics. If our future professionals, who are now being trained to guide society into the 21st century, are to consider the ethical ramifications of their decisions, now is the time for them to develop an abiding and all-pervasive ethical sense in the same manner the political pragmatists have honed their intuitive sense of human self-interest. Unfortunately, the latter sense is much easier to develop than the former, which probably explains why there are many more pragmatic professionals in our society than there are those who could be considered ethically mature.

If one is to develop an active ethical sense, a critical consciousness that can be focused on the professional domain, one must accept at least these three propositions: First, no policy, program, or operation is value neutral when it is implemented; second, every policy, program, and operation has a discernible subjective impact (positive or negative) on the lives of other human beings; and third, the responsibility for the effects of the impact rests with those who by virtue of their professional authority (i.e., accredited competence) are directly or indirectly in valued in the decision making enterprise. Accepting these three propositions is frequently very difficult. That ethics cannot be discussed apart from the notion of personal responsibility is a radical proposition. That is why the responses most frequently invoked to disavow the relationship between ethics and responsibility-i.e., variations on the theme, "Am I my brother's keeper?"-actually form the keystone of the "ethics" that comprise the pragmatism of the political realists.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" is not an idle, metaphysical speculation. To be sure, in various religious traditions the answer to this question carries with it profound theological implications, but the question's specific purpose is to focus our attention on performance, not promise; on actions, not intentions; and on individual responsibility, not aggregate, neutrality.

Herman Wank was tremendously successful in transposing the Genesis story of Cain and Abel to a literary masterpiece entitled The Cain Mutiny, but he provided not definitive answer to the perennial biblical query. Rather, in masterful fashion he skillfully and subtly moved the question, deeply buried in the essence of our being, into the present reality. Wank saw the paradox that was involved; one can learn that which cannot be taught. As a consequence, in focusing our attention on the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?", Wank forced his readers to develop and refine their own "answers" which, in effect, amounted to nothing more than the emergence of a conscious awareness that ethics and responsibility are indivisible.

In preparing our students for the professions, we lack the skill and subtlety of a Herman Wouk. Many of the millions who read his book, saw the play (The Caine Mutiny Court Martial) or the movie, came to the uncomfortable realization that the notion of individual ethical responsibility is not absolved by hierarchical systems. No one who embarks on the U.S.S. Caine can avoid confronting the eternal verity of ethics: contrary to another basic dogma of the pragmatists, the buck doesn't stop at the top.

The death bed scene of another famous literary giant, Gertrude Stein, should be juxtaposed with the Cain and Abel story in every student's mind. As her devoted disciples purportedly gathered around her bed, one especially distraught follower is supposed to have burst out in utter despair: "Oh, Miss Stein, what is the answer?" Gertrude Stein's answer was a question: "What is the question?" The title of this article is also a question: "Why teach ethics?" Like Gertrude Stein's question, mine is more of a challenge than a question in search of an answer. It is a question in search of a questioner, a listener, a hearer. Its only value is in the asking.

The eminent man of letters Lord Chesterfield noted long ago that the world will never suffer from the want of wonders but only from the want of wonder. Can we begin to wonder what it means to confront the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" To pose this question inevitably leads us to wonder, "Why teach ethics?". Exploring these queries critically might lead us to wonder further-about ourselves as responsible human beings, for instance. In the process we may learn much about ourselves as individuals and as professionals and, indeed, we may begin to wonder if we have not learned more than we care to know. The kind of freedom that is attached to ethical maturity is not bought cheaply; indeed, the ethical immaturity of the pragmatists is seemingly costless by comparison. If one can penetrate this awful deceptiveness of the political realists, one has learned what could never be taught.