Resources that fit

Units and bundles for this topic

Discourse Ethics, Kant and Utilitarianism is the unit for this comparison. The Habermas & Ethics Bundle adds truth and the ideal speech situation, the digital public sphere and an assessment pack for $49.90 in total, and Upper Secondary Complete covers all 24 units for whole-course planning.

The teaching problem

What each theory actually asks

Kant examines the principle of action, not only the result. A maxim states what someone intends to do, under which conditions and for what purpose. The universalization test asks whether that maxim could be conceived and willed as a universal law. In the unit's first case a student group promises to repay money it knows it will never return, to fund a useful school project. Universalized, a practice of knowingly false promises undermines the reliability that promising depends on, and the good purpose does not remove the problem. The humanity formulation adds that people must not be treated merely as means, which still allows cooperation that respects their own agency.

Utilitarian approaches judge actions or rules by their consequences for everyone's welfare, with interests counted impartially rather than by group membership. Students often reduce this to “what most people want”. The second case shows why that fails: a project brings a small benefit to 100 people and severely burdens two, and a yes-or-no vote never captured how heavy those burdens are. An impartial assessment still needs intensity, duration, likelihood and alternatives. Short-term gains can be outweighed by long-term losses of trust, and act and rule utilitarianism may reason differently. Students build a qualitative consequence matrix instead of inventing precise utility values.

Discourse ethics tests a norm through the inclusion of all affected. What counts is whether everyone affected could rationally assent to the consequences and side effects of the norm being generally followed; agreement under pressure does not count. In the third case adults alone decide a school rule that mainly affects students and cleaning staff, and leadership says it has already considered their interests. That is not enough. Worked example: a school considers a compulsory app that simplifies organization but collects more data than necessary and is hard for some families to access. A Kantian argument stresses informed agency, a utilitarian one access and privacy consequences, discourse ethics justification to those burdened. The verdicts may match while the reasons differ.

A sequence that works

Teaching the comparison in five steps

This follows the unit's four 90-minute lessons and its practice assessments.

1. Kant and the maximStudent book pp. 3–7. Students write the maxim behind the false promise and test what universalizing it does to promising. In the workshop they design an honest funding alternative and explain the normative difference. Debate question: does a good purpose justify the deceptive promise?
2. Weighing consequences impartiallyPp. 8–12. The 100-against-two case. Students list what an impartial assessment still needs and build a qualitative consequence matrix without made-up numbers, so the two burdened people do not vanish in a total. The debate asks how a utilitarian approach can take minorities into account.
3. Practical discoursePp. 13–17. Adults alone decide a school rule that mainly affects students and cleaning staff. Students examine the gap between assuming others' interests and letting them take part, then design a process with accessible information and a reasoned examination of objections. Debate: can assent be valid when some affected people cannot participate?
4. One case, three argumentsPp. 18–22. The compulsory app case, with a privacy-preserving alternative that costs more. Students write a distinct argument for each theory and fill in a table of criterion, application, conclusion and uncertainty. The final question asks which theory is most persuasive here and which objection remains.
5. Practice assessmentPractice 1 gives a council that funds only the leisure option with the most votes, although a small group needs a more expensive accessible alternative, and cites Kant, utility and consensus all at once. Students examine each appeal separately. Allow 90 minutes, or 135 for extended work.

Where it goes wrong

Misconceptions to plan for

Marking

Assessing a three-theory comparison

Both practice assessments use the same 100-point scheme: reconstruction 25, analysis and comparison 40, judgment 25 and communication 10. Analysis and comparison breaks down into conceptual precision 10, application to at least two details 15, comparison through a shared question 10 and scope limitation 5. The comparison line is where many essays lose marks, because they apply each theory in turn without ever asking the same question of all three. The marking guidance for Practice 1 states the core point plainly: a vote count is neither a maxim test, a complete welfare assessment nor ideal consensus.

Judgment is marked as explicit criteria 5, reasoned position 10, serious objection and response 5 and viable alternative 5, and the guide says no particular opinion is required. Practice 2 makes a good second attempt: an organization gains many donations through an unnoticed deception, long-term effects are uncertain, and those affected would probably object but were not consulted. Strong answers let Kant examine the deceptive maxim, utilitarianism include long-term trust and discourse ethics ask about justifiable assent. Short-term success fully answers none of these questions. For graded use, hand out only the source material and tasks.

Courses

Using it in IB, A Level and senior ethics

The comparison fits the moral philosophy part of most senior philosophy courses. In A Level Philosophy, Kantian ethics and utilitarianism are the standard normative theories, and discourse ethics gives students a third position to test them against. In IB Diploma Philosophy the case-based tasks suit work on ethics and practice in evaluating arguments. For Australian senior secondary philosophy and ethics, the four cases work as stimulus material. These are rough fits only. Check the unit against your own specification, because it develops one topic and does not cover a full course.

If your course goes further into Habermas, the unit sits well beside the others in the bundle. Habermas: Truth and the Ideal Speech Situation explains why consensus is not voting, which helps students see why discourse ethics is not majority rule. Habermas and the Digital Public Sphere moves from moral norms to public debate, and the assessment pack sets Habermas against Hume and Feyerabend. Within this unit, the jigsaw page has each student prepare a teaching card for one lesson: central distinction, case evidence, a common mistaken inference and one test question.

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