Does studying ethics inspire students and professors to be morally better people? Aristotle thought that we learned ethics only through life experience, and that intellectual or academic training did little to shape behavior. Of course, Aristotle also thought that the development of rationality gave people the objectivity to use the Golden Mean, which would seem to indicate that academic preparation is not a total waste of time when it comes to improving the virtue of citizens.
What's your view? Do (or could) courses like this have any real-world impact?