Is Ethics Education Necessary? A Comparative Study Of Moral Cognizance In Taiwan And The United States

Abstract

Ethical development, cognizance, and maturity, as well as ethical behavior, are a primary concern of all managers, government officials, and educators. These moral values are even more important in Asian economies where some aspects of the economy seem to go underground without any due taxation afforded to the government or proper credit accorded to the property owners or copyright or other intellectual property holders. This article examines morality and ethics from a cross-cultural perspective. The article examines works using Kohlbergs Cognitive Moral Development theory and the Defining Issues Test (DIT), in order to ascertain the moral cognizance of workers and students, with particular attention to the variables of age, education, ethics education, and gender. United States samples are compared with studies of Taiwanese managers and Taiwanese students. The purpose was to see if there is relationship between any of these variables and moral maturity and cognizance, as well as whether any of these relationships were culturally influenced.