Normativity in applied ethics teaching: not to have, nice to have, or need to have?

Arguing for mitigation/adaptation to counter risks to food security, agricultural production and environmental protection caused by climate change is, although based on (sound) science, at the core a value-based argument. Therefore, at many universities, applied science students now have mandatory and/or elective BSc and MSc courses which put their discipline into a wider social context, including ethical analysis and reflection. Such courses thus deal with normative questions. However, it is necessary to ponder what to do with the normativity in applied ethics teaching, including how to deal with the values of the teacher whilst ensuring the best learning outcome. We analyse the role of normativity in ethics teaching drawing upon, respectively, the stance on conflict of interests found in codes on responsible conduct in research (RCR) and an adapted version of Pielke’s science-policy interface framework to bring out different types of ethics teachers. We find that not disclosing one’s normative position as teacher within applied ethics can be seen as lack of transparency, and may result in being, or being perceived of being, an act of (hidden) persuasion. We argue that teacher’s normative positions should be disclosed, to some degree, to enact, what we call responsible conduct in teaching (RCT). We conclude that there are a number of challenges associated with the normativity of teachers in relation to RCT and best learning outcome and suggest that having a teaching team that represent different normative positions may be of benefit to students and deflect criticisms of bias.