Assignment task: Read Omar Sharmout's article "Can ethics classes actually influence students' moral behavior?"
The article discusses a study at UC Riverside which determined that after exposure to a philosophy article, a 50-minute discussion section, and an optional online video concerning the ethics of eating factory-farmed meat, students decreased their rates of meat purchasing from 52% to 45%.
Do you think that philosophical ethical instruction is capable of influencing real-world choices? In other words, is ethics merely a theoretical exercise that takes place in the classroom, or does it have a practical application outside the classroom? Explain your answer.