I have to give a presentation on morality to my psychology class

All Nines

The class got into groups and chose topics from a little list to base a project on. The assignment is worth roughly 70% of the final grade, or something like that.

I chose morality, because it was more interesting to me than the other topics available (parenting, schizophrenia, addiction, etc). But how the hell do I make a thirty minute presentation out of it? At least with some topics, you can actually do some teaching on the matter, but morality isn't taught, except through reevaluation of personal values. I'm trying to think of how to make it interesting without being too edgy.

I need to make the presentation engaging, and I was hoping to do so by using out-of-the-ordinary moral standpoints to show to the class, to perhaps make them think a little bit, but that might not necessarily end up being thought-provoking or interesting. And the teacher will flat-out tell a group to sit down and give it a rest if the project is too boring.

I wonder if I should have chosen something like aging, or autism, or eating disorders, or something.

Trash_Vortex

Why don't you write some of that from the second paragraph there?

RedEyedAbyss

Hmm...perhaps you can tell a story involving a tabula rasa person who learns morality from others. Of course, I have the Christian creation story in mind as the basis, so that might breach the edgy limit depending on what kind of school you're in.

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Morality itself, or morals people tend to like?

All Nines

^^^ The reevaluation bit? I was going to, which is something, I guess.

^^ I'll look into that. I've seen the words "tabula rasa" before, but I don't remember what it means.

^ Probably more morality itself, but I would give examples of normative morals and juxtapose them against abnormal viewpoints, or something, to create a topic within a topic.

RedEyedAbyss

It means "Blank slate." In this context, it assumes people are born without morals and learn them entirely from perceiving the world around them over time.

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Huh. That could work very well. Thanks for the recommendation.

Khwarizmi

Realistically, you'd presumably have to also factor in instincts like empathy and personal likes/dislikes which might affect morality, I'd imagine.

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An example of proof that people aren't born with morals by default is how history shows just how much common morals change.

Wait, then again, in a sense that wouldn't mean that they don't have morals before they learn any...

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It's amazing just how much my partner and I have overlooked when thinking about how to do this project.

I mean, I was going to figure in personal inclinations towards certain moral beliefs, but I hadn't thought of using history as an example.