The Problem of Sophomoritis: An Educational Proposal

Abstract

‘Sophomoritis’ is identified as a period of adolescent development concerned primarily with raising all kinds of moral questions but also doubting all answers. It is suggested that this questioning often manifests itself in the form of uncritical relativism and naive egoism, and that it is potentially dangerous in that it is elevated to the status of an absolute external moral authority instead of a means to restructuring a new form of moral judgment. Criticism is leveled at educational institutions for implicitly supporting sophomoritis, particularly through ‘Introductory Ethics’ courses. A proposal is made for a course which instead utilizes the students’ natural development, together with the conceptual perspectives of moral philosophy, to stimulate development towards a principled form of moral autonomy.     

Teaching Environmental Philosophy at a British University

Abstract

The introduction of environmental philosophy into four philosophical courses at University College, Cardiff is discussed in this article. One-fifth of a course on philosophical aspects of social and world problems is devoted to ecological problems. In philosophical theology, the objections to Christian belief are considered—despotism, anthropocentrism, speciesism, chauvinism, and dualism. In a course on modern European ideas, changing attitudes to nature are considered. In a course on moral philosophy, theories of moral considerability, of intrinsic value, of consequentialism, and of interspecies morality are defended. Some of the opportunities for, and constraints upon, the teaching of environmental philosophy in British and American universities are also expounded.     

The Democratic Teacher in the Contemporary Social and Ideological Context

Abstract:

Current philosophical trends in North America are again raising the issue as to whether or not there can be ‘ moral experts’. An expert is defined here as one who predicts and explains better than the layman m a particular domain on the basis of his specialized underlying knowledge of it This analysis is then applied to the domain of morality. Special attention is given to the claim that moral philosophers are professionally more capable of critically thinking through the nature of moral problems. It is argued that philosophers tend to neglect the area of actual argumentation about specific moral issues, and that it is here, at the point of contact with living moral experience and empirical research into it that the possibility of ‘ moral expertise’ lies.     

Moral Reasoning and Moral Education

Abstract

It is argued that R.W. Beardsmore's account of moral reasoning provides the most satisfactory explanation of moral behaviour and this is supported by an examination of his main criticisms of R.M. Hare and Philippa Foot. The chief educational implication of Beardsmore's account of moral development is, it is suggested, that, though educators cannot be uncommitted on fundamental moral issues, they can, nevertheless, ensure that rational procedures are followed. A committed teacher is not, therefore, necessarily a moral indoctrinator. In conclusion it is suggested that arguments for neutrality rest on mistaken assumptions about the nature of morality and that, without a background of established and accepted values moral education cannot even be considered.     

Moral Authority and Moral Education

Abstract:

Elsewhere, the author has argued that the liberal theory of moral education is both morally dangerous and philosophically mistaken. The moral educator cannot be morally neutral, but must be morally committed, even if he is to attempt to teach children how to think for themselves about moral questions, or develop their autonomy, rather than indoctrinate them. This position implies that the moral educator must be a moral authority. The author defends this claim against subjectivists who deny the existence of moral authority by arguing that the possibility of moral judgment creates the possibility of moral authority.     

论西方主知型德育模式的问题及其理论修正——兼谈对我国德育改革的启示

20世纪西方德育出现了以培养学生道德认知能力为根本目标的主知型模式。由于该模式以自由主义理论为背景,强调个人在道德上理性自主的哲学理念,造成了在实际道德教育中学生缺乏道德实践力量和个体与美好生活相疏离等问题。根据埃蒙.凯伦博士对道德上理性自主哲学理念的限制性修正,相应地调整、深化和改进主知型德育模式的目标、内容和具体实践方法,可以实现主知型德育模式的自我完善。西方完善德育主知型模式的经验对我国德育在道德情操的养成、道德自主和道德认知能力的培养、生活实践的德育方式等方面的改革具有重要的启示意义。     

The Teacher As Moral Agent

Abstract

Lawrence Kohlberg's work in moral education appears to be significant enough philosophically that one is tempted to use much of it to resolve basic problems of long standing. In this essay it is argued that it would prove more fruitful for Kohlberg or anyone else to avoid applying his developmentalist position to the settling of such problems as utilitarian/formalist supremacy or the search for a ‘best’ morality. Instead, emphasis could be placed on the explicating of the fundamental requirements of a non‐relativistic, non‐egoistic morality of whatever sort.

Such basic moral requirements serve to highlight of what principled morality (Stages Five and Six) consists, and why it need not be tied to a Rawlsian Formalism, or to any other normative ethical position. In fact, there is considerable cause for supposing that what Kohlberg really achieves with clarity is nothing more than a sequential typology of development in moral thinking from egoism to universalism, and from situation‐specific rules to universalizable and reversable judgments of principle. This in itself constitutes, of course, an enormous undertaking and, if successfully defended, would be a very significant breakthrough in Psychology, Education and Philosophy. It is what Kohlberg ought to be about, rather than something unnecessarily contentious.     

Motivation and Methodology in Moral Education

Abstract

Two basic worries about moral education are considered. The first ‐‐ whether there are or are not fundamental principles of reason and procedure which govern moral decision‐making ‐‐ is argued to be unnecessary, since there plainly are some such procedures. The second ‐‐ how and in what direction pupils should be motivated to attend to such principles ‐‐ is a more complex and difficult matter, which has to be tackled whatever one's particular philosophical views on morality. It is argued that the proper object of motivation is primarily allegiance to certain principles of rationality and justice, natural sympathy or personal benevolence being regarded as desirable but too fragile.     

Self-determination theory,morality, and education: introduction to special issue

ABSTRACT

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is an empirically based organismic theory of human motivation, development, and well-being that shares many points of interest with the fields of moral development and moral education. Yet, SDT has been largely disconnected from these fields so far. How can we define and empirically assess autonomous moral motivation? How is moral autonomy achieved in the course of development? And what are the relationships between leading a moral life and happiness? These questions have been occupying moral psychologists and educators for a long time. They are focal for SDT, as well. This special issue highlights various lines of intersection between SDT, morality and education. Contributions either expand SDT into the moral domain or incorporate elements of SDT into moral theory with the ultimate goal of integrating fields that inherently belong together.     

闲暇·德性·现代德育

闲暇生活由于具有自由与自为的特性而更能体现人的德性及其对德性精神的理解。工业化社会追求效率的原则驱逐了生活中的闲暇,也放逐了闲暇道德。现代德育也以注重工作及制度化生活的引导与规约为主要议题,因而导致了人的制度化生活与闲暇生活以及人的德性发展的不和谐状态。从和谐德性与人性发展的角度来讲,德育改革应该关注闲暇德性。     

Goethe's Faust Revisited: Lessons from DIT research

The argument is made that psychometric forms of assessment are essential to the large-scale adoption of developmental approaches to moral education. In this respect, the Defining Issues Test has been an invaluable tool for research and practice in moral education. However, because such instruments are based upon previous developmental research, they are by definition derivative and unsuited for basic research on moral development. In addition standardised measures, while essential to educational research on the correlates of moral growth, run the risk of reifying extant views and assumptions about morality and moral development. Thus, such measures may stand in the way of generating new knowledge and/or impeding the assimilation of alternative conceptions of morality and social development within educational research and practice. To avoid these problems, while at the same time benefiting from the utility of measures such as the DIT, requires a constant reciprocal interaction between the generation of standardised measures and basic developmental research.     

Ethics before Equality: Moral education after Levinas

Emptiness, indeed nihilism, is a characteristic of so much contemporary discourse regarding morality and moral education. This is found in facile notions of teaching right and wrong but also in the prevalence of rights-talk, with its sacrosanct assumptions about equality. This article examines this discourse in the light of Levinas' account of the primacy of ethics - of my absolute responsibility in the face of the other, of the asymmetry of my relation to the other. It seeks an account of receptivity that releases the ethical from the limitations of moral reasoning.     

Schooling,Morality and Race

Abstract

In this paper the authors examine the nature and significance of the interface between race, culture and morality and the implications for the classroom teacher in relation to schooling generally and moral education in particular.

They argue that morality is circumscribed by the culture(s) from which it derives and within which it operates. It is therefore, impossible to consider one without the other. The same applies in relation to race and culture and similarly to the holism of race, culture and morality.

Having argued that culture in Britain has been increasingly racialized, they make the case for an anti‐racist approach to moral education which debunks the racial baggage from contemporary conceptions of morality.

They finally argue that since teachers, like pupils, bring their own values and perceptions with them to school, teachers need to acknowledge this and respond positively within the context of a ‘multi‐ethnic’ Britain.     

Autonomous moral education is Socratic moral education: The Import of repeated activity in moral education out of evil and into virtue

Abstract

Kant’s commitment to autonomy raises difficult questions about the very possibility of Kantian moral education, since appeal to external pedagogical guidance threatens to be in contradiction with autonomous virtue. Furthermore, moral education seems to involve getting good at something through repetition; but Kant seems to eschew the notion of repeated natural activity as antithetical to autonomy. Things become even trickier once we remember that Kant also views autonomous human beings as radically evil: we are capable of choosing rationally and autonomously, but, left to our own devices, that same capacity for reason might tempt us to choose only out of a concern to satisfy our happiness. We thus need a moral education which realizes autonomy while dodging the dual bullets of external natural forces and internal evil forces. Ultimately, his concerns about external natural forces and internal evil forces do not lead Kant to reject either moral education or a role for repeated activity in it. Rather, he advocates a carefully circumscribed appeal to repeated activities within a course of Socratic moral education focused on encouraging the student, subjectively and first-personally, to claim her autonomy, resulting in the cheerful and vigilant exercise of virtue as an aptitude.     

Moral Education and its Near Relatives

Abstract

Two extreme positions on the relations between ME and RE are stated and examined. The distinctive aims and methods of each as developed in recent years indicate how they may be complementary. Moral reasoning is concerned with the assumptions and conditions of morality, and with situational realities as well as imperatives. Religious beliefs have the same place in decision‐making as moral principles. The difference between religious and social assumptions in ethics centres in interests and the conditions of their reconciliation or accommodation. Accountability ends in responsibility to oneself, and self‐judgement, which may not be identical with ‘conscience’. Accountability to God is not additional; and the setting aside of one's own will transforms the moral situation. The claim that religion is the basis of a more inward and highly motivated ethics is examined. Hemispheres of morality, public and private, are taken as an essential ethical division, which makes possible an accommodation between ME and RE, and avoids the educational dilemma set by Dr Jason Wright's contribution to the debate in JME Vol. 11 No. 1 (1981). Two changes in traditional attitudes are considered necessary, and as justified by the argument.     

Representation of morality in children: A qualitative approach

ABSTRACT

Previous research on children’s moral reasoning usually used a quantitative approach and a pre-determined set of methods in order to establish early moral landmarks. We proposed a qualitative perspective on the basis of which we have formulated three main objectives: 1) to identify the main categories of behaviors that children spontaneously associate with the notion of morality, in line with Turiel’s Domain Theory; 2) to investigate children’s conceptions of moral and social-conventional rules and 3) to assess the gender differences in the use of care and justice reasoning, in line with Gilligan’s assertion that females are care-oriented and that males consistently use the justice orientation and infrequently use the care orientation. Ninety-two children (57% boys, mean age was 8.19 years) were required to describe morality in behavioral terms without being guided by specific indications from the researchers. Our results reflected a tendency towards morality perceived through behaviors directed towards others, namely through altruism, and also the domination of moral norms as compared to social ones, partially confirming Gilligan’s theory concerning gender specificities regarding moral reasoning in the questions of care and justice.     

Educating for Moral Ability: Reflections on moral development based on Vygotsky's theory of concept formation

The idea examined here is that the development of moral ability shares important similarities with the development of conceptual thinking as outlined in the work of Lev Vygotsky. Most notably, the mature forms of both processes are ways of constructing meaning that are not governed by pre-established modes of behaviour. The principal suggestion here is that Vygotsky's theory of concept formation can be used as a generative model for understanding the development of moral ability in a way that challenges the notion of morality as rule-following behaviour. Understanding moral ability as a present-centred aptitude for creating meaning carries a two-fold significance for educators: it is theoretically useful for understanding the learning process in the context of a fundamental or universal interdependency, and of practical value inasmuch as it focuses on the importance of learning to think and act in the here and now.     

Kohlberg and Piaget: Aspects of their Relationship in the Field of Moral Development

Abstract:

Kohlberg's system of moral judgment development has some important links with Piaget's work on moral judgment, though Piaget's work is not the only influence on Kohlberg's ideas. Piaget's system of moral growth is briefly examined, and the extent to which subsequent research has validated it, is noted, thus placing Kohlberg in a historical context. The ways in which Kohlberg extends or departs from Piaget's system of moral growth are examined. The concept of stages and the nature and processes of stage development are discussed, and in this context the relationship between Kohlberg's moral development and Piaget's cognitive development is examined. It is concluded on the basis both of logic and evidence that the relationship, although complex rather than isomorphic, is likely to hold considerable potential for future research.     

The Impossibility of Teaching a Private Morality

Abstract

The rejection of hypothetical questions about moral action, as a method of teaching in moral education, is a rejection of rules. The rejection of rules in favour of a morality that is private to the individual leads to the contradiction that action taken on the basis of private moral decision‐making is the opposite of what we mean by ‘morality’. Nothing is left to constitute moral education.