The Ethics of “FreePR”

This student’s project was motivated by the Boston marathon bombings in Massachusetts and his desire to help prepare people in his community to handle similar crises. He drew upon the values he learned in ethics class to develop a program that offered free CPR courses (or what he called “FreePR) to members of his community, in the hopes that one day such training could help save a life.

This student saw many parallels between his project and ethics, but believed that the Ethics of Virtue was most closely related to his endeavor due to its emphasis on a person’s character, the principles they value, and their actions. There are countless ways that people can define themselves and their character through action, but each individual acts in accordance with their own personal view of virtues and morality. He believed that his social engagement project encompassed Virtue Ethics by demonstrating a variety of virtues discussed in his ethics class. Firstly, his project illustrated the virtue of charity, as he provided the tools necessary for CPR training in addition to the time he spent teaching and preparing for the class. Secondly, although he hadn’t realized it at the time, he had acted in accordance with the moral virtue of social responsibility when he chose to attend college for Medic, Fire, and Emergency Management. Furthermore, he had continued to be socially responsible by passing on CPR skills that can prepare others for emergency situations and teach them how to sustain lives under duress.

When reflecting upon his project, this student stated that “They [the students in my CPR class] listened while I talked about this ethics class…At that point I had forgotten that it was charity work and for credits in a class. It felt natural to teach and to answer their questions…I was there to educate, prepare and possibly one day save a life with these people’s hands.”