ONLINE FIRST
published on August 15, 2025
James Gould, Ted Hazelgrove
https://doi.org/10.5840/tej2025814168
Jekyll¡¯s Disintegration
More Lessons in Personal Ethics
Robert Louis Stevenson¡¯s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a cautionary moral meditation. The story speaks to fundamental questions: How are morality and the good life related? Why do we experience internal moral conflict? How does someone become thoroughly bad? How do we by our free choices become unfree? What are the psychological steps in moral disintegration? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an engaging way to discuss these important moral topics with students. We first describe the format of our interdisciplinary course¡ªwe then discuss how we taught several themes of personal ethics found in Stevenson¡¯s tale.