moral education essay

The Student Daily

Career, Notifications & Jobs

Importance of Moral Education Essay

November 28, 2020 by Son of Ghouse Leave a Comment

In the modern era, when people around the world are civilized, we have an unprecedented boom in technology and science. Consequently, the quality and standard of life of the average person are at an all-time high. Though human history is comparatively newer on this 4.35 billion years old earth, we have managed to successfully hone the forces of nature to not just survive but thrive as a species. This write-up is an essay on importance of moral education essay.

Our ancestors started as hunters and gatherers, but now we are writing complex computer programs to make artificial intelligence carry out our space explorations. When you search for the reasons behind this huge evolution of human development, you can easily conclude that the system of education has made us more capable and competent.

Education is one of the most important processes that help an individual to be enlightened about his or her existence. Education provides us with knowledge in accessible and practical ways that guide future generations. This process provides an individual with skills, habits, beliefs, and values that will help him or her attain a successful and prosperous life.

There are various systems of education in different parts of the world. But no system of education can be complete without students getting proper moral education as a part of their curriculum.

Moral education consists of a set of beliefs and guidance acquired in the philosophical journey of our society. It makes a student well mannered, courteous, vigorous, non-bullying, obedient, and diligent. It guides the behavior, attitudes, and intentions of the students towards others and nature. It helps a person throughout his or her life to decide what is right or what is wrong.

Definition Of Moral Education

Some educational theories suggest that new avenues of the future can only open when the previous generation makes a path for it by staying out of the way. Though adults can take their moral understanding further with their ability of critical thinking that they acquire from systematic education, children require more careful attention as they are easily impressed and influenced. That is why the guidance of past generations and traditions remain very important in the form of moral education.

Moral education is very ambiguous as a term as different cultures, based on where they live and how they live, have a different set of moral values. But one thing that can be agreed upon universally is that moral education intends to shape the idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in young minds.

By the term ‘good’, you can assimilate deeds like contributing towards a healthy society, not harming a fellow member of the society, helping others, being civic, and being productive. The term ‘bad’ however refers to any thought or force that opposes the good deeds.

Although the modern education system is very new and still developing, the branch of moral education has been taught to pupils since ancient times. Earlier, the duty of imparting moral lessons used to be carried out by the religious leaders and educators who specialized in uplifting the moral value of the society by both adhering to and reforming the old traditions. In the modern age, especially after the colonization of several parts of the world, moral education has been reinforced by the new age educationists.

In the contemporary world moral education has become more universal in approach. More and more humanitarian aspects like human rights, rights for specially-abled people, women’s rights, animal rights, and rights of other marginalized sections of the society have been included.

This progressive approach towards moral education results in a more harmonious society where students become more inclusive and compassionate towards each other along with being successful individually.

Also Read: Essay on Aatma nirbhar Bharat in English

Essay On Importance Of Moral Education In 150 Words

The purpose of an individual’s education is their all-round development, and not just securing high paying jobs, no matter how much the rat-races of the world may have convinced us otherwise.

The education of an individual can never be complete unless they have learned the lessons of tolerance, compassion, pluralistic values, respect, faith, honesty, and many other great virtues that are essential for an upright social life.

These lessons are acquired from the moral education that kids are imparted through stories, skits, interactions, dialogues, and discourses, and are expected to come from the elder members of the society.

Moral lessons teach young children about ideas that take them towards the ‘good’ life and help them identify the ‘bad’. A life that is not guided by these lessons can easily go astray, and an individual leading such a life, instead of being useful and productive, turns out to be harmful to society.

Essay On Importance Of Moral Education In 250 Words

For a young student moral lessons are just as important as technical and scientific ones as these help in shaping their entire personality. The word moral comes from the Latin root ‘moris’ which means the code of conduct of a people, and the social adhesive that holds a community together.

Moral lessons teach students the importance of positive virtues like honesty, responsibility, mutual respect, helpfulness, kindness, and generosity, without which no society can ever function. At a personal level, this knowledge is essential for a healthy and meaningful life.

These lessons are also aimed at conveying the vital message that negative qualities like greed, vengeance, hatred, and violence can hinder the functioning of a productive society and can cause immense personal damage to the individual.

Since young minds are easily impressionable and assimilate both positive and negative influences easily, moral lessons are vital in helping them make righteous choices as adults. Moral education makes sure that children grow up to develop a virtuous character and lead a decent life.

History bears witness, whenever a society has deterred from the path of these moral values, calamities have befallen humankind. Had Adolf Hilter been taught the right lessons in tolerance and diversity, the world would have been spared the horrors of the Holocaust and a World War.

A proper system of moral education becomes instrumental in shaping the present and the future of a harmonious society. For the betterment of individuals and the community they live in, imparting the right values to children as students are therefore essential.

Essay On Importance Of Moral Education For Class 7&8

Moral education as a process of learning enables a child to acquire socially acceptable skills that make them a useful resource for society. In the present times, moral education is a necessity, keeping the changing systems of the world in mind.

Moral education should not begin in the confines of a classroom but should start in the comfort and security of a home. Parents should be the first idols of children from whom they learn the basics of moral conduct.

Imparting moral lessons to young kids who have just begun developing their thoughts and are yet to attain individuality is a task of great responsibility. They can only be shaped into righteous human beings if proper care and due guidance are provided.

It is to be remembered, in this relation, that kids learn more from observation and modeling than from lectures and discourses. The kind of environment they develop in and the kind of individuals they find as models play a vital role in shaping them as individuals.

It is, therefore, of utmost importance to make sure that children always find a healthy atmosphere of productivity and righteousness around them, with healthy, meaningful relationships with their parents and other elders.

However, when we allow kids to grow in an atmosphere of immoral conduct, we should only expect them to lead lives bereft of all morality. In such cases, the consequences can be dangerous.

A community whose children, the symbols of its future, develop without proper moral education is doomed to be submerged in the darkness of crimes, immorality, violence, hatred, discrimination, selfishness, and greed.

The benefits of moral education are numerous. Apart from teaching children socially useful values to guide their everyday life, an efficient system of moral education imparts lessons of cooperation. As a value, cooperation is not just vital to an individual’s everyday life, but also for the survival of human society.

There can be no future for human civilization if this value is left out of children’s education as we, as a society, need each other to survive. Morals of respect, love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and honesty help in imbibing this essential value among kids early on in life.

Moral education also helps in teaching children values of responsibility and independence which is otherwise difficult to make them learn. An effective curriculum of moral education would help children build a positive approach to difficult situations, and make them self confident. It helps children in realizing their purpose in life, their motivations, and goals, and make them dedicated to the cause of social well being.

Moral education is the only hope of humanity in the process of eradicating social evils like gender discrimination, animal abuse, oppression, violence, racial discrimination, and violence against minorities.

In order to create a better tomorrow and ascertain the continuation of human civilization, imparting moral education to children is a must. As an integral part of education as a whole, moral lessons should be focussed on, making sure that children receive an all-round education that enhances their personality.

Relevance Of Moral Education During The Present times

The present world is ever-changing. With the advent of technology and globalization, changes in family structure, the evolution of the education systems, changes in patterns of recreation, emergence of the ‘virtual’ world, and variations in the interpersonal relationships, children’s lives, thought patterns, and learning needs have undergone tremendous changes. Under these circumstances, the need and relevance of moral education have also changed.

With the virtual world casting a lasting impression on children, they have now become a lot more vulnerable to negative influences. Misuse of technology nowadays leads many young children and teenagers astray.

The damage caused in many cases is beyond repair. The distortions in the nature of human relationships and their consequences are having lasting impacts on young minds.

Under these changed circumstances, moral education has to assume a changed, and probably more important role. Due to the changes in most major spheres of life, moral values have also suffered major distortions.

Greed, violence, discrimination, and jealousy are becoming common among people. With social media, hatred spreads like wildfire. Values like honesty and generosity are only found in textbooks these days and their practical implications are becoming a rare sight.

Moral education is the only way in which the situation can be expected to improve. Proper moral education in classrooms and at home can help in boosting the morale of the students. But these lessons have to be provided in a more time-adjusted way to suit the need of the hour.

Making proper use of technology, a more visual and engaging curriculum can be drafted to engage the students in a practical and life-like manner.

Including moral education in school curriculums and adding extra weightage to these lessons is, therefore, a vital step to take in this direction.

As a society, the value of moral education is immense for us. If we are to produce sensible, kind, generous, responsible, and sensitized individuals to lead the future, moral education cannot be left out. In fact, our very existence as a civilization stands on how morally righteous and upright our future generations are.

What Is “Moral Education”?

Barry Chazan 2
Open Access
First Online: 26 October 2021

13k Accesses

2 Citations

Moral education is one of the most significant arenas of preoccupation of analytic educational philosophy as well as of daily educational practice. Several significant alternative theories of moral education emerged in twentieth century philosophy of education.

It would seem that twenty-first century theory and practice of moral education reflects new realities, challenges, and responses.

The moral situation
Moral socialization
Moral thinking
Moral caring

This chapter is based on chapter 5 “The Moral Situation “in B. Chazan and Jonas Soltis, editors.( 1973 ). Moral Education . New York: Teachers College Press.

You have full access to this open access chapter, Download chapter PDF

Moral education is one of the central concerns of philosophy of education. Over the years, it has been described using a variety of terms—“moral education”, “values education”, “ethics and education” and “character education”. Ultimately, these diverse appellations all focus on the question of “What is the role of education in making us moral and good human beings?”

In former times, discussion of the moral and the good was typically related to religious belief and practice and was often regarded as one of the central missions of religious education. The discussion of moral education was to change dramatically in the modern era when morality was no longer necessarily dependent on or a derivative of religious education. Modern discussions do not necessarily—if at all—tie moral and ethical spheres to religion. Rather, they focus on the role of morality in education in general.

The Moral Situation

The discussion of what “moral education” means very much depends on the clarification of a prior question: What are the issues a person faces when he/she is confronted by a moral situation that calls for a decision?

The first component of a moral situation is that it constitutes a moment in which one has to decide between alternative actions regarding what to do or how to behave. However, the need for a decision in itself is not the single determining dimension of being moral since there are many moments in which we have to make choices in matters of taste, interest, or mood that are a part of daily life in modern societies and are issues unrelated to morality (e.g., “Which of Baskin-Robbins’ thirty-one flavors should I choose today?”). Moral decision-making is about having to make a choice between conflicting core values and principles that force us to decide which is the right and wrong thing for us to do. Moral conflicts are generally not between right and wrong but rather between two rights or two wrongs. Heinz has a very sick wife whose life was in danger. There is one drug that can save her; it is sold in only one pharmacy and it is extremely expensive because the pharmacist has devoted many years to developing it. Heinz does not have enough money to pay for the drug nor is he able to recruit funds. Ultimately, he has only two options: (1) to steal the drug and face the consequences or (2) not to steal the drug and potentially be responsible for his wife’s death. What should he do and why? Footnote 1 Moral decisions are about practical situations involving principled beliefs about what is right or wrong good or bad. In former times, priests and other religious authorities told us what to do. In modern life, we confront the situation with no clerical or supernatural dictates, rather, with only our own conscience and self.

Such decision-making is not an abstract discussion of wise philosophers sitting in easy chairs and deliberating for hours, days, months, or a lifetime. Moral decisions are issues that each of us faces every day in the here and now, situations that are central to human life, that are intensely personal, and that require making a choice of following a course of action.

Approaches to Moral Education

The emergence of contemporary public education created a dilemma about the place of moral education in schooling. As indicated, in former times this type of education was in the bailiwick of religion, which prescribed specific choices and actions. The question for a contemporary public education not rooted in specific religious beliefs is whether there is a place for moral education in schools. If the answer is in the affirmative, then we are faced with questions as to the bases on which moral decisions made, what are the goals of moral education in public schooling, and what the roles and responsibilities of teachers might be.

French academic Emile Durkheim is often regarded as the father of the fields of sociology and of modern thinking about moral education. Durkheim, in his numerous writings about morality and education, established a framework that influenced educational thinking and practice for many decades (Durkheim 1961 ).

Durkheim regarded human beings as social animals, meaning that human life originates and exists within social frameworks. There is no existence without society. Consequently, morality is a system of behaviors reflecting what societies regard as “right” or “wrong”. For Durkheim, modern moral education is the activity of transmitting good and right behaviors of a society to its future citizens. He regarded the teacher as a “secularized” priest or prophet charged with the mission—by means of words, demeanor, and actions—of transmitting society’s core values and behaviors. For Durkheim, the teacher is a powerful and essential force in moral education, and, in fact, is much more important than the family. A family is ultimately focused on caring, supporting, and protecting its children, and it will always compromise on moral issues when its own children are involved. Thus, it is the educator who is charged with transmitting moral codes and enforcing moral behaviors in the young.

Durkheim did not prescribe a specific code of ethics—and he indicated that moral codes could change over time—yet he maintained that ethics relates ultimately to behaviors that are for the good of a society. He did acknowledge that it was sometimes necessary to revolt against the practices of a society if its current moral behaviors strayed from societal principles. In such cases, it was both legitimate and indeed a requirement to call a society to order and to chastise it for corrupting its own core principles. Thus, Durkheim did not regard Socrates, the biblical prophets or Jesus as malcontents, but rather as social critics protesting the turpitude and degeneration of Athenian and Israelite societies and pleading with its citizens to return to their fundamental values.

Durkheim believed that teachers should be models of morally correct behavior. Their mission is to transmit the core values of modern secular societies by pedagogy, personality, and public behavior. The teacher’s task is not simply to pass on knowledge verbally, but also to model “the good” and “the right”. At the same time, the teacher must be concerned that the moral sphere does not become mere habit; instead it should be linked to reflection and understanding of core social values. Durkheim indicated that a teacher’s authority must be tempered with benevolence and sensitivity to the frailty of the child and should not lapse into harshness.

The best pedagogic device for developing the social elements of moral education, according to Durkheim, is the utilization of the class as a social group for the nurturing of group pride, comradery, and loyalty. The school class should be the model for behaving according to a society’s highest and most worthy values. Durkheim’s approach to moral education is the first iteration of a secular theory and practice of moral education for contemporary life.

An important—albeit little known—contribution to the discussion of moral education is to be found in the writings of British educationist John Wilson (Wilson et al. 1967 ). Durkheim grounded the origins of moral education in sociology, while Wilson believed that philosophy was the basis of a theory of moral education rooted in moral deliberation and reflection. Wilson regarded moral education as a way of thinking about ethical issues rather than as a procedure for transmitting specific values to students. His emphasis was on individual inquiry and deliberation rather than societal imposition.

Wilson’s model of moral education was based on a thinking process, which encompassed identifying the moral dilemma; verifying the relevant facts and moral issues involved; and applying principles of reasoning and consideration of other people’s interests to enable moral action. This approach regarded the role of schooling to be the nurturing of the philosophic process of moral reasoning.

Wilson did acknowledge that in order to teach the process of deliberation and resolution, a teacher often would need to express a particular moral viewpoint, because to be neutral or passive is to omit one important part of the process of moral reasoning. At the same time, the role of teachers/educators is to teach the multi-dimensional patterns of moral thinking, rather than to serve as exemplars of moral action. Teachers should not model how students should behave but rather how they should model the dynamics of moral reasoning.

The rapid expansion of public schools in late twentieth-century American society led to the need for practical pedagogies and programs for implementing morals and values education in American schools. A group of educators committed to the practice of moral education in schools created an approach called “Values Clarification” (Raths et al. 1963 ). Values Clarification (VC) is rooted in the assumption that there is no clear or accepted set of moral values in contemporary life, and that the moral domain is a matter of personal choice and individual decision-making. Therefore, the VC approach states that teachers should not be allowed to impose their values or their behaviors and that their role in “values education’ is to develop a series of skill sets that would enable the child to become a valuing person. VC believed that classroom teachers could and should help the young focus on moral issues and help them learn how to make their own value decisions. The VC model encompasses a process with seven components: (1) Choosing freely; (2) Choosing from alternatives; (3) Choosing from alternatives after thoughtful consideration of the consequences of each alternative; (4) Valuing the choice; (5) Valuing the choice so much as to be willing to affirm the choice to others; (6) Acting in a certain way to reflect commitment to the choice one made; and (7) Acting repeatedly according to the choice that they made so that it becomes an imbedded form of moral behavior. In VC, the role of schooling in moral education is to train young people to be able to apply the seven stages of the process, rather than to be a “morally-educated person”.

The role of the VC teacher is to create classroom activities and pedagogies focused on developing the seven valuing processes. The VC teacher is a technician who facilitates the development of a series of thinking, feeling, and behavioral skills. Moreover, the VC teacher should not reveal his/her own moral preferences; indeed their personal moral lifestyle is totally irrelevant to their work. They are neither representatives of society nor models of advanced stages of thinking; rather, they are trainers of a set of necessary skill sets.

The VC proponents developed a series of pedagogic exercises, dialogue strategies, role-playing case studies, value sheets, and hundreds of activities falling into three main categories. One set of pedagogic tools focused on the strategy of valuing questions that caused the student to think about moral issues. Another strategy aimed to encourage students to express their own personal values and examine them. A third group of activities created guidelines for group discussion and processing to enable students to hear and react to different perspectives.

The academic world did not treat VC with the respect shown to other university-based moral education programs, probably because it was more shaped by teachers’ practical needs for engaging and compelling classroom materials rather than being rooted in philosophical or psychological models. The pragmatic aspect of VC should not be minimized because any theory of moral education can only truly be useful if it is accompanied by or leads to clear, accessible, and useful practical materials.

Lawrence Kohlberg was the most prominent name in twentieth-century moral education (Kohlberg 1968 , 1981 , 1983 ). A psychologist educated at the University of Chicago, Kohlberg spent his academic career as a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he devoted his research, educational, and pedagogic interests to the subject of moral education, Kohlberg’s work was rooted in psychology and philosophy, and his focus was on the practice of education. His appeal and commitment to the field of moral education was profound, and he was singular in his quest for the synthesis of theory and practiceֹ.

Kohlberg’s approach to moral education rejected the position that morality was essentially a set of moral norms, while also rejecting the notion that morality was exclusively a matter of individual choice. Kohlberg believed that while individuals are raised and rooted in specific societies, at the same time they must deal with issues that are universal in nature and that extend beyond specific societal borders. Indeed, he regarded the moral sphere as a central domain of being human.

Based on his psychological research, Kohlberg developed a three-levelled classification of “types” or “orientations” of moral judgment. Level One of moral judgment (called the “pre-conventional”) refers to moral thinking and decision-making that is oriented toward (or shaped by) fear of punishment or pain. A person on this level makes moral decisions to avoid physical or other sorts of punishment and/or to satisfy egotistical needs. What is “good” or “right” is whatever prevents a person from getting yelled at or punished, or, conversely, gets them some candy. Level Two, moral reasoning (the “conventional level”) is oriented toward social expectations and behaviors—being a “good boy” or a “good girl” or doing what a good citizen in a particular city, society, or state is expected to do or not do. On this level, decisions are made in terms of adherence to accepted moral conventions. Level Three, moral thinking (the post-conventional), refers to individual decisions oriented to conscience, principles, and to the ultimate value of justice. In Level Three decision-making, we can sometimes be acting in accord with society but, ultimately, we are oriented to transcending societal norms.

These levels are generally assumed to be connected to three commonly accepted sociological stages in our biological development, that is, infancy; school-age; adolescence and emerging young adulthood; and adulthood. However, Kohlberg’s levels of moral development did not necessarily automatically synchronize with the standard model just described. Indeed, there are many adults who are preconventional or infantile in their moral decision-making processes, and there are also adolescents and young adults who are post-conventional or principled in their moral decision-making and development. Another important aspect of Kohlberg’s developmental notion is his belief that once people have reached a higher level of development, it is unlikely that they will regress to a lower level. One who has learned to live a life of principle (with all the complexities involved) will likely find it difficult not to live the principled life consistently.

Kohlberg was committed to the development of a theory as well as to its implementation in schools (and at a certain point he also tested its use in prisons). Kohlberg shared Durkheim’s emphasis on the importance of moral education in schools, although Kohlberg prescribed a much different pedagogy and practice. He shared some of Wilson’s philosophic thinking but was much more psychologically and practically oriented than Wilson. He agreed with VC’s emphasis on practice but rejected most of the other thinking of VC.

Kohlberg worked with a group of educators to create a five-step method for moral dilemma discussion: Step 1: A moral dilemma is read out loud to the class (Kohlberg created a group of approximately 16 dilemmas, indicating that dilemmas could also be selected from ancient texts, literary texts, and contemporary sources). After the reading, the teacher makes sure that the group has understood and agreed upon the main points presented in the dilemma.

Step 2: The teacher raises two questions about the dilemma: (1) What should the person facing the dilemma do? (2) Why? The “why” question is ultimately the central discussion topic for Kohlberg because it reflects the nature of a person’s orientation in terms of moral thinking . Step 3: The class breaks up into small groups to discuss the participants’ reactions. The reason for initially splitting into small groups is to make people feel comfortable to share their thoughts before reassembling. Step 4: A group discussion regarding what the protagonist should do and why. The teacher’s role is to listen, explicate, and, as much as possible, enable the participants to hear patterns that reflect all three levels of moral thinking. This stage is critical in enabling students to at least hear levels of thinking that are higher than theirs. Step 5: The teacher summarizes the entire exercise and, to the extent that there were presentations reflecting the three levels, briefly summarizes the three different ways of thinking. The teacher’s role is to explicate, not propagate views. This discussion section was very important to Kohlberg as he believed that enabling students to hear levels of thinking higher than their own and hopefully to be influenced accordingly. Moreover, it was important to demonstrate that moral deliberation and discussions are not simply empty talking but that issues of morality do, can, and should have solutions. The teacher’s role in the entire process is based on a familiarity with the three levels of thinking, an ability to utilize and model the Socratic method of questioning, a sensitivity to group dynamics, and the ability to summarize without preaching. Kohlberg’s influence was great for several decades in the second half of the twentieth century because it was both rooted in a philosophical and psychological theory of moral thinking and translated into actual educational processes.

Reactions to—and, in some cases, critique of—Kohlberg’s work led to a new late twentieth-century and twenty-first-century school of moral education denoted as “the caring approach” (also referred to as “the feminist approach”) (Larrabee 1993 ). One of the most prominent voices of the caring approach is philosopher of education Nel Noddings, who developed what she called, “a relational approach to ethics and moral education” (Noddings 2007 ). For Noddings, the core of ethics and moral education is not “moral thinking” but rather the human virtue known as “caring” which refers to a trait at the core of human life characterized by concern for the other. This virtue is rooted in the emergence of what it means to be human, which encompasses being able to be a caring person toward others and a person able to be cared for by others. While not a theological model, Noddings’ position reflects the humanistic assumptions of Martin Buber and others who regarded human life as a dialogue in which one learns to appreciate the other, be appreciated by the other, and ultimately develop an authentic interactive human relationship denoted as the “I-thou” (Buber 1958 ). According to this perspective, ethics is about the human virtues of intuitiveness and receptivity, rather than moral principles or reasoning. Noddings’ caring is not a universal moral principle but a core human virtue.

Noddings regards schools as central platforms and frameworks for the development of caring, and her writings pay much attention to the creation of schools and school communities as caring environments. The teacher is one who has chosen a profession rooted in caring and, ultimately, one of whose roles, if not the central role, is to turn the school into a laboratory for developing a caring community.

While the twentieth century was deeply preoccupied with the issue of moral education, there were (and always have been and will be) voices which reject the role of schooling in issues of morality. Here are some famous examples: “My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school” (Margaret Mead); “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education” (Albert Einstein); “What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free and meandering brook (Henry David Thoreau); “It is our American habit, if we find the foundations of our educational structure unsatisfactory, to add another story or wing” (John Dewey); “Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind” (Plato).

The “anti-moral education” tradition is rooted in the notion that by its very nature almost any kind of schooling is a form of indoctrination. This tradition says that schools should only teach topics, subjects, and issues that are based on agreed-upon and established methodologies and facts. As the nature of morality is one of personal preference, moral content cannot be regarded as shared or public knowledge, thus it should not be taught in school.

The epistemological version of this argument says that schools should only teach verifiable and objective bodies of knowledge. So-called “moral knowledge” is neither verifiable nor objective in the same way as the sciences. Education should deal with only publicly verifiable and agreed-upon contents often characterized as scientific or rational.

The individualist argument claims that the individual is the primary unit in life and schools should be concerned with the liberation and autonomy of the individual rather than the promulgation of a particular ethic. It opposes moral education on the grounds that it becomes a means by which the state or some power group—men, colonialists, Caucasians, and other such power groups—imposes their specific value beliefs. Education should be about ownership of self, and children should have the potential to be free choosing agents rather than be manipulated by a church or synagogue, big business, white capitalists, or gender-specific worldviews.

The empirical evaluative critique of moral education is fact-based rather than ideological, stating that there is no valid or reliable empirical data to validate the value of moral education in schools. Its argument is that research shows that schooling is not a very important factor in affecting people’s morality and hence the entire enterprise of implementation in schools is a waste of time and money. Schools should do what they do best, and they should not attempt to undertake an impossible task.

It is indeed legitimate to raise questions about moral education within public education. Are schools the tools of “power brokers” or interest groups or are schools simply incapable of having an impact on the moral sphere? The anti-moral educationists are good souls and not simply ornery troublemakers, and they do bring to our attention the potentially manipulative nature of schools, which may indeed serve the “power brokers” rather than “the powerless”.

Into the Twenty-First Century

Thinking about moral education has taken some new directions in the twenty-first century. The language of “moral education” has seemed to shift to the term “character education” and philosophic thinking has focused on virtues, with less of an emphasis on moral principles and judgments (Zagzebski 1966 ). The entire field of morality has been influenced by new trends in research within developmental psychology, neurology, and sociology that have been generally shaped by the neurosciences. Psychologist Vivian Gopnik indicates “that babies and young children are not the immoral creatures we thought them to be. Even the youngest babies have a striking capacity for empathy and altruism” (Gopnik 2009 ). The emerging field of neuro-education has been described as “the hot new area in education” (Klemm 1996 ).

Thinking about morality and education in the twenty-first century has also been shaped by a painful dynamic unrelated to the pastoral groves of the Academy. The hallways and sanctuaries of our schools, houses of worship, and other areas of public assembly have been desecrated by violence, shooting, destruction, and death. There is no need for Kohlberg’s fictional dilemmas; daily life on the West Coast and the East Coast, north and south, and even in the holy chambers of the Congress of the United States, have become a living pandemic of moral crisis, dilemma, and failure. Indeed, snapchat, smartphones, and on-site television cameras are writing the next sagas and stories of moral education in the twenty-first century.

It should come as no surprise that the subject of teaching morals and values has been a central arena of contemplation, thought, and practice in the world of education. From ancient times until today, there has been a sense of connection between education and being a good or moral person. As we have seen, there are many approaches to this subject, and it continues to preoccupy those who believe that education is related to how we live as human beings. The twentieth century was an extremely dramatic arena for reflection and the implementation of the diverse approaches to moral education. The twenty-first century is proving to be a painfully vivid setting highlighting the need for moral education and a moral way. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that moral education continues to be one of the central pressing and eternally important elements of the life and work of the world of education.

This is one of a series of dilemmas created by Lawrence Kohlberg for his dilemma discussion practice.

Bibliography

Buber, Martin. 1958. I and Thou . (Scribner Classics).

Google Scholar

Chazan, B. and Soltis, J. , editors (1973). Moral Education. Teachers College Press.

Durkheim, Emile, 1961 . Moral Education. (Free Press).

Gopnik, Alison 2009. The Philosophical Baby . (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

Klemm, William. 1996. Understanding Neuroscience. (Mosby).

Kohlberg, Lawrence. 1968. “The Child As Moral Philosopher” Psychology Today (Sept, 1968), pp. 25–30.

Kohlberg, Lawrence editor, 1981. The Philosophy of Moral Development . (Harper and Row).

Kohlberg, Lawrence editor 1983. The Psychology of Moral Development . (Harper and Row).

Larrabee, Mary Jeanne. 1993. editor. An Ethic of Caring. (Routledge).

Noddings, Nel. 2013. Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education . (University of California Press).

Noddings, Nel. 2007. “Aims, Goals, Objectives” in Encounters on Education , Vol 8, Fall, 2007, pp. 7–15.

Raths, Louis,, Harmin Merrill, Simon, Sidney. 1963. Values and teaching. (Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company).

Wilson, John, Williams Norman, Sugarman, Barry. (1967). Introduction to Moral Education .

Zagzebski, Linda. 1966. Virtues of the Mind An Inquiry Into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of knowledge. (Cambridge University Press).

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Graduate School of Education and Human Development, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., WA, USA

Barry Chazan

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter.

Chazan, B. (2022). What Is “Moral Education”?. In: Principles and Pedagogies in Jewish Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83925-3_4

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83925-3_4

Published : 26 October 2021

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-83924-6

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-83925-3

eBook Packages : Education Education (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Find a journal
Track your research

Home — Essay Samples — Arts & Culture — Art History — The Importance of Moral Education in Developing a Just Society

The Importance of Moral Education in Developing a Just Society

Categories: Art History Tradition

About this sample

Words: 751 |

Published: Mar 16, 2024

Words: 751 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

The development of moral education, the role of moral education in character development, the importance of empathy and compassion in moral education, the contribution of moral education to a just society.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

Expert in: Arts & Culture

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1139 words

2 pages / 924 words

1 pages / 421 words

3 pages / 1364 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Art History

The Foundation of Knowledge Model is a framework that helps individuals understand how knowledge is acquired and how it can be used to inform decision-making and problem-solving. This essay will explore the history and debates [...]

Roy Lichtenstein, a prominent figure in the Pop Art movement, is known for his bold and colorful paintings that often incorporate elements of comic book art. One of his most famous works, "Oh Jeff. I Love You Too," is a prime [...]

The Pact by Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt is a powerful memoir that highlights the challenges faced by three young African American men growing up in a disadvantaged neighborhood in New Jersey. The book [...]

The invention of the printing press in the Renaissance period was a pivotal moment in the history of communication and knowledge dissemination. Johannes Gutenberg's creation revolutionized the way information was shared, making [...]

Studying abroad is an incredible opportunity for students to immerse themselves in a new culture, learn a new language, and gain a global perspective on their field of study. It is a life-changing experience that can open doors [...]

Art has a long history of giving rise to vocal outrage, but should there be restrictions on how far to push the boundaries? Art is no stranger to the gasp-inducing; in fact, it often strives on it. It’s not unusual to encounter [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Moral Values in Education Essay

The responsibility of educating a child falls on both the parents and the teachers. In most instances, teachers are always trying to get the parents to be part of their children’s education. On the other hand, parents tend to handle any communication from their children’s teachers delicately. For instance, notes and phone calls from teachers are a cause of serious concern for parents. Furthermore, whenever parents do not hear from teachers they often assume that all is well with their children.

Therefore, it is likely that students will be at a disadvantage because of the lack of communication between parents and teachers. Consequently, it is only natural for schools to teach moral values to students. Schools are relied upon by the community and parents to instill and reinforce moral values among students.

Teaching moral values to students eliminate the bias that is common with children from different backgrounds. Some students could be major beneficiaries of a school system that teaches moral values as they lack this foundation at home. Therefore, schools should teach moral values so as to contribute to social and educational harmony.

Schools are mostly public or private owned institutions that are expected to pass knowledge to students. Consequently, when schools are given the role of teaching moral values, this job is passed on to either the government or a few individuals. Most people feel that when schools teach moral values, the government is the organ that dictates what should be taught to students. Teaching moral values that are set up through government institutions elicits sharp emotions among various individuals.

On the other hand, most people are aware of the fact that parents teach their children moral values at a very tender age. Therefore, there is a possibility of moralities clashing when schools start introducing opposing points of view as part of the students’ curriculum.

The dominance of personal opinions among various teachers presents a challenge to the validity of teaching moral values in schools. Schools should not teach moral values because this creates several dimensions of conflict that involve teachers, students, the government, and parents.

Those people who support the argument that schools should teach morality are of the view that it is futile for students to gain all other skills in life and end up lacking in moral values. Consequently, students will go to school and learn scientific applications, events in history, how to calculate, among other skills. However, this knowledge can be highly improved by a student’s ability to express honor, kindness, empathy, and integrity towards others.

Therefore, when schools teach moral values, they create a worthwhile balance in the students’ lives. Furthermore, when too much value is attached to end results and achievements, moral transgressions are likely to occur. Teaching moral values in schools do not involve a tyrannical activity that is engineered by the government and other forces.

Moral curriculums can be developed jointly by the staff, parents, sociologists, religious leaders, and other stakeholders. Consequently, a moral curriculum does not only consist of controversial biases, as most people believe. The fears that moral education can be easily highjacked by third parties and individuals with self-interests are unfounded. For instance, in schools where moral education is instituted through a joint effort, positive results are achieved.

The relationship between moral values and the education system is far-fetched. Moral education is more aligned with culture than it is related to the education system. Furthermore, all education systems are streamlined and standardized. Moral values and systems are flexible and it is unlikely that a standard education curriculum can accommodate this flexibility. For example, accommodating moral education in the school system would mean that different students receive different types of education by their cultural backgrounds.

Those who argue in favor of moral values being taught in schools claim that students need more than formal education for them to be good citizens. However, there is evidence that indicates that the most valuable citizens are the ones who explore and question authorities with the view of understanding the basis of rules and laws.

There are concerns that most moral curriculums are only meant to suppress the curiosity of the citizenry with the aim of subjecting individuals to imperialist regimes. Moreover, political and economic factors are more likely to influence the moral behaviors of children in school systems.

The debate on whether schools should teach moral values to students stretches far and wide. One school of thought believes that it is not the school’s responsibility to teach morality to students. On the other hand, another group feels that an educational experience is not complete without moral values. There are concerns that teaching moral values in schools undermines the role of culture in students’ lives.

Furthermore, it is often argued that teaching morality would create confusion in schools because different students subscribe to different moral systems. This latter view is opposed by the argument that not all moral values are subject to controversy. Proponents of teaching moral values in schools also point out that this system has proved to be helpful in the past.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 31). Moral Values in Education. https://ivypanda.com/essays/moral-values-in-education/

"Moral Values in Education." IvyPanda , 31 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/moral-values-in-education/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Moral Values in Education'. 31 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Moral Values in Education." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/moral-values-in-education/.

1. IvyPanda . "Moral Values in Education." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/moral-values-in-education/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Moral Values in Education." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/moral-values-in-education/.

English Language Curriculums Comparison
Police Academy Training: Comparing Across Curricula
Education: a Multicultural Curriculum
Curriculum Strategies in Various Countries
Comparing and Contrasting the Curriculum Approaches in England and Scotland
No Child Left Out Act: Curriculum Development
Bushvale Primary School: Good Curriculum
Why Is Bilingual Education Important
No Child Left Out Act Problems Analysis
Evaluation of Advantages and Disadvantages of Approaches to Curriculum Design
Student Performance: Examination & Other Forms of Assessment
Dog' Education in "The Culture Clash" by Jean Donaldson
Handbook 'Good Study' by Neil Burdess
Social Media Websites Effectiveness for EFL Students
Flipped Classroom and Instructional Technology

Search Menu
Advance Articles
Special Issues
Virtual Issues
Trending Articles
IMPACT Content
Author Guidelines
Submission Site
Open Access Options
Self-Archiving Policy
Author Resources
Read & Publish
Why Publish with JOPE?
About the Journal of Philosophy of Education
About The Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
Editorial Board
Advertising & Corporate Services
Journals on Oxford Academic
Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Introduction
Emotional cultivation as moral education
Emotions, social practices, and moral education
Concluding remarks
< Previous

Moral education, emotions, and social practices

Article contents
Figures & tables
Supplementary Data

Andrés Mejía, Moral education, emotions, and social practices, Journal of Philosophy of Education , Volume 57, Issue 1, February 2023, Pages 323–336, https://doi.org/10.1093/jopedu/qhad018

Permissions Icon Permissions

Paul Hirst’s idea of moral education is distinctive in the central role it attributes to social practices. For him, ethical principles and virtues should not be seen as abstract entities theoretically derived and then applied in education so that students learn to reason from those principles or live by those virtues. Instead, Hirst’s moral education incorporates an initiation into social practices and comes back to them by means of situated critical reflection from within those practices themselves. Embracing Hirst’s proposed central role of social practices, this paper spells out the key role that emotions play in moral education so understood and their relations with social practices. As emotions materialize our deeply held values, incorporated into lived experience, their cultivation will not simply be a matter of deliberation, but rather of the practical exploration of social practices that can nurture and sustain them.

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

Recommend to Your Librarian
Advertising and Corporate Services
Journals Career Network

Affiliations

Online ISSN 1467-9752
Print ISSN 0309-8249
Copyright © 2024 Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
About Oxford Academic
Publish journals with us
University press partners
What we publish
New features
Open access
Institutional account management
Rights and permissions
Get help with access
Accessibility
Advertising
Media enquiries
Oxford University Press
Oxford Languages
University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
Cookie settings
Cookie policy
Privacy policy
Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Advertisers
Agents and Vendors
Book Authors and Editors
Booksellers / Media / Review Copies
Librarians and Consortia
Journal Authors and Editors
Licensing and Subsidiary Rights
Mathematics Authors and Editors
Prospective Journals
Scholarly Publishing Collective
Explore Subjects
Authors and Editors
Society Members and Officers
Prospective Societies

Open Access

Job Opportunities
Conferences

Debating Moral Education

Rethinking the role of the modern university.

Editor(s): Elizabeth Kiss , J. Peter Euben

Contributor(s): Noah Pickus , Elizabeth Kiss , Julie A. Reuben , Stanley Fish , Stanley Hauerwas , Elizabeth Spelman , Wilson Carey McWilliams , Lawrence Blum , James Bernard Murphy , Patchen Markell , George Shulman , Romand Coles , David . Hoekema , J. Donald Moon , Ruth W. Grant , Michael Gillespie , J. Peter Euben , Susan McWilliams

Subjects Pedagogy and Higher Education , Religious Studies , Politics > Political Theory

“ Debating Moral Education is a provocative and productive collection, which can positively impact the teaching and practice of moral education in the academy. While the authors are not of one voice on the subject, their thorough and passionate responses evoke deeper thought about the practice of moral education. Their lively conversation invites the participation of a wide audience of faculty, administrators, student affairs professionals, as well as the larger community. Many of these essays can also provide students with an opening to think about their own education and the role of the university.” — Matthew Maruggi, Teaching Theology and Religion

“ Debating Moral Education makes an indispensable contribution to moral education’s expanding bibliography.” — Jerry Pattengale, Books & Culture

“[An] engaging collection of essays by prominent scholars from religious, philosophical, and political backgrounds who debate the role of morality and ethics in the university. . . . Readers who begin this book can easily imagine themselves caught up in the unfolding, urgent, but friendly controversy of scholarly opinions regarding moral education.” — Lois Calian Trautvetter, Review of Higher Education

“Elizabeth Kiss and Peter Euben's Debating Moral Education brings together an impressive group of philosophers, political scientists and, in the case of Stanley Hauerwas, a theologian to discuss these matters. . . . The strength of the volume lies in the editors' determination to give voice to a range of different views and leave readers (free) to pick their own way through.” — J. Mark Halstead, Times Higher Education

“This is an excellent book, offering a great deal for many educators globally. It is timely, articulate and thought-provoking.” — Joseph Zajda, International Review of Education

“Those interested in its topic would be well advised to read this book. . . .The contributors draw from an impressive variety of fields of inquiry to support their positions on both sides of the question. The cumulative effect is a nuanced overview of many considerations important to the debate, illuminated by thinkers as diverse as Socrates, Plato, Dewey, Marx, Bloch,Nietzsche, Nussbaum, Arendt and Foucault.” — Daniel Vokey, Journal of Moral Education

“Recently colleges and universities that had for many years distanced themselves from their students’ growth as moral agents have begun taking this aspect of higher education very seriously. In this book they will find the issues laid out with admirable clarity and the fresh ideas and approaches they need to do the work well.” — W. Robert Connor, Professor of Classics, Emeritus, Princeton University

“Some of the best scholars in the field engage in the contemporary debate over the nature and scope of moral education, especially in American universities. Anyone wishing to trace this complex but fascinating debate would do well to read Debating Moral Education .” — Terence Ball, author of Reappraising Political Theory

“This excellent collection of essays provides a timely and thoughtful account of the perils and prospects of moral education in our time. The contributors are prominent moral philosophers, political theorists, and civic educators whose different perspectives—some enthusiastic, others wary—make for a lively and reflective volume. The issues raised in this important book will interest and challenge students and educators in a context defined by related debates over academic freedom, intelligent design, and the ever-present culture wars.” — James Farr, University of Minnesota

Buy the e-book: Amazon Kindle Apple iBooks Barnes & Noble nook Google Play Kobo
Author/Editor Bios
Table of Contents
Additional Information

Elizabeth Kiss is President of Agnes Scott College. J. Peter Euben is Professor of Political Science, Research Professor of Classical Studies, and Kenan Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Duke University. He is the author of Platonic Noise , Corrupting Youth , and The Tragedy of Political Theory , and an editor of Athenian Political Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy .

If you are requesting permission to photocopy material for classroom use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at copyright.com;

If the Copyright Clearance Center cannot grant permission, you may request permission from our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).

If you are requesting permission to reprint DUP material (journal or book selection) in another book or in any other format, contact our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).

Many images/art used in material copyrighted by Duke University Press are controlled, not by the Press, but by the owner of the image. Please check the credit line adjacent to the illustration, as well as the front and back matter of the book for a list of credits. You must obtain permission directly from the owner of the image. Occasionally, Duke University Press controls the rights to maps or other drawings. Please direct permission requests for these images to [email protected] . For book covers to accompany reviews, please contact the publicity department .

If you're interested in a Duke University Press book for subsidiary rights/translations, please contact [email protected] . Include the book title/author, rights sought, and estimated print run.

Instructions for requesting an electronic text on behalf of a student with disabilities are available here .

Email: [email protected] Email contact for coursepacks: [email protected] Fax: 919-688-4574 Mail: Duke University Press Rights and Permissions 905 W. Main Street Suite 18B Durham, NC 27701

1. Author's name. If book has an editor that is different from the article author, include editor's name also. 2. Title of the journal article or book chapter and title of journal or title of book 3. Page numbers (if excerpting, provide specifics) For coursepacks, please also note: The number of copies requested, the school and professor requesting For reprints and subsidiary rights, please also note: Your volume title, publication date, publisher, print run, page count, rights sought

This book is subject to the standard Duke University Press rights and permissions.

read Michael Allen Gillespie's essay on the NCAA Men's Basketball championship
David Brooks cites Michael Allen Gillespie in his essay "The Sporting Mind" in the February 4, 2010 issue of The New York Times
Bk Cover Image Full
Also Viewed
Also Purchased

On Decoloniality

On Being Included

Vibrant Matter

Necropolitics

The Problem with Work

Conspiracy/Theory

The Coloniality of the Secular

Israel/Palestine and the Queer International

Bad Education

Making the World Global

Pikachu's Global Adventure

Poor Queer Studies

Table of Contents
Random Entry
Chronological
Editorial Information
About the SEP
Editorial Board
How to Cite the SEP
Special Characters
Advanced Tools
Support the SEP
PDFs for SEP Friends
Make a Donation
SEPIA for Libraries
Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

Friends PDF Preview
Author and Citation Info
Back to Top

Philosophy of Education

Philosophy of education is the branch of applied or practical philosophy concerned with the nature and aims of education and the philosophical problems arising from educational theory and practice. Because that practice is ubiquitous in and across human societies, its social and individual manifestations so varied, and its influence so profound, the subject is wide-ranging, involving issues in ethics and social/political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and other areas of philosophy. Because it looks both inward to the parent discipline and outward to educational practice and the social, legal, and institutional contexts in which it takes place, philosophy of education concerns itself with both sides of the traditional theory/practice divide. Its subject matter includes both basic philosophical issues (e.g., the nature of the knowledge worth teaching, the character of educational equality and justice, etc.) and problems concerning specific educational policies and practices (e.g., the desirability of standardized curricula and testing, the social, economic, legal and moral dimensions of specific funding arrangements, the justification of curriculum decisions, etc.). In all this the philosopher of education prizes conceptual clarity, argumentative rigor, the fair-minded consideration of the interests of all involved in or affected by educational efforts and arrangements, and informed and well-reasoned valuation of educational aims and interventions.

Philosophy of education has a long and distinguished history in the Western philosophical tradition, from Socrates’ battles with the sophists to the present day. Many of the most distinguished figures in that tradition incorporated educational concerns into their broader philosophical agendas (Curren 2000, 2018; Rorty 1998). While that history is not the focus here, it is worth noting that the ideals of reasoned inquiry championed by Socrates and his descendants have long informed the view that education should foster in all students, to the extent possible, the disposition to seek reasons and the ability to evaluate them cogently, and to be guided by their evaluations in matters of belief, action and judgment. This view, that education centrally involves the fostering of reason or rationality, has with varying articulations and qualifications been embraced by most of those historical figures; it continues to be defended by contemporary philosophers of education as well (Scheffler 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988, 1997, 2007, 2017). As with any philosophical thesis it is controversial; some dimensions of the controversy are explored below.

This entry is a selective survey of important contemporary work in Anglophone philosophy of education; it does not treat in detail recent scholarship outside that context.

1. Problems in Delineating the Field

2. analytic philosophy of education and its influence, 3.1 the content of the curriculum and the aims and functions of schooling, 3.2 social, political and moral philosophy, 3.3 social epistemology, virtue epistemology, and the epistemology of education, 3.4 philosophical disputes concerning empirical education research, 4. concluding remarks, other internet resources, related entries.

The inward/outward looking nature of the field of philosophy of education alluded to above makes the task of delineating the field, of giving an over-all picture of the intellectual landscape, somewhat complicated (for a detailed account of this topography, see Phillips 1985, 2010). Suffice it to say that some philosophers, as well as focusing inward on the abstract philosophical issues that concern them, are drawn outwards to discuss or comment on issues that are more commonly regarded as falling within the purview of professional educators, educational researchers, policy-makers and the like. (An example is Michael Scriven, who in his early career was a prominent philosopher of science; later he became a central figure in the development of the field of evaluation of educational and social programs. See Scriven 1991a, 1991b.) At the same time, there are professionals in the educational or closely related spheres who are drawn to discuss one or another of the philosophical issues that they encounter in the course of their work. (An example here is the behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner, the central figure in the development of operant conditioning and programmed learning, who in works such as Walden Two (1948) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972) grappled—albeit controversially—with major philosophical issues that were related to his work.)

What makes the field even more amorphous is the existence of works on educational topics, written by well-regarded philosophers who have made major contributions to their discipline; these educational reflections have little or no philosophical content, illustrating the truth that philosophers do not always write philosophy. However, despite this, works in this genre have often been treated as contributions to philosophy of education. (Examples include John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education [1693] and Bertrand Russell’s rollicking pieces written primarily to raise funds to support a progressive school he ran with his wife. (See Park 1965.)

Finally, as indicated earlier, the domain of education is vast, the issues it raises are almost overwhelmingly numerous and are of great complexity, and the social significance of the field is second to none. These features make the phenomena and problems of education of great interest to a wide range of socially-concerned intellectuals, who bring with them their own favored conceptual frameworks—concepts, theories and ideologies, methods of analysis and argumentation, metaphysical and other assumptions, and the like. It is not surprising that scholars who work in this broad genre also find a home in the field of philosophy of education.

As a result of these various factors, the significant intellectual and social trends of the past few centuries, together with the significant developments in philosophy, all have had an impact on the content of arguments and methods of argumentation in philosophy of education—Marxism, psycho-analysis, existentialism, phenomenology, positivism, post-modernism, pragmatism, neo-liberalism, the several waves of feminism, analytic philosophy in both its ordinary language and more formal guises, are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Conceptual analysis, careful assessment of arguments, the rooting out of ambiguity, the drawing of clarifying distinctions—all of which are at least part of the philosophical toolkit—have been respected activities within philosophy from the dawn of the field. No doubt it somewhat over-simplifies the complex path of intellectual history to suggest that what happened in the twentieth century—early on, in the home discipline itself, and with a lag of a decade or more in philosophy of education—is that philosophical analysis came to be viewed by some scholars as being the major philosophical activity (or set of activities), or even as being the only viable or reputable activity. In any case, as they gained prominence and for a time hegemonic influence during the rise of analytic philosophy early in the twentieth century analytic techniques came to dominate philosophy of education in the middle third of that century (Curren, Robertson, & Hager 2003).

The pioneering work in the modern period entirely in an analytic mode was the short monograph by C.D. Hardie, Truth and Fallacy in Educational Theory (1941; reissued in 1962). In his Introduction, Hardie (who had studied with C.D. Broad and I.A. Richards) made it clear that he was putting all his eggs into the ordinary-language-analysis basket:

The Cambridge analytical school, led by Moore, Broad and Wittgenstein, has attempted so to analyse propositions that it will always be apparent whether the disagreement between philosophers is one concerning matters of fact, or is one concerning the use of words, or is, as is frequently the case, a purely emotive one. It is time, I think, that a similar attitude became common in the field of educational theory. (Hardie 1962: xix)

About a decade after the end of the Second World War the floodgates opened and a stream of work in the analytic mode appeared; the following is merely a sample. D. J. O’Connor published An Introduction to Philosophy of Education (1957) in which, among other things, he argued that the word “theory” as it is used in educational contexts is merely a courtesy title, for educational theories are nothing like what bear this title in the natural sciences. Israel Scheffler, who became the paramount philosopher of education in North America, produced a number of important works including The Language of Education (1960), which contained clarifying and influential analyses of definitions (he distinguished reportive, stipulative, and programmatic types) and the logic of slogans (often these are literally meaningless, and, he argued, should be seen as truncated arguments), Conditions of Knowledge (1965), still the best introduction to the epistemological side of philosophy of education, and Reason and Teaching (1973 [1989]), which in a wide-ranging and influential series of essays makes the case for regarding the fostering of rationality/critical thinking as a fundamental educational ideal (cf. Siegel 2016). B. O. Smith and R. H. Ennis edited the volume Language and Concepts in Education (1961); and R.D. Archambault edited Philosophical Analysis and Education (1965), consisting of essays by a number of prominent British writers, most notably R. S. Peters (whose status in Britain paralleled that of Scheffler in the United States), Paul Hirst, and John Wilson. Topics covered in the Archambault volume were typical of those that became the “bread and butter” of analytic philosophy of education (APE) throughout the English-speaking world—education as a process of initiation, liberal education, the nature of knowledge, types of teaching, and instruction versus indoctrination.

Among the most influential products of APE was the analysis developed by Hirst and Peters (1970) and Peters (1973) of the concept of education itself. Using as a touchstone “normal English usage,” it was concluded that a person who has been educated (rather than instructed or indoctrinated) has been (i) changed for the better; (ii) this change has involved the acquisition of knowledge and intellectual skills and the development of understanding; and (iii) the person has come to care for, or be committed to, the domains of knowledge and skill into which he or she has been initiated. The method used by Hirst and Peters comes across clearly in their handling of the analogy with the concept of “reform”, one they sometimes drew upon for expository purposes. A criminal who has been reformed has changed for the better, and has developed a commitment to the new mode of life (if one or other of these conditions does not hold, a speaker of standard English would not say the criminal has been reformed). Clearly the analogy with reform breaks down with respect to the knowledge and understanding conditions. Elsewhere Peters developed the fruitful notion of “education as initiation”.

The concept of indoctrination was also of great interest to analytic philosophers of education, for, it was argued, getting clear about precisely what constitutes indoctrination also would serve to clarify the border that demarcates it from acceptable educational processes. Thus, whether or not an instructional episode was a case of indoctrination was determined by the content taught, the intention of the instructor, the methods of instruction used, the outcomes of the instruction, or by some combination of these. Adherents of the different analyses used the same general type of argument to make their case, namely, appeal to normal and aberrant usage. Unfortunately, ordinary language analysis did not lead to unanimity of opinion about where this border was located, and rival analyses of the concept were put forward (Snook 1972). The danger of restricting analysis to ordinary language (“normal English usage”) was recognized early on by Scheffler, whose preferred view of analysis emphasized

first, its greater sophistication as regards language, and the interpenetration of language and inquiry, second, its attempt to follow the modern example of the sciences in empirical spirit, in rigor, in attention to detail, in respect for alternatives, and in objectivity of method, and third, its use of techniques of symbolic logic brought to full development only in the last fifty years… It is…this union of scientific spirit and logical method applied toward the clarification of basic ideas that characterizes current analytic philosophy [and that ought to characterize analytic philosophy of education]. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 9–10])

After a period of dominance, for a number of important reasons the influence of APE went into decline. First, there were growing criticisms that the work of analytic philosophers of education had become focused upon minutiae and in the main was bereft of practical import. (It is worth noting that a 1966 article in Time , reprinted in Lucas 1969, had put forward the same criticism of mainstream philosophy.) Second, in the early 1970’s radical students in Britain accused Peters’ brand of linguistic analysis of conservatism, and of tacitly giving support to “traditional values”—they raised the issue of whose English usage was being analyzed?

Third, criticisms of language analysis in mainstream philosophy had been mounting for some time, and finally after a lag of many years were reaching the attention of philosophers of education; there even had been a surprising degree of interest on the part of the general reading public in the United Kingdom as early as 1959, when Gilbert Ryle, editor of the journal Mind , refused to commission a review of Ernest Gellner’s Words and Things (1959)—a detailed and quite acerbic critique of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and its espousal of ordinary language analysis. (Ryle argued that Gellner’s book was too insulting, a view that drew Bertrand Russell into the fray on Gellner’s side—in the daily press, no less; Russell produced a list of insulting remarks drawn from the work of great philosophers of the past. See Mehta 1963.)

Richard Peters had been given warning that all was not well with APE at a conference in Canada in 1966; after delivering a paper on “The aims of education: A conceptual inquiry” that was based on ordinary language analysis, a philosopher in the audience (William Dray) asked Peters “ whose concepts do we analyze?” Dray went on to suggest that different people, and different groups within society, have different concepts of education. Five years before the radical students raised the same issue, Dray pointed to the possibility that what Peters had presented under the guise of a “logical analysis” was nothing but the favored usage of a certain class of persons—a class that Peters happened to identify with (see Peters 1973, where to the editor’s credit the interaction with Dray is reprinted).

Fourth, during the decade of the seventies when these various critiques of analytic philosophy were in the process of eroding its luster, a spate of translations from the Continent stimulated some philosophers of education in Britain and North America to set out in new directions, and to adopt a new style of writing and argumentation. Key works by Gadamer, Foucault and Derrida appeared in English, and these were followed in 1984 by Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition . The classic works of Heidegger and Husserl also found new admirers; and feminist philosophers of education were finding their voices—Maxine Greene published a number of pieces in the 1970s and 1980s, including The Dialectic of Freedom (1988); the influential book by Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education , appeared the same year as the work by Lyotard, followed a year later by Jane Roland Martin’s Reclaiming a Conversation . In more recent years all these trends have continued. APE was and is no longer the center of interest, although, as indicated below, it still retains its voice.

3. Areas of Contemporary Activity

As was stressed at the outset, the field of education is huge and contains within it a virtually inexhaustible number of issues that are of philosophical interest. To attempt comprehensive coverage of how philosophers of education have been working within this thicket would be a quixotic task for a large single volume and is out of the question for a solitary encyclopedia entry. Nevertheless, a valiant attempt to give an overview was made in A Companion to the Philosophy of Education (Curren 2003), which contains more than six-hundred pages divided into forty-five chapters each of which surveys a subfield of work. The following random selection of chapter topics gives a sense of the enormous scope of the field: Sex education, special education, science education, aesthetic education, theories of teaching and learning, religious education, knowledge, truth and learning, cultivating reason, the measurement of learning, multicultural education, education and the politics of identity, education and standards of living, motivation and classroom management, feminism, critical theory, postmodernism, romanticism, the purposes of universities, affirmative action in higher education, and professional education. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education (Siegel 2009) contains a similarly broad range of articles on (among other things) the epistemic and moral aims of education, liberal education and its imminent demise, thinking and reasoning, fallibilism and fallibility, indoctrination, authenticity, the development of rationality, Socratic teaching, educating the imagination, caring and empathy in moral education, the limits of moral education, the cultivation of character, values education, curriculum and the value of knowledge, education and democracy, art and education, science education and religious toleration, constructivism and scientific methods, multicultural education, prejudice, authority and the interests of children, and on pragmatist, feminist, and postmodernist approaches to philosophy of education.

Given this enormous range, there is no non-arbitrary way to select a small number of topics for further discussion, nor can the topics that are chosen be pursued in great depth. The choice of those below has been made with an eye to highlighting contemporary work that makes solid contact with and contributes to important discussions in general philosophy and/or the academic educational and educational research communities.

The issue of what should be taught to students at all levels of education—the issue of curriculum content—obviously is a fundamental one, and it is an extraordinarily difficult one with which to grapple. In tackling it, care needs to be taken to distinguish between education and schooling—for although education can occur in schools, so can mis-education, and many other things can take place there that are educationally orthogonal (such as the provision of free or subsidized lunches and the development of social networks); and it also must be recognized that education can occur in the home, in libraries and museums, in churches and clubs, in solitary interaction with the public media, and the like.

In developing a curriculum (whether in a specific subject area, or more broadly as the whole range of offerings in an educational institution or system), a number of difficult decisions need to be made. Issues such as the proper ordering or sequencing of topics in the chosen subject, the time to be allocated to each topic, the lab work or excursions or projects that are appropriate for particular topics, can all be regarded as technical issues best resolved either by educationists who have a depth of experience with the target age group or by experts in the psychology of learning and the like. But there are deeper issues, ones concerning the validity of the justifications that have been given for including/excluding particular subjects or topics in the offerings of formal educational institutions. (Why should evolution or creation “science” be included, or excluded, as a topic within the standard high school subject Biology? Is the justification that is given for teaching Economics in some schools coherent and convincing? Do the justifications for including/excluding materials on birth control, patriotism, the Holocaust or wartime atrocities in the curriculum in some school districts stand up to critical scrutiny?)

The different justifications for particular items of curriculum content that have been put forward by philosophers and others since Plato’s pioneering efforts all draw, explicitly or implicitly, upon the positions that the respective theorists hold about at least three sets of issues.

First, what are the aims and/or functions of education (aims and functions are not necessarily the same)? Many aims have been proposed; a short list includes the production of knowledge and knowledgeable students, the fostering of curiosity and inquisitiveness, the enhancement of understanding, the enlargement of the imagination, the civilizing of students, the fostering of rationality and/or autonomy, and the development in students of care, concern and associated dispositions and attitudes (see Siegel 2007 for a longer list). The justifications offered for all such aims have been controversial, and alternative justifications of a single proposed aim can provoke philosophical controversy. Consider the aim of autonomy. Aristotle asked, what constitutes the good life and/or human flourishing, such that education should foster these (Curren 2013)? These two formulations are related, for it is arguable that our educational institutions should aim to equip individuals to pursue this good life—although this is not obvious, both because it is not clear that there is one conception of the good or flourishing life that is the good or flourishing life for everyone, and it is not clear that this is a question that should be settled in advance rather than determined by students for themselves. Thus, for example, if our view of human flourishing includes the capacity to think and act autonomously, then the case can be made that educational institutions—and their curricula—should aim to prepare, or help to prepare, autonomous individuals. A rival justification of the aim of autonomy, associated with Kant, champions the educational fostering of autonomy not on the basis of its contribution to human flourishing, but rather the obligation to treat students with respect as persons (Scheffler 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988). Still others urge the fostering of autonomy on the basis of students’ fundamental interests, in ways that draw upon both Aristotelian and Kantian conceptual resources (Brighouse 2005, 2009). It is also possible to reject the fostering of autonomy as an educational aim (Hand 2006).

Assuming that the aim can be justified, how students should be helped to become autonomous or develop a conception of the good life and pursue it is of course not immediately obvious, and much philosophical ink has been spilled on the general question of how best to determine curriculum content. One influential line of argument was developed by Paul Hirst, who argued that knowledge is essential for developing and then pursuing a conception of the good life, and because logical analysis shows, he argued, that there are seven basic forms of knowledge, the case can be made that the function of the curriculum is to introduce students to each of these forms (Hirst 1965; see Phillips 1987: ch. 11). Another, suggested by Scheffler, is that curriculum content should be selected so as “to help the learner attain maximum self-sufficiency as economically as possible.” The relevant sorts of economy include those of resources, teacher effort, student effort, and the generalizability or transfer value of content, while the self-sufficiency in question includes

self-awareness, imaginative weighing of alternative courses of action, understanding of other people’s choices and ways of life, decisiveness without rigidity, emancipation from stereotyped ways of thinking and perceiving…empathy… intuition, criticism and independent judgment. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 123–5])

Both impose important constraints on the curricular content to be taught.

Second, is it justifiable to treat the curriculum of an educational institution as a vehicle for furthering the socio-political interests and goals of a dominant group, or any particular group, including one’s own; and relatedly, is it justifiable to design the curriculum so that it serves as an instrument of control or of social engineering? In the closing decades of the twentieth century there were numerous discussions of curriculum theory, particularly from Marxist and postmodern perspectives, that offered the sobering analysis that in many educational systems, including those in Western democracies, the curriculum did indeed reflect and serve the interests of powerful cultural elites. What to do about this situation (if it is indeed the situation of contemporary educational institutions) is far from clear and is the focus of much work at the interface of philosophy of education and social/political philosophy, some of which is discussed in the next section. A closely related question is this: ought educational institutions be designed to further pre-determined social ends, or rather to enable students to competently evaluate all such ends? Scheffler argued that we should opt for the latter: we must

surrender the idea of shaping or molding the mind of the pupil. The function of education…is rather to liberate the mind, strengthen its critical powers, [and] inform it with knowledge and the capacity for independent inquiry. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 139])

Third, should educational programs at the elementary and secondary levels be made up of a number of disparate offerings, so that individuals with different interests and abilities and affinities for learning can pursue curricula that are suitable? Or should every student pursue the same curriculum as far as each is able?—a curriculum, it should be noted, that in past cases nearly always was based on the needs or interests of those students who were academically inclined or were destined for elite social roles. Mortimer Adler and others in the late twentieth century sometimes used the aphorism “the best education for the best is the best education for all.”

The thinking here can be explicated in terms of the analogy of an out-of-control virulent disease, for which there is only one type of medicine available; taking a large dose of this medicine is extremely beneficial, and the hope is that taking only a little—while less effective—is better than taking none at all. Medically, this is dubious, while the educational version—forcing students to work, until they exit the system, on topics that do not interest them and for which they have no facility or motivation—has even less merit. (For a critique of Adler and his Paideia Proposal , see Noddings 2015.) It is interesting to compare the modern “one curriculum track for all” position with Plato’s system outlined in the Republic , according to which all students—and importantly this included girls—set out on the same course of study. Over time, as they moved up the educational ladder it would become obvious that some had reached the limit imposed upon them by nature, and they would be directed off into appropriate social roles in which they would find fulfillment, for their abilities would match the demands of these roles. Those who continued on with their education would eventually become members of the ruling class of Guardians.

The publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971 was the most notable event in the history of political philosophy over the last century. The book spurred a period of ferment in political philosophy that included, among other things, new research on educationally fundamental themes. The principles of justice in educational distribution have perhaps been the dominant theme in this literature, and Rawls’s influence on its development has been pervasive.

Rawls’s theory of justice made so-called “fair equality of opportunity” one of its constitutive principles. Fair equality of opportunity entailed that the distribution of education would not put the children of those who currently occupied coveted social positions at any competitive advantage over other, equally talented and motivated children seeking the qualifications for those positions (Rawls 1971: 72–75). Its purpose was to prevent socio-economic differences from hardening into social castes that were perpetuated across generations. One obvious criticism of fair equality of opportunity is that it does not prohibit an educational distribution that lavished resources on the most talented children while offering minimal opportunities to others. So long as untalented students from wealthy families were assigned opportunities no better than those available to their untalented peers among the poor, no breach of the principle would occur. Even the most moderate egalitarians might find such a distributive regime to be intuitively repugnant.

Repugnance might be mitigated somewhat by the ways in which the overall structure of Rawls’s conception of justice protects the interests of those who fare badly in educational competition. All citizens must enjoy the same basic liberties, and equal liberty always has moral priority over equal opportunity: the former can never be compromised to advance the latter. Further, inequality in the distribution of income and wealth are permitted only to the degree that it serves the interests of the least advantaged group in society. But even with these qualifications, fair equality of opportunity is arguably less than really fair to anyone. The fact that their education should secure ends other than access to the most selective social positions—ends such as artistic appreciation, the kind of self-knowledge that humanistic study can furnish, or civic virtue—is deemed irrelevant according to Rawls’s principle. But surely it is relevant, given that a principle of educational justice must be responsive to the full range of educationally important goods.

Suppose we revise our account of the goods included in educational distribution so that aesthetic appreciation, say, and the necessary understanding and virtue for conscientious citizenship count for just as much as job-related skills. An interesting implication of doing so is that the rationale for requiring equality under any just distribution becomes decreasingly clear. That is because job-related skills are positional whereas the other educational goods are not (Hollis 1982). If you and I both aspire to a career in business management for which we are equally qualified, any increase in your job-related skills is a corresponding disadvantage to me unless I can catch up. Positional goods have a competitive structure by definition, though the ends of civic or aesthetic education do not fit that structure. If you and I aspire to be good citizens and are equal in civic understanding and virtue, an advance in your civic education is no disadvantage to me. On the contrary, it is easier to be a good citizen the better other citizens learn to be. At the very least, so far as non-positional goods figure in our conception of what counts as a good education, the moral stakes of inequality are thereby lowered.

In fact, an emerging alternative to fair equality of opportunity is a principle that stipulates some benchmark of adequacy in achievement or opportunity as the relevant standard of distribution. But it is misleading to represent this as a contrast between egalitarian and sufficientarian conceptions. Philosophically serious interpretations of adequacy derive from the ideal of equal citizenship (Satz 2007; Anderson 2007). Then again, fair equality of opportunity in Rawls’s theory is derived from a more fundamental ideal of equality among citizens. This was arguably true in A Theory of Justice but it is certainly true in his later work (Dworkin 1977: 150–183; Rawls 1993). So, both Rawls’s principle and the emerging alternative share an egalitarian foundation. The debate between adherents of equal opportunity and those misnamed as sufficientarians is certainly not over (e.g., Brighouse & Swift 2009; Jacobs 2010; Warnick 2015). Further progress will likely hinge on explicating the most compelling conception of the egalitarian foundation from which distributive principles are to be inferred. Another Rawls-inspired alternative is that a “prioritarian” distribution of achievement or opportunity might turn out to be the best principle we can come up with—i.e., one that favors the interests of the least advantaged students (Schouten 2012).

The publication of Rawls’s Political Liberalism in 1993 signaled a decisive turning point in his thinking about justice. In his earlier book, the theory of justice had been presented as if it were universally valid. But Rawls had come to think that any theory of justice presented as such was open to reasonable rejection. A more circumspect approach to justification would seek grounds for justice as fairness in an overlapping consensus between the many reasonable values and doctrines that thrive in a democratic political culture. Rawls argued that such a culture is informed by a shared ideal of free and equal citizenship that provided a new, distinctively democratic framework for justifying a conception of justice. The shift to political liberalism involved little revision on Rawls’s part to the content of the principles he favored. But the salience it gave to questions about citizenship in the fabric of liberal political theory had important educational implications. How was the ideal of free and equal citizenship to be instantiated in education in a way that accommodated the range of reasonable values and doctrines encompassed in an overlapping consensus? Political Liberalism has inspired a range of answers to that question (cf. Callan 1997; Clayton 2006; Bull 2008).

Other philosophers besides Rawls in the 1990s took up a cluster of questions about civic education, and not always from a liberal perspective. Alasdair Macintyre’s After Virtue (1984) strongly influenced the development of communitarian political theory which, as its very name might suggest, argued that the cultivation of community could preempt many of the problems with conflicting individual rights at the core of liberalism. As a full-standing alternative to liberalism, communitarianism might have little to recommend it. But it was a spur for liberal philosophers to think about how communities could be built and sustained to support the more familiar projects of liberal politics (e.g., Strike 2010). Furthermore, its arguments often converged with those advanced by feminist exponents of the ethic of care (Noddings 1984; Gilligan 1982). Noddings’ work is particularly notable because she inferred a cogent and radical agenda for the reform of schools from her conception of care (Noddings 1992).

One persistent controversy in citizenship theory has been about whether patriotism is correctly deemed a virtue, given our obligations to those who are not our fellow citizens in an increasingly interdependent world and the sordid history of xenophobia with which modern nation states are associated. The controversy is partly about what we should teach in our schools and is commonly discussed by philosophers in that context (Galston 1991; Ben-Porath 2006; Callan 2006; Miller 2007; Curren & Dorn 2018). The controversy is related to a deeper and more pervasive question about how morally or intellectually taxing the best conception of our citizenship should be. The more taxing it is, the more constraining its derivative conception of civic education will be. Contemporary political philosophers offer divergent arguments about these matters. For example, Gutmann and Thompson claim that citizens of diverse democracies need to “understand the diverse ways of life of their fellow citizens” (Gutmann & Thompson 1996: 66). The need arises from the obligation of reciprocity which they (like Rawls) believe to be integral to citizenship. Because I must seek to cooperate with others politically on terms that make sense from their moral perspective as well as my own, I must be ready to enter that perspective imaginatively so as to grasp its distinctive content. Many such perspectives prosper in liberal democracies, and so the task of reciprocal understanding is necessarily onerous. Still, our actions qua deliberative citizen must be grounded in such reciprocity if political cooperation on terms acceptable to us as (diversely) morally motivated citizens is to be possible at all. This is tantamount to an imperative to think autonomously inside the role of citizen because I cannot close-mindedly resist critical consideration of moral views alien to my own without flouting my responsibilities as a deliberative citizen.

Civic education does not exhaust the domain of moral education, even though the more robust conceptions of equal citizenship have far-reaching implications for just relations in civil society and the family. The study of moral education has traditionally taken its bearings from normative ethics rather than political philosophy, and this is largely true of work undertaken in recent decades. The major development here has been the revival of virtue ethics as an alternative to the deontological and consequentialist theories that dominated discussion for much of the twentieth century.

The defining idea of virtue ethics is that our criterion of moral right and wrong must derive from a conception of how the ideally virtuous agent would distinguish between the two. Virtue ethics is thus an alternative to both consequentialism and deontology which locate the relevant criterion in producing good consequences or meeting the requirements of moral duty respectively. The debate about the comparative merits of these theories is not resolved, but from an educational perspective that may be less important than it has sometimes seemed to antagonists in the debate. To be sure, adjudicating between rival theories in normative ethics might shed light on how best to construe the process of moral education, and philosophical reflection on the process might help us to adjudicate between the theories. There has been extensive work on habituation and virtue, largely inspired by Aristotle (Burnyeat 1980; Peters 1981). But whether this does anything to establish the superiority of virtue ethics over its competitors is far from obvious. Other aspects of moral education—in particular, the paired processes of role-modelling and identification—deserve much more scrutiny than they have received (Audi 2017; Kristjánsson 2015, 2017).

Related to the issues concerning the aims and functions of education and schooling rehearsed above are those involving the specifically epistemic aims of education and attendant issues treated by social and virtue epistemologists. (The papers collected in Kotzee 2013 and Baehr 2016 highlight the current and growing interactions among social epistemologists, virtue epistemologists, and philosophers of education.)

There is, first, a lively debate concerning putative epistemic aims. Alvin Goldman argues that truth (or knowledge understood in the “weak” sense of true belief) is the fundamental epistemic aim of education (Goldman 1999). Others, including the majority of historically significant philosophers of education, hold that critical thinking or rationality and rational belief (or knowledge in the “strong” sense that includes justification) is the basic epistemic educational aim (Bailin & Siegel 2003; Scheffler 1965, 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988, 1997, 2005, 2017). Catherine Z. Elgin (1999a,b) and Duncan Pritchard (2013, 2016; Carter & Pritchard 2017) have independently urged that understanding is the basic aim. Pritchard’s view combines understanding with intellectual virtue ; Jason Baehr (2011) systematically defends the fostering of the intellectual virtues as the fundamental epistemic aim of education. This cluster of views continues to engender ongoing discussion and debate. (Its complex literature is collected in Carter and Kotzee 2015, summarized in Siegel 2018, and helpfully analyzed in Watson 2016.)

A further controversy concerns the places of testimony and trust in the classroom: In what circumstances if any ought students to trust their teachers’ pronouncements, and why? Here the epistemology of education is informed by social epistemology, specifically the epistemology of testimony; the familiar reductionism/anti-reductionism controversy there is applicable to students and teachers. Anti-reductionists, who regard testimony as a basic source of justification, may with equanimity approve of students’ taking their teachers’ word at face value and believing what they say; reductionists may balk. Does teacher testimony itself constitute good reason for student belief?

The correct answer here seems clearly enough to be “it depends”. For very young children who have yet to acquire or develop the ability to subject teacher declarations to critical scrutiny, there seems to be little alternative to accepting what their teachers tell them. For older and more cognitively sophisticated students there seem to be more options: they can assess them for plausibility, compare them with other opinions, assess the teachers’ proffered reasons, subject them to independent evaluation, etc. Regarding “the teacher says that p ” as itself a good reason to believe it appears moreover to contravene the widely shared conviction that an important educational aim is helping students to become able to evaluate candidate beliefs for themselves and believe accordingly. That said, all sides agree that sometimes believers, including students, have good reasons simply to trust what others tell them. There is thus more work to do here by both social epistemologists and philosophers of education (for further discussion see Goldberg 2013; Siegel 2005, 2018).

A further cluster of questions, of long-standing interest to philosophers of education, concerns indoctrination : How if at all does it differ from legitimate teaching? Is it inevitable, and if so is it not always necessarily bad? First, what is it? As we saw earlier, extant analyses focus on the aims or intentions of the indoctrinator, the methods employed, or the content transmitted. If the indoctrination is successful, all have the result that students/victims either don’t, won’t, or can’t subject the indoctrinated material to proper epistemic evaluation. In this way it produces both belief that is evidentially unsupported or contravened and uncritical dispositions to believe. It might seem obvious that indoctrination, so understood, is educationally undesirable. But it equally seems that very young children, at least, have no alternative but to believe sans evidence; they have yet to acquire the dispositions to seek and evaluate evidence, or the abilities to recognize evidence or evaluate it. Thus we seem driven to the views that indoctrination is both unavoidable and yet bad and to be avoided. It is not obvious how this conundrum is best handled. One option is to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable indoctrination. Another is to distinguish between indoctrination (which is always bad) and non-indoctrinating belief inculcation, the latter being such that students are taught some things without reasons (the alphabet, the numbers, how to read and count, etc.), but in such a way that critical evaluation of all such material (and everything else) is prized and fostered (Siegel 1988: ch. 5). In the end the distinctions required by the two options might be extensionally equivalent (Siegel 2018).

Education, it is generally granted, fosters belief : in the typical propositional case, Smith teaches Jones that p , and if all goes well Jones learns it and comes to believe it. Education also has the task of fostering open-mindedness and an appreciation of our fallibility : All the theorists mentioned thus far, especially those in the critical thinking and intellectual virtue camps, urge their importance. But these two might seem at odds. If Jones (fully) believes that p , can she also be open-minded about it? Can she believe, for example, that earthquakes are caused by the movements of tectonic plates, while also believing that perhaps they aren’t? This cluster of italicized notions requires careful handling; it is helpfully discussed by Jonathan Adler (2002, 2003), who recommends regarding the latter two as meta-attitudes concerning one’s first-order beliefs rather than lessened degrees of belief or commitments to those beliefs.

Other traditional epistemological worries that impinge upon the epistemology of education concern (a) absolutism , pluralism and relativism with respect to knowledge, truth and justification as these relate to what is taught, (b) the character and status of group epistemologies and the prospects for understanding such epistemic goods “universalistically” in the face of “particularist” challenges, (c) the relation between “knowledge-how” and “knowledge-that” and their respective places in the curriculum, (d) concerns raised by multiculturalism and the inclusion/exclusion of marginalized perspectives in curriculum content and the classroom, and (e) further issues concerning teaching and learning. (There is more here than can be briefly summarized; for more references and systematic treatment cf. Bailin & Siegel 2003; Carter & Kotzee 2015; Cleverley & Phillips 1986; Robertson 2009; Siegel 2004, 2017; and Watson 2016.)

The educational research enterprise has been criticized for a century or more by politicians, policymakers, administrators, curriculum developers, teachers, philosophers of education, and by researchers themselves—but the criticisms have been contradictory. Charges of being “too ivory tower and theory-oriented” are found alongside “too focused on practice and too atheoretical”; but in light of the views of John Dewey and William James that the function of theory is to guide intelligent practice and problem-solving, it is becoming more fashionable to hold that the “theory v. practice” dichotomy is a false one. (For an illuminating account of the historical development of educational research and its tribulations, see Lagemann 2000.)

A similar trend can be discerned with respect to the long warfare between two rival groups of research methods—on one hand quantitative/statistical approaches to research, and on the other hand the qualitative/ethnographic family. (The choice of labels here is not entirely risk-free, for they have been contested; furthermore the first approach is quite often associated with “experimental” studies, and the latter with “case studies”, but this is an over-simplification.) For several decades these two rival methodological camps were treated by researchers and a few philosophers of education as being rival paradigms (Kuhn’s ideas, albeit in a very loose form, have been influential in the field of educational research), and the dispute between them was commonly referred to as “the paradigm wars”. In essence the issue at stake was epistemological: members of the quantitative/experimental camp believed that only their methods could lead to well-warranted knowledge claims, especially about the causal factors at play in educational phenomena, and on the whole they regarded qualitative methods as lacking in rigor; on the other hand the adherents of qualitative/ethnographic approaches held that the other camp was too “positivistic” and was operating with an inadequate view of causation in human affairs—one that ignored the role of motives and reasons, possession of relevant background knowledge, awareness of cultural norms, and the like. Few if any commentators in the “paradigm wars” suggested that there was anything prohibiting the use of both approaches in the one research program—provided that if both were used, they were used only sequentially or in parallel, for they were underwritten by different epistemologies and hence could not be blended together. But recently the trend has been towards rapprochement, towards the view that the two methodological families are, in fact, compatible and are not at all like paradigms in the Kuhnian sense(s) of the term; the melding of the two approaches is often called “mixed methods research”, and it is growing in popularity. (For more detailed discussion of these “wars” see Howe 2003 and Phillips 2009.)

The most lively contemporary debates about education research, however, were set in motion around the turn of the millennium when the US Federal Government moved in the direction of funding only rigorously scientific educational research—the kind that could establish causal factors which could then guide the development of practically effective policies. (It was held that such a causal knowledge base was available for medical decision-making.) The definition of “rigorously scientific”, however, was decided by politicians and not by the research community, and it was given in terms of the use of a specific research method—the net effect being that the only research projects to receive Federal funding were those that carried out randomized controlled experiments or field trials (RFTs). It has become common over the last decade to refer to the RFT as the “gold standard” methodology.

The National Research Council (NRC)—an arm of the US National Academies of Science—issued a report, influenced by postpostivistic philosophy of science (NRC 2002), that argued that this criterion was far too narrow. Numerous essays have appeared subsequently that point out how the “gold standard” account of scientific rigor distorts the history of science, how the complex nature of the relation between evidence and policy-making has been distorted and made to appear overly simple (for instance the role of value-judgments in linking empirical findings to policy directives is often overlooked), and qualitative researchers have insisted upon the scientific nature of their work. Nevertheless, and possibly because it tried to be balanced and supported the use of RFTs in some research contexts, the NRC report has been the subject of symposia in four journals, where it has been supported by a few and attacked from a variety of philosophical fronts: Its authors were positivists, they erroneously believed that educational inquiry could be value neutral and that it could ignore the ways in which the exercise of power constrains the research process, they misunderstood the nature of educational phenomena, and so on. This cluster of issues continues to be debated by educational researchers and by philosophers of education and of science, and often involves basic topics in philosophy of science: the constitution of warranting evidence, the nature of theories and of confirmation and explanation, etc. Nancy Cartwright’s important recent work on causation, evidence, and evidence-based policy adds layers of both philosophical sophistication and real world practical analysis to the central issues just discussed (Cartwright & Hardie 2012, Cartwright 2013; cf. Kvernbekk 2015 for an overview of the controversies regarding evidence in the education and philosophy of education literatures).

As stressed earlier, it is impossible to do justice to the whole field of philosophy of education in a single encyclopedia entry. Different countries around the world have their own intellectual traditions and their own ways of institutionalizing philosophy of education in the academic universe, and no discussion of any of this appears in the present essay. But even in the Anglo-American world there is such a diversity of approaches that any author attempting to produce a synoptic account will quickly run into the borders of his or her competence. Clearly this has happened in the present case.

Fortunately, in the last thirty years or so resources have become available that significantly alleviate these problems. There has been a flood of encyclopedia entries, both on the field as a whole and also on many specific topics not well-covered in the present essay (see, as a sample, Burbules 1994; Chambliss 1996b; Curren 1998, 2018; Phillips 1985, 2010; Siegel 2007; Smeyers 1994), two “Encyclopedias” (Chambliss 1996a; Phillips 2014), a “Guide” (Blake, Smeyers, Smith, & Standish 2003), a “Companion” (Curren 2003), two “Handbooks” (Siegel 2009; Bailey, Barrow, Carr, & McCarthy 2010), a comprehensive anthology (Curren 2007), a dictionary of key concepts in the field (Winch & Gingell 1999), and a good textbook or two (Carr 2003; Noddings 2015). In addition there are numerous volumes both of reprinted selections and of specially commissioned essays on specific topics, some of which were given short shrift here (for another sampling see A. Rorty 1998, Stone 1994), and several international journals, including Theory and Research in Education , Journal of Philosophy of Education , Educational Theory , Studies in Philosophy and Education , and Educational Philosophy and Theory . Thus there is more than enough material available to keep the interested reader busy.

Adler, Jonathan E., 2002, Belief’s Own Ethics , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
–––, 2003, “Knowledge, Truth and Learning”, in Curren 2003: 285–304. doi:10.1002/9780470996454.ch21
Anderson, Elizabeth, 2007, “Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality Perspective”, Ethics , 117(4): 595–622. doi:10.1086/518806
Archambault, Reginald D. (ed.), 1965, Philosophical Analysis and Education , London: Routledge.
Audi, Robert, 2017, “Role Modelling and Reasons: Developmental and Normative Grounds of Moral Virtue”, Journal of Moral Philosophy , 14(6): 646–668. doi:10.1163/17455243-46810063
Baehr, Jason, 2011, The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199604074.001.0001
––– (ed.), 2016, Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology , New York: Routledge.
Bailey, Richard, Robin Barrow, David Carr, and Christine McCarthy (eds), 2010, The SAGE Handbook of the Philosophy of Education , Los Angeles: Sage. doi:10.4135/9781446200872
Bailin, Sharon and Harvey Siegel, 2003, “Critical Thinking”, in Blake et al. 2003: 181–193. doi:10.1002/9780470996294.ch11
Ben-Porath, Sigal R., 2006. Citizenship Under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of Conflict , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Blake, Nigel, Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith, and Paul Standish (eds.), 2003, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education , Oxford: Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470996294
Brighouse, Harry, 2005, On Education , London: Routledge.
–––, 2009, “Moral and Political Aims of Education”, in Siegel 2009: 35–51.
Brighouse, Harry and Adam Swift, 2009, “Educational Equality versus Educational Adequacy: A Critique of Anderson and Satz”, Journal of Applied Philosophy , 26(2): 117–128. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5930.2009.00438.x
Bull, Barry L., 2008, Social Justice in Education: An Introduction , New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Burbules, Nicholas C., 1994, “Marxism and Educational Thought”, in The International Encyclopedia of Education , (Volume 6), Torsten Husén and T. Neville Postlethwaite (eds.), Oxford: Pergamon, second edition, pp. 3617–22.
Burnyeat, Myles F., 1980, “Aristotle on Learning to be Good”, in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics , Berkeley CA: University of California Press, pp. 69–92.
Callan, Eamonn, 1997, Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy , Oxford: Clarendon Press. doi:10.1093/0198292589.001.0001
–––, 2006, “Love, Idolatry, and Patriotism”, Social Theory and Practice , 32(4): 525–546. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract200632430
Carr, David, 2003, Making Sense of Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Theory of Education and Teaching , London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Carter, J. Adam and Ben Kotzee, 2015, “Epistemology of Education”, Oxford Bibliographies Online , last modified: 26 October 2015.
Carter, J.Adam and Duncan Pritchard, 2017, “Epistemic Situationism, Epistemic Dependence, and the Epistemology of Education”, in Abrol Fairweather and Mark Alfano (eds.), Epistemic Situationism , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 168–191. doi:10.1093/oso/9780199688234.003.0010
Cartwright, Nancy D., 2013, Evidence: For Policy and Wheresoever Rigor Is a Must , London: London School of Economics and Political Science.
Cartwright, Nancy D. and Jeremy Hardie, 2012, Evidence-based Policy: A Practical Guide to Doing It Better , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chambliss, J.J. (ed.), 1996a, Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia , New York: Garland.
Chambliss, J.J., 1996b, “History of Philosophy of Education”, in Chambliss 1996a, pp. 461–472.
Clayton, Matthew, 2006, Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0199268940.001.0001
Cleverley, John and D.C. Phillips, 1986, Visions of Childhood: Influential Models from Locke to Spock , New York: Teachers College Press.
Curren, Randall R., 1998, “Education, Philosophy of”, in E.J. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , vol. 3, pp. 231–240.
–––, 2000, Aristotle on the Necessity of Public Education , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
–––, (ed.), 2003, A Companion to the Philosophy of Education , Oxford: Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470996454
–––, (ed.), 2007, Philosophy of Education: An Anthology , Oxford: Blackwell.
–––, 2013, “A Neo-Aristotelian Account of Education, Justice and the Human Good”, Theory and Research in Education , 11(3): 231–249. doi:10.1177/1477878513498182
–––, 2018, “Education, History of Philosophy of”, revised second version, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online . doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N014-2
Curren, Randall, Emily Robertson, and Paul Hager, 2003, “The Analytical Movement”, in Curren 2003: 176–191. doi:10.1002/9780470996454.ch13
Curren, Randall and Charles Dorn, 2018, Patriotic Education in a Global Age , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Dworkin, Ronald, 1977, Taking Rights Seriously , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Elgin, Catherine Z., 1999a, “Epistemology’s Ends, Pedagogy’s Prospects”, Facta Philosophica , 1: 39–54
–––, 1999b, “Education and the Advancement of Understanding”, in David M. Steiner (ed.), Proceedings of the 20 th World Congress of Philosophy , vol. 3, Philosophy Documentation Center, pp. 131–140.
Galston, William A., 1991, Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139172462
Gellner, Ernest, 1959, Words and Things: A Critical Account of Linguistic Philosophy and a Study in Ideology , London: Gollancz.
Gilligan, Carol, 1982, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Goldberg, Sanford, 2013, “Epistemic Dependence in Testimonial Belief, in the Classroom and Beyond”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 47(2): 168–186. doi:10.1111/1467-9752.12019
Goldman, Alvin I., 1999, Knowledge in a Social World , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0198238207.001.0001
Greene, Maxine, 1988, The Dialectic of Freedom , New York: Teachers College Press.
Gutmann, Amy and Dennis F. Thompson, 1996, Democracy and Disagreement , Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Hand, Michael, 2006, “Against Autonomy as an Educational Aim”, Oxford Review of Education , 32(4): 535–550. doi:10.1080/03054980600884250
Hardie, Charles Dunn, 1941 [1962], Truth and Fallacy in Educational Theory , New York: Teachers College Bureau of Publications.
Hirst, Paul, 1965, “Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge”, in Philosophical Analysis and Education , Reginald D. Archambault, (ed.), London: Routledge, pp. 113–138.
Hirst, Paul and R.S. Peters, 1970, The Logic of Education , London: Routledge.
Hollis, Martin, 1982, “Education as A Positional Good”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 16(2): 235–244. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9752.1982.tb00615.x
Howe, Kenneth R., 2003, Closing Methodological Divides: Toward Democratic Educational Research , Dordrecht: Kluwer. doi:10.1007/0-306-47984-2
Jacobs, Lesley A., 2010, “Equality, Adequacy, And Stakes Fairness: Retrieving the Equal Opportunities in Education Approach”, Theory and Research in Education , 8(3): 249–268. doi:10.1177/1477878510381627
Kotzee, Ben (ed.), 2013, Education and the Growth of Knowledge: Perspectives from Social and Virtue Epistemology , Oxford: Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781118721254
Kristjánsson, Kristján, 2015, Aristotelian Character Education , London: Routledge.
–––, 2017, “Emotions Targeting Moral Exemplarity: Making Sense of the Logical Geography of Admiration, Emulation and Elevation”, Theory and Research in Education , 15(1): 20–37. doi:10.1177/1477878517695679
Kvernbekk, Tone, 2015, Evidence-based Practice in Education: Functions of Evidence and Causal Presuppositions , London: Routledge.
Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe, 2000, An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Educational Research , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Locke, J., 1693, Some Thoughts Concerning Education , London: Black Swan in Paternoster Row.
Lucas, Christopher J. (ed.), 1969, What is Philosophy of Education? , London: Macmillan.
Lyotard, J-F., 1984, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge , Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 1984, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory , second edition, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Martin, Jane Roland, 1985, Reclaiming a Conversation: The Ideal of the Educated Woman , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Mehta, Ved, 1963, Fly and the Fly-Bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals , London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Miller, Richard W., 2007, “Unlearning American Patriotism”, Theory and Research in Education , 5(1): 7–21. doi:10.1177/1477878507073602
National Research Council (NRC), 2002, Scientific Research in Education , Washington, DC: National Academies Press. [ NRC 2002 available online ]
Noddings, Nel, 1984, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education , Berkeley: University of California Press.
–––, 1992, The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education , New York: Teachers College Press.
–––, 2015, Philosophy of Education , fourth edition, Boulder, CO: Westview.
O’Connor, D.J., 1957, An Introduction to Philosophy of Education , London: Routledge.
Park, J., (ed.), 1965, Bertrand Russell on Education , London: Allen and Unwin.
Peters, R.S., (ed.), 1973, The Philosophy of Education , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
–––, 1981, Moral Development and Moral Education , London: G. Allen & Unwin.
Phillips, D.C., 1985, “Philosophy of Education”, in International Encyclopedia of Education , Torsten Husén and T. Neville Postlethwaite, (eds.), pp. 3859–3877.
–––, 1987, Philosophy, Science, and Social Inquiry: Contemporary Methodological Controversies in Social Science and Related Applied Fields of Research , Oxford: Pergamon.
–––, 2009, “Empirical Educational Research: Charting Philosophical Disagreements in an Undisciplined Field”, in Siegel 2009: 381–406.
–––, 2010, “What Is Philosophy of Education?”, in Bailey et al. 2010: 3–19. doi:10.4135/9781446200872.n1
–––, (ed.), 2014, Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy , Los Angeles: Sage.
Pritchard, Duncan, 2013, “Epistemic Virtue and the Epistemology of Education”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 47(2): 236–247. doi:10.1111/1467-9752.12022
–––, 2016, “Intellectual Virtue, Extended Cognition, and the Epistemology of Education”, in Baehr 2016: 113–127.
Rawls, John, 1971, A Theory of Justice , Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
–––, 1993, Political Liberalism , New York: Columbia University Press.
Robertson, Emily, 2009, “The Epistemic Aims of Education”, in Siegel 2009: 11–34.
Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg (ed.), 1998, Philosophers on Education: New Historical Perspectives , New York: Routledge.
Satz, Debra, 2007, “Equality, Adequacy, and Education for Citizenship”, Ethics , 117(4): 623–648. doi:10.1086/518805
Scheffler, Israel, 1960, The Language of Education , Springfield, IL: Thomas.
–––, 1965, Conditions of Knowledge: An Introduction to Epistemology and Education , Chicago: Scott, Foresman.
–––, 1973 [1989], Reason and Teaching , Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Schouten, Gina, 2012, “Fair Educational Opportunity and the Distribution of Natural Ability: Toward a Prioritarian Principle of Educational Justice”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 46(3): 472–491. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9752.2012.00863.x
Scriven, Michael, 1991a, “Beyond Formative and Summative Evaluation”, in Milbrey McLaughlin and D.C. Phillips (eds.), Evaluation and Education: At Quarter Century , Chicago: University of Chicago Press/NSSE, pp. 19–64.
–––, 1991b, Evaluation Thesaurus , Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Siegel, Harvey, 1988, Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking, and Education , New York: Routledge.
–––, 1997, Rationality Redeemed?: Further Dialogues on an Educational Ideal , New York: Routledge.
–––, 2004, “Epistemology and Education: An Incomplete Guide to the Social-Epistemological Issues”, Episteme , 1(2): 129–137. doi:10.3366/epi.2004.1.2.129
–––, 2005, “Truth, Thinking, Testimony and Trust: Alvin Goldman on Epistemology and Education”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 71(2): 345–366. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2005.tb00452.x
–––, 2007, “Philosophy of Education”, in Britannica Online Encyclopedia , last modified 2 February 2018. URL = <https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/philosophy-of-education/108550>
–––, (ed.), 2009, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195312881.001.0001
–––, 2016, “Israel Scheffler”, In J. A Palmer (ed.), Routledge Encyclopaedia of Educational Thinkers , London: Routledge, pp. 428–432.
–––, 2017, Education’s Epistemology: Rationality, Diversity, and Critical Thinking , New York: Oxford University Press.
–––, 2018, “The Epistemology of Education”, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online , doi:10.4324/0123456789-P074-1.
Skinner, B.F., 1948 [1962], Walden Two , New York: Macmillan.
–––, 1972, Beyond Freedom and Dignity , London: Jonathan Cape.
Smeyers, Paulus, 1994, “Philosophy of Education: Western European Perspectives”, in The International Encyclopedia of Education , (Volume 8), Torsten Husén and T. Neville Postlethwaite, (eds.), Oxford: Pergamon, second Edition, pp. 4456–61.
Smith, B. Othanel and Robert H. Ennis (eds.), 1961, Language and Concepts in Education , Chicago: Rand McNally.
Snook, I.A., 1972, Indoctrination and Education , London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Stone, Lynda (ed.), 1994, The Education Feminism Reader , New York: Routledge.
Strike, Kenneth A., 2010, Small Schools and Strong Communities: A Third Way of School Reform , New York: Teachers College Press.
Warnick, Bryan R., 2015, “Taming the Conflict over Educational Equality”, Journal of Applied Philosophy , 32(1): 50–66. doi:10.1111/japp.12066
Watson, Lani, 2016, “The Epistemology of Education”, Philosophy Compass , 11(3): 146–159. doi:10.1111/phc3.12316
Winch, Christopher and John Gingell, 1999, Key Concepts in the Philosophy of Education , London: Routledge.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

PES (Philosophy of Education Society, North America)
PESA (Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia)
PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain)
INPE (International Network of Philosophers of Education)

Acknowledgments

The authors and editors would like to thank Randall Curren for sending a number of constructive suggestions for the Summer 2018 update of this entry.

Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

Info about mirror sites

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

A Moral Education

In praise of filth.

Milena Mihaylova, Silence Creative Commons

I: THE DILEMMA

Here’s a way of putting the problem: on one hand we want art to be free, and on the other we want it to mean. Not just to mean, but to be meaningful—to be useful for, and so maybe responsible to, other realms of life: our sense of community, say, or politics, our moral relations. As often happens when competing positions have claims to truth, the pendulum of consensus swings between them, and the pendulum has swung quite far, in recent years, toward the pole of responsibility and holding art to account. Within the small world of people who care about literature and art, the culture is as moralistic as it has ever been in my lifetime: witness our polemics about who has the right to what subject matter, our conviction that art has a duty to right representational wrongs, that poems or novels or films can be guilty of a violence that seems ever less metaphorical against an audience construed as ever more vulnerable. We have a sense that the most important questions we can ask about a work of art are whether and to what extent it furthers extra-artistic aims, to what extent it serves a world outside itself. The idea that artists should make what they feel compelled to make, regardless of such considerations, that in fact art should be protected from responsibilities of this kind, seems part and parcel of a discredited Romantic model of the artist as exempt from workaday morality, licensed by genius to act badly, or at least to disregard the claims of others. When I work with students now, graduate or undergraduate, their primary mode of engagement with a text often seems to be a particular kind of moral judgment, as though before they can see anything else in stories or poems they have to sort them into piles of the righteous and the problematic. These responses sometimes seem to me an index of an anxiety I see more and more in my students, in my friends and myself, a kind of paranoia about our own moral status, a desire to demonstrate our personal righteousness in our response to art.

Such responses can sometimes place me in what seems an antipathetic relationship to my students as they fail to respond as I wish they would to books that I love. But this is a false antipathy, or a misplaced one; really my students and I share the most important values, and our visions of a desirable world, and even of the place of art within it, overlap far more than they diverge. When I was beginning my literary education in the 1990s, the pendulum hovered close to the other pole; at least among a certain cadre of poets and literary scholars, maybe in response to moralistic crusades of the ’70s and ’80s, a doctrine of ars gratia artis reigned. I chafed against that, too. To treat art as purely aesthetic, a question merely of formal exploration and sensuous experience, is one way to preempt the claims of moralism, as is treating art as exclusively play, a stage for invention and virtuosity. (To be clear, I think art can be all these things, all of them valuable.) Another, more extreme claim for the freedom of art is articulated in Maggie Nelson’s “Art Song,” which entertains a conception of art as “a metabolic activity, a ‘way of churning the world.’” In my darker moments I sometimes think it’s true that art is simply a biological process, shorn of significance; but I’m not sure it’s a truth I can live with, a story to tell about myself that I can bear. Certainly it’s not an adequate account of my experience of art, of what I would continue to call “great” art, though greatness is another idea called into question in our anti-exceptionalist moment. Maybe it’s a delusion to think that the central activity of my life, art making, has more significance than digestion; maybe it’s a saving delusion. One reason a particular strain of our current moralism—the strain that would subject artists to tests of acceptability, that says we shouldn’t consume art made by bad people—is so dismaying is that it sees works of art as endlessly fungible, just another commodity on the market. There’s so much art available to us, this reasoning goes; there’s nothing Lolita or The Enigma of Arrival or Wise Blood might offer that we can’t find in a writer less problematic than Nabokov or Naipaul or O’Connor. But a profound experience of art is an experience of something like love, which is to say of singularity; when you’ve had a profound encounter with Giovanni’s Room , say, or a portrait by Alice Neel, you can’t imagine swapping it out for something more conveniently affirming of social values we cherish. This affinity is more mysterious than evaluation or ranking or canon-formation; it seems to me analogous to other relationships we form. The love I feel for my partner or my friends isn’t the result of comparative evaluation, it isn’t founded on a claim that of all candidates I’ve judged them worthiest. The question of comparison doesn’t enter; they are simply themselves, incommensurate, irreplaceable. My life wouldn’t be my life without them, as my life wouldn’t be my life without any number of artists who failed, in various ways large and small, to be excellent outside their art.

The problem is that, in much of our discussion of art, we’ve made a mistake about what moral engagement is , and so what art’s role in it might be.

The value I find in the art I love seems different from and greater than formal experiment or technical display, greater than play, certainly greater than “metabolic churning.” Art has a value that seems to me moral, and, like my students, like much of what we’ve taken to calling The Discourse, with its purity tests and cancelations, its groupthink and dismissal, I want to think of art making as an activity with moral implications. More, I want to place it at the heart of one way of striving toward a moral life, by which I mean at the heart of our attempt to live flourishingly with others, or at least bearably and with minimal harm. The problem is that, in much of our discussion of art, I think we’ve made a mistake about what moral engagement is , and so what art’s role in it might be. In much of our commentary, there’s a desire for art to be exemplary, to present a world the moral valence of which, whether positive or negative, is easily legible; there’s a desire for the work of art to provide an index of judgment clearly predicated on values the reader can approve. We want the work to give us a place to stand that grants access to righteousness, a place from which to judge a work or its characters. But more and more I question the role of this kind of judgment in moral life. I don’t mean the constant, shifting, provisional evaluations we make moment-to-moment, the moral echolocation by which we position ourselves and our actions. I mean the act of coming to judgment, to a verdict: of assigning someone a durable or even permanent moral status. This is sometimes necessary, of course, though maybe less often than we suspect; it’s what we do, hopefully with some seriousness, in courts of law, and what we do sometimes flippantly, recklessly, in social media campaigns for de-platforming and cancelation. The seriousness of our verdicts depends in large part on the density of their contextualization; and, since the context of a human life is so nearly depthless and made up of such incommensurable elements, ideally righteous judgment is impossible. To be bearable, to be plausibly adequate, even our imperfect, sublunary judgments require an immense amount of work; the idea that we might carry that work out on social media is one of the genuinely repulsive aspects of our moment. I am immensely grateful, every day, that judging others in this way is not my job. The best thing about being a novelist, in fact, is that my job is actively to resist coming to such judgment. Plausibly adequate verdicts may be a necessary feature of the real world, but they are never necessary in matters of art.

When we place this kind of definitive moral judgment at the heart of our engagement with others, assigning a person or a work a status as problematic or righteous, we make a mistake about what a moral relationship to another is , I think. If a moral relationship means to live with or beside another in such a way as to recognize the value of their life as being equal to and independent of our own—that impossible, necessary Kantian standard—then passing judgment is the abrogation of that relationship: it destroys the reciprocity necessary for moral relation, it establishes a hierarchy utterly corrosive of it. This is another reason to reject the idea that we should only consume art made by good people: Who am I to judge the goodness of another? (For all the ravages of Calvinism in America, one misses a sense of the inscrutability of election.) Coming to judgment in this way is anathema to the novelist because the task of art isn’t to judge, but to know, to observe, to carry out research into the human—and passing judgment is a radically impoverished form of knowledge. An important part of the moral work of art is to teach us how much richer and more capacious our engagement with others can be.

This essay is an attempt to clarify my sense of what the relationship between art and morality might be, since the loudest accounts of that relationship in our moment seem to me inadequate. To help think that through, I want to consider how a book that flouts all our pieties about decency and responsibility, about sociality and moral uplift, a novel about a rancidly obscene, sexually voracious, inveterately grieving puppeteer—Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater , probably the filthiest major American novel I know—seems to me as powerful an example of morally engaged art as English-language literature can offer. More, I want to test my intuition that it is precisely the book’s obscenity, its determination to shock and affront, to “let the repellent in” (“fuck the laudable ideologies,” cries its hero), that, far from hindering the moral work it does, is central to that work. If the great moral question is how to live bearably with others, Sabbath’s Theater pursues an answer through the very things that make the novel’s protagonist morally repulsive—the very things that, by our current standards of what is acceptable in art, should place the novel beyond our regard. A moral education depends not on condemning or averting our gaze from filth, the novel suggests, but on diving wholeheartedly into it.

FILTH 1: AN ETYMOLOGY At the center of Roth’s novel, which chronicles three days in the breakdown of Mickey Sabbath, a disgraced, arthritic, sixty-four-year-old puppeteer, is Sabbath’s grief for the loss of Drenka Balich, the married Croatian innkeeper with whom he had a thirteen-year affair until her death, of a ferociously swift cancer, six months before the novel’s present action begins. If this present-day timeline pulls the novel forward, however, the bulk of the narrative is entirely unmoored in time, roaming over Sabbath’s past with special attention to his relationships with women: the prostitutes who provided his sexual initiation as an adolescent in the merchant marines; his first wife, whose disappearance haunts him; the undergraduate whose recording of their phone sex has made him a pariah; his current, despised wife, Roseanna, a recovering alcoholic who is bracing herself to separate from him. Expelled from his home, Sabbath returns to the landscapes of his past: New York City and, in the book’s astonishing final movement, the Jersey Shore, where his idyllic childhood, what he characterizes as an experience of endlessness, was shattered by his beloved brother’s death in World War II. The novel is a fulfillment of currents already present in Roth’s work—Sabbath is a Portnoy without the complaint, all erotic id without any tortured compulsion to be good—and also it represents something entirely new. It has a formal freedom and linguistic virtuosity unmatched in his earlier books, and a profundity in grappling with the absolutes of existence—sex, love, need, the urge to make, the irrevocability of death and the inescapability of grief—I’m not sure Roth ever achieved again. It is also, maybe it doesn’t quite go without saying, very, very funny.

A source of both the humor and the profundity is how seriously the book takes obscenity and the desire that fuels it. Here’s a sentence from very early on:

Lately, when Sabbath suckled at Drenka’s uberous breasts—uberous, the root word of exuberant , which is itself ex plus uberare , to be fruitful, to overflow like Juno lying prone in Tintoretto’s painting where the Milky Way is coming out of her tit—suckled with an unrelenting frenzy that caused Drenka to roll her head ecstatically back and to groan (as Juno herself may have once groaned), “I feel it deep down in my cunt,” he was pierced by the sharpest of longings for his late little mother.

The audacity of the sentence lies in the huge tonal registers it crosses: from the high literary “uberous,” with the pedantic, scholarly excursus into Latin, and the even higher reference to myth and Tintoretto, to the vertiginous drop to the carnal in “cunt,” to the truly shocking, wildly inappropriate exit from scene with the memory of his mother. The exit is given an amazing adjectival flourish with “late little mother,” swooping from Drenka’s pornographic exclamation to an affect we conventionally take as the opposite of sexual: that of filial devotion. The “little” is wonderful: English doesn’t have ready access to diminutives, a temperature that many other languages can avail themselves of, like Spanish and Bulgarian and German and Yiddish, which is the immediate referent here; suddenly we are in the linguistic world of Sabbath’s childhood, hearing an echo of his father’s immigrant past.

Shock is a characteristic aesthetic maneuver in Sabbath’s Theater , but Roth avoids the deadening effect that usually accompanies repeated shocks by distributing their weight in unexpected ways. The sudden turn of this sentence— turn is too pale a word: the sudden whipping of the sentence, the sudden lash—comes not with “cunt” but with the last three words: bizarrely, it is not “I feel it deep in my cunt” but “late little mother” that seems obscene. This feels electrically fresh to me. The effect is only strengthened with greater familiarity with the novel, in which “cunt” appears dozens of times, and so loses its sense of taboo. It’s a word Roth loves, both for its visceral force and also, I think, for its history. Roth isn’t often thought of as a writer who lingers over etymologies, but he should be—that’s another reason this sentence is instructive—and his use of “cunt” is redolent with the history of the word, a history that goes hand in hand with that of the word quaint, which was its synonym in Middle English. The word runs through Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which Roth first encountered in high school and lines from which he could still recite late in life. “The Miller’s Tale” can read like a meditation on queynte, which means, as a noun, “cunt,” and also, as an adjective, “intricate,” “elegant,” “pleasant”; also “mysterious,” “queer.” This history encapsulates something important in the relationship between Drenka and Sabbath, which is predicated on sex, the wilder the better—their shenanigans allow each of them to tolerate intolerable marriages—and also profoundly affirmative of whatever we might mean by an ethical relationship with another. It’s hard for me to imagine that Roth didn’t have the history of cunt/queynte in mind in this very beautiful passage, which Drenka delivers after a threesome Sabbath has arranged with Christa, a much younger woman:

I find the cunt actually quite beautiful. I never would have thought that looking in the mirror. You come with your shame to look at yourself and you look at your sexual organs and they are not acceptable from the aesthetic perspective. But in this setting, I can see the whole thing, and although it is a mystique that I am a part of, it’s a mystery to me, a total mystery.

I understand “mystery” here to mean something like “possessed of a significance, a value, that is bottomless, that can’t be measured.” Through sex, through her erotic life, Drenka transforms shame—a sense that the meaning of her body is known, fixed, finite—into mystery, a sense of a surplus of meaning, an uncountable worth. This is an extravagant claim to make for the work sex can do, in literature and in life; I think Roth means to make it. The proximity of flesh and spirit is one of the animating paradoxes of sex; it seems plausible that orgasm, that tiny replicable shattering of self, is the source of all our metaphysics. Any writer attempting a sex scene has to manage the relationship between the horizontal axis of bodies in space—the logistics of sexual acts—and the vertical axis sex makes available, an intimation of something, spirit or soul, that exceeds the body. Roth is a remarkably unmetaphysical writer, and his treatment of sex is often marked by a resolute refusal to entertain the vertical axis; this too makes Sabbath’s Theater unique among his books. In the first passage quoted above, transcendence is all over the sentence: sex is written into myth; Drenka is made a goddess; she and Sabbath fuck among the stars. Five months after her agonizing death from cancer, months he has spent in nighttime graveyard masturbation, Sabbath falls prostrate over Drenka’s grave and cries, “You filthy, wonderful Drenka cunt!” Both the filth and the wonder are real; the wonder proceeds from the filth. How else should we think of this, if not as a work of love?

II: DISIDENTIFICATION sabbath’s theater is not a story of moral reform; from beginning to end Sabbath does very bad things. Some of these are played for laughs, as when he deliberately humiliates Drenka’s husband or spends an entire night and morning ransacking the bedroom of a friend’s college-age daughter, searching for evidence of her erotic life. Elsewhere Sabbath is less entertainingly repulsive. An extended sequence early in the novel’s second half concerns Kathy Goolsbee, an undergraduate in Sabbath’s puppetry workshop, who records (without his knowledge, as Sabbath also records it without hers) one of several phone sex sessions they have, a recording that, perhaps accidentally, perhaps by design, makes it to the college’s administration. (It is then appropriated by a feminist action group and played on a loop for anyone who calls in to a local phone number, a bit of Rothian satire that raises harrowing questions about whose exploitation of Kathy is more destructive, and whether, in a context where everyone claims to be educating her, anyone is concerned for her well-being.) Sabbath has made dozens of tapes of conversations with the six students with whom, over the years, he’s had similar relationships, thinking of the recordings as testaments to a pedagogy of liberation and as works of art. Destroying those tapes, he thinks—they are, after all, evidence—would be “like defiling a Picasso. Because there was in these tapes a kind of art in the way that he was able to unshackle his girls from their habit of innocence.” As part of his indignant self-defense, he places his tapes in the lineage of literary filth, alongside Réage, Miller, Lawrence, Joyce, Cleland, and the Earl of Rochester.

The episode with Kathy occurs five years before the primary action of Sabbath’s Theater , but it sets in motion crucial elements of the plot: Sabbath’s disgrace and increasing penury after he loses his teaching job; his wife Roseanna’s breakdown, subsequent recovery from alcoholism, and increasing independence. In the book’s single scene between Sabbath and Kathy, we see Sabbath at his worst, or close to it. Enraged at Kathy, whom he holds responsible for Roseanna’s breakdown and apparent suicide attempt, he intends—it’s not clear how seriously—to kill the student, who weepingly denies her guilt and begs to give Sabbath a blow job. Beneath this scene, in a twenty-one-page footnote, Roth provides a transcript of the call Kathy recorded, which is decidedly, cannily, not art on the order of Lawrence or Colette. One of the challenges of writing sex is to create, using the formal resources of the novelist, some approximation of the atmosphere of desire, in which acts and proclamations that, viewed dispassionately, might be merely ridiculous can be transfigured by passion. In presenting a transcript shorn of scene and verbal artfulness, banality (“Oh God. I’m going to come. / You’re going to come?”) remains simply banal, underscoring Sabbath’s delusion that these exchanges are either art or education. In the scene that runs above the transcript, Sabbath alternately suspects Kathy of entrapment and entertains the possibility of accepting her propositions, imagining the satisfaction of the act:

To peer down at her head cradled in your lap, your cock encircled by her foaming lips, and to watch her blowing you in tears, to patiently lather that undissipated face with that sticky confection of spit, semen, and tears, a delicate meringue icing her freckles—could life bestow any more wonderful last thing?

Sex as vengeance and humiliation: the discomfort of the moment is deepened by the fact that the passage is addressed (“Maestro, what would you do?”) to the memory of an old puppeteer Sabbath met while studying in Italy, who interrogated Sabbath about his lovers and their ages and then, in satisfaction, boasted that his own girlfriend was fifteen, though “Of course I’ve known her since she’s twelve.” (This becomes even more discomfiting in the light of Blake Bailey’s 2021 biography of Roth, which recounts an almost verbatim exchange Roth had with the Czech novelist Jiří Mucha, decades before Sabbath’s Theater was published.) It’s hard to recuperate anything redemptive—anything even morally complex—from this vision of eros.

In his many quarrels with Roseanna, Sabbath mocks her devotion both to AA-speak and to what she calls “the story format”: “‘But what happens with the story format,’ she went on, oblivious not merely to his sarcasm but to the look in his eyes of someone who had taken too many sedative pills, ‘is that you can identify.’” The question of identification has a central role in our current debates about what art is worth our attention and the work that it should do. The role of literature, these conversations presume, is to show us a certain kind of image of ourselves, an image often characterized as positive or affirming or empowering. I take the desire for representation seriously, and I take seriously the consequences of living in a culture that doesn’t provide bearable images of oneself. My concern is that we take too prescriptive a view of what constitutes affirmation. None of the books that gave me succor as a gay kid in the pre-internet American South—novels by Yukio Mishima, James Baldwin, Edmund White, André Gide—would pass muster if judged by today’s standards of positive representation. The moral seriousness of those books, it seems to me now, lies in their refusal of an image one might identify with in any frictionless, any merely self-comforting way. Roth’s novel does something similar, I think: Sabbath is magnetic, fascinating, irresistible; it is impossible to look away from him. But he is not, in the simplistic, flat sense often invoked in our discussions of literature, sympathetic. Roth’s novel stands distinct from much of recent American narrative practice in its model of narrative as dis identification, in the way Sabbath constantly rejects our sympathy, throwing up roadblocks to identification, rubbing his repulsiveness in our face.

But the novel wouldn’t be so discomfiting if this were all it did. Sabbath can reject our sympathy only once the novel has tempted us into it; Roth invites us to condemn Sabbath only to push us past our condemnation. Roth’s manipulation of these responses—the way he shows Sabbath as alternately repulsive and pitiable, entertaining and horrifying, destructive and grievously wounded—is key to the novel’s moral force. When he first arrives in New York, angling to be taken in by a friend, Sabbath finds himself weeping uncontrollably over his various losses, while also telling himself he’s performing grief as an elaborate manipulation. “Sabbath didn’t believe a word he said and hadn’t for years.…True lives belonged to others, or so others believed.” And yet, as Sabbath breaks down repeatedly, even he begins to be convinced: “He was crying now the way anyone cries who has had it. There was passion in his crying—terror, great sadness, and defeat.” And then, after a paragraph break: “Or was there?” In the way the scene makes these turns again and again, dizzyingly convincing us of sincerity and professing insincerity, it is a microcosm of the entire novel. Finally, Sabbath is as unsure as we are of the moral status of his tears. Perhaps, he thinks, his weeping is less “to be chalked up to guile than to the fact that the inner reason for his being—whatever the hell that might be, perhaps guile itself—had ceased to exist.” The story Sabbath has told about himself, told to himself, proves inadequate; the meaning he had considered fixed gives way to mystery. If this is a novel of (partial, constantly backsliding) moral education, it begins and ends in bewilderment.

FILTH 2: DIRTY THOUGHTS drenka is the fullest, richest realization of one of Roth’s female character types: the eager, indulgent lover. Roseanna, for the first half of the novel, seems like a strikingly thin embodiment of another: the long-suffering, long-suffered, shrewish wife. One of the marvels of the novel is how, over the book’s second half, both the reader’s and Sabbath’s vision of Roseanna is sharpened, deepened, as she emerges into a complexity the book’s first half denied her. The catalyst for this transformation—a transformation not of Roseanna, but of Sabbath’s understanding of her—is a peculiarly charged species of fiction: sexual fantasy. Sabbath is nominally a puppeteer, but the kind of artist he most resembles is a novelist—a novelist, it might be said, of a Rothian sort. Like any good writer he’s an alert perceiver, “ever vigilant to all stimuli”; he’s also equipped with a remarkable ability to use his observations to construct complex inner lives. Take for example Michelle Cowan, a rich and ambivalent minor character, electrically vivid though she appears in a single scene. Sabbath is dazzled by her; as her houseguest he watches her with an attention whetted by appetite but not, perhaps, reducible to it, observing her so intently that he times her hot flashes. He loves her laugh, a sound that he endows with a novelistically dense inner life:

The laugh said that she was sick of staying, sick of plotting leaving, sick of unsatisfied dreams, sick of satisfied dreams, sick of adapting, sick of not adapting, sick of just about everything except existing. Exulting in existing while being sick of everything— that’s what was in that laugh! A semidefeated, semiamused, semiaggrieved, semiamazed, seminegative, hilarious big laugh.

The novel is exquisitely ambivalent on the question of whether Sabbath’s portrait of Michelle is right . He flirts with her throughout dinner, even playing footsie with her—he thinks—throughout the meal (the foot turns out to be her husband’s), and later, when she shows up at his door in a kimono (after Sabbath has gone on a racist tirade against the Japanese, whom he holds accountable for his brother’s death), it’s not at all clear what she’s after. Sabbath propositions her, and she puts him off, seeming to make a date for several days later. He grows increasingly manic until, in a very beautiful moment, anything at all seems possible between them: “‘Christ…’ she said and allowed her forehead to fall forward onto his. To rest there. It was a moment unlike any he’d had all day. Week. Month. Year. He calmed down.” But immediately after this, when Sabbath exposes himself, Roth says that Michelle recoils , a word that suggests not a willed but a reflexive action, though what it signifies is unclear. Shock? Alarm? Disgust? We can’t know, just as Sabbath can’t know whether the story he tells about her is correct.

But then we can never know whether such stories are correct; human life, human relation is precisely not knowing. Fiction is all we can have. In his next novel, American Pastoral (1997), Roth goes even further: “Getting people right is not what living is all about anyway,” he writes there. “It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again.” So maybe it doesn’t matter if Sabbath is right, or maybe what matters more is the richness with which he imagines the lives of others, the extent to which what he imagines is excessive is any simply self-serving fantasy. This is the case with Michelle, I think: he endows her with a complexity, a self-division (“semidefeated, semiamused, semiaggrieved, semiamazed, seminegative”) that exceeds, that may in fact impede , any version of her that would merely serve his own interests. Maybe what matters, in our dealings with others, is not whether what we imagine is fiction or reality, but whether it is an easy or a demanding fiction, I mean whether it is easy on ourselves or hard, whether it serves self-flattery or demands self-correction.

For decades Sabbath has been telling himself a self-serving story about his wife. The reader’s sense of her begins to change in a long flashback of Sabbath visiting her in the hospital, where she is recovering from her breakdown. She has asked him to bring letters her father wrote to her when she was a child, in the year he committed suicide. Against her stated wishes, Sabbath reads these letters, as well as a journal she has left unguarded in her room. The novel reproduces all of these texts, which are excruciating to read—the father’s letters especially, with their banality, their cruelty, their terrible need—and which fundamentally and durably revise our sense of Roseanna, of what she has been through and what resilience she has required. “She came by her pain honestly,” one of her fellow patients tells Sabbath. Opening her journals, Sabbath expects to read about himself; in the simplistic, flattening story he has told himself about her, he is the malignant defining feature of her life, the grand antagonist. Instead, he finds that he is never mentioned. “What a bother we are to one another,” he muses, “while actually nonexistent to one another, unreal specters compared to whoever originally sabotaged the sacred trust.”

Only at the very end of the novel does Sabbath fully realize how profoundly ignorant he is of his wife; from a story whose meaning he has long exhausted, she becomes an utter mystery. Having become custodian of a box of his brother’s things, each of them a banal, precious reminder of a world that seemed whole, Sabbath finds that he cannot kill himself, as he had imagined doing. Instead, he returns home and sits in his car at the bottom of his driveway, entertaining the possibility of reconciling with his wife. His thoughts take the form of an elaborate fantasy, a meticulous imagining of Roseanna masturbating. The equation of marriage with erotic death is a recurring theme in the novel—marital intercourse is the one taboo he resists breaking—but now he imagines her in their bed, reading, and then distracted from her reading as she begins to play with herself. Sabbath’s fiction is precise, methodical, with the kind of exact logistical description we expect from Roth: “Circular movement of the fingers, and soon the pelvis in a circular movement, too. Middle finger on the button—not the tip of the finger, the ball of the finger.” But he doesn’t imagine merely as a voyeur; he enters into Roseanna’s experience, with intimacy and density of texture: “It changes what she feels when she introduces her finger into her cunt—on the button it’s very precise, but with the finger in her cunt the feeling is distributed, and that’s what she wants: the distribution of the feeling .” A virtuoso performance, Sabbath thinks; still in his car, still at the bottom of the driveway, he applauds and cheers. “His wife. He’d forgotten all about her. Twelve, fifteen years since she let me watch. What would it be like to fuck Roseanna?”

National Magazine Award Winner

This passage might give us pause. Surely there’s something objectionable here, an infringement on Roseanna’s privacy, even a violation—a reduction of her to a sexual object, an appropriation of her experience in a fantasy that must be essentially, if not quite literally, masturbatory for Sabbath. “What would it be like to fuck Roseanna?” is not exactly, a certain kind of argument might run, a sign of profound moral engagement with another person. But what if it is? It seems at least plausible to view it generously, and I find myself wanting to defend Sabbath, to argue that there’s something morally ample in imagining Roseanna in the fullness of her sexuality, and in an experience in which she exists for herself, bringing about her own pleasure, an image of intrinsic, non-instrumental value. There’s something moving, I want to argue, in seeing Sabbath rediscover his spouse as an erotic being. But defending Sabbath isn’t the point; it may be as much a trap as condemning him, since it presumes precisely the idea the experience of the novel contests: that Sabbath possesses a moral status we can fix. What’s more, Sabbath’s sympathetic or generous view of Roseanna is short-lived. In a characteristic move, his experience of plenitude—his reawakened interest in his wife, the prospect of a reconciliation with home—is brutally snatched away: in a baroque, Rothian fillip of a plot twist, he discovers that Roseanna is having playful, passionate, ecstatic sex with Christa, the young woman Sabbath and Drenka invited into their bed. Sabbath, after listening to them make love, turns monstrous, an embodiment of male jealousy and rage. Roaring, he pounds on the bedroom window until it crashes in on the terrified lovers. So much for moral education.

III: AN APOPHATIC THEORY in 1999, the romanian novelist Norman Manea taught a course on Roth’s work at Bard College. Each week, after a day in which Manea discussed one of Roth’s novels with the students, Roth would join for questions and further discussion. According to Bailey’s biography, the final session, on I Married a Communist (1998), was rancorous, with the students objecting to the novel’s portrayal of women. Roth frequently found himself on the wrong side of righteousness, hectored early in his career as an anti-Semite, and criticized later for misogyny. The latter charge has stuck, and not without reason. I’ve argued that Drenka and Roseanna, while recognizable Rothian feminine types, have a richness and complexity that render them compellingly human. In certain of Roth’s other novels, female characters can collapse into stereotype, evacuated of the mystery and depth he frequently lavishes on his male protagonists—though Roth himself mocked this kind of criticism as “puritanical feminism.” In I Married a Communist , the book under discussion in Manea’s class, Eve Frame is a particularly stark example of this flattening approach to female characters, a transparent caricature of Roth’s ex-wife Claire Bloom, whose memoir Leaving a Doll’s House (1996) he saw as a betrayal. Anticipating trouble, and perhaps prepared by the previous week’s discussion of Sabbath’s Theater , Roth arrived at the final session of Manea’s class armed with the book On Trial: The Case of Sinyavsky and Daniel (1967), a collection of documents relating to the prosecution of two writers by the Soviet regime. Roth produced the book after a male student offered an “excruciatingly careful” comment in the class, using it to draw a comparison between what he called the “intimidating atmosphere” of the undergraduate seminar and the censorship and prosecution carried out by the Communist state.

The students weren’t having it: “We don’t want to arrest you and put you on trial,” one not unreasonably retorted. It’s striking how closely this exchange parallels debates we’re having twenty years later, in which intellectuals committed to the classical values of liberalism, chief among them free speech, seem as alarmed by the left’s supposed cancel culture as by the right’s attacks on democratic institutions. How dismaying these debates are, not only because they serve to fracture possible coalitions among people who to a very great extent share a vision of a desirable world, but also because there is so much bad faith on all sides. Assertions that Twitter cancelation campaigns or undergraduate seminars are equivalent to totalitarian persecution are prima facie absurd; so are claims that cancel culture is a figment of the right’s imagination, that social media pillorying doesn’t have real, grievous, and often unjust consequences, or that the specter of those consequences has not had a chilling effect on cultural life. Every artist I know is conscious of a new and mounting pressure to police their work for potentially objectionable elements; many have abandoned projects; nearly all have undergone what I think of as crises of relevance: a sense that the art they want to make will fail to speak to our moment in a way that can cut through the noise of incessant, hectoring, social-media-amplified topical debate. One longs for a lessening of that noise, for space to recognize the validity of competing values, the need to accommodate multiple claims.

What I want, really, is an escape from argument altogether. We need a way to think without the kind of untrammeled assertion that characterizes public discourse, especially on social media, which has, to the detriment of our institutions and ourselves, become public discourse. Much of the value of art for me lies in its ability to provide a space free of such argument. Turning from Twitter to Henry James, say—an early and enduring influence on Roth—I’m amazed by how much more spacious thinking feels in his sentences, not for their length exactly but for their avoidance of plain assertion, for their endless qualifications and corrections, their syntax of scruple. We have created a public discourse in which one’s ability to be heard depends on speaking with a certainty, a lack of nuance, a stridency utterly inadequate to reality. When I consider debates about the relationship between art and morality, what I long for is an apophatic theory of that relation—a theory that would allow us to explore the moral work of art without limiting or prescribing that work, as certain theologians attempt to develop ways to think about God without defining God in a manner that would violate God’s freedom. What I want is a kind of syntax, which is to say a kind of thinking, that appears more and more frequently in the final pages of Sabbath’s Theater , a syntax of paradox and negation, which gives Roth access to a kind of affirmation utterly unprecedented in his work—an affirmation, uniquely for this resolutely secular writer, that I think can properly be called theological.

FILTH 3: PISSING, A THEOLOGY if i’m right that Sabbath’s Theater gains access to a theological dimension, it’s Sabbath’s devotion to filth, his determination “to affront and affront and affront till there was no one on earth unaffronted,” that provides it. Religious allusion is everywhere in the novel, much of it of an ironic, Wildean, transvaluation-of-values kind, at least at first glance. “You must devote yourself to fucking the way a monk devotes himself to God,” Sabbath muses early on. The appeal of statements like this is a comedy of transgression, a blasphemous thrill. But blasphemy is unstable; the circuit it establishes between apparently incompatible terms can sacralize as easily at it desecrates. Roth’s novel treats sex as a kind of limit-experience, an ultimate thing; as religious allusions pile up, the comic, ironic application of religious concepts comes to seem less ironic. Or maybe it’s truer to say that the irony seems less totalizing, it leaves open the possibility of earnestness. “If anything served Sabbath as an argument for the existence of God,” the book tells us, musing on the clitoris, “it was the thousands upon thousands of orgasms dancing on the head of that pin.” Is this an instance of sex undermining religion, or of religion illuminating sex? As Sabbath listens to Roseanna and Christa making love, he reaches again for a religious amplitude: “They had taken unto themselves the task of divinity and were laying bare the rapture with their tongues.” The tone of this isn’t earnest, exactly: the exaltation (“taken unto themselves”) offers the cover of irony. But neither is it dismissive; the sacred does seem the proper frame of reference for what these women are doing. And then there is Sabbath himself: the name, of course, but also the odd ways in which he comes to seem a holy figure, with his Old-Testament-prophet beard, his truth-telling (when he isn’t telling lies), his destitution. Sabbath’s transvaluation of values can be comic and Wildean; it can also be beatitudinal. This is especially clear in his sense of the moral authority of abjection, which is the only moral authority he claims. “You have kindhearted liberal comprehension,” Sabbath says to a friend who has attempted to rescue him, “but I am flowing swiftly along the curbs of life, I am merely debris, in possession of nothing to interfere with an objective reading of the shit.” Here is something like a formula for sainthood, wherein abjection and utter powerlessness confer privileged knowledge. Sabbath, with his fondness for prostitutes, his preference for the homeless and destitute over the affluent and comfortable, his utter rejection of the secular logic of the world—what is all of this if not saintly, even Christ-like? I don’t think the novel lets us feel settled about how seriously we should take this, and Sabbath himself seems unsure: “Can it be that there is something religious about me?” he wonders. “Has what I’ve done—i.e., failed to do—been saintly?”

The odd hitch in that sentence, the revision or correction, the flip into negation—“what I’ve done, i.e., failed to do”—is a feature that appears more and more frequently in the book’s final pages. Faced with the irresolvable dilemma of his life, Sabbath finds himself increasingly turning to negative formulations: “There was no bottom to what he did not have to say about the meaning of his life.” The tactic of using negation to seek a way through insoluble dilemma has a long tradition, one that, by the end of Sabbath’s Theater , it seems clear Roth is drawing from. At the heart of this apophatic tradition, the tradition of mystic thought, is the hope that the relentless pursuit of negativity will somehow arrive at an experience of affirmation. I’ve never read a better account of how that process might work than this passage from Roth’s novel, about oral sex with Roseanna:

The swampy scent Roseanna exuded in her twenties, most unique, not at all fishy but vegetative, rooty, in the muck with the rot. Loved it. Took you right to the edge of gagging, and then, in its depths something so sinister that, boom-o, beyond repugnance into the promised land, to where all one’s being resides in one’s nose, where existence amounts to nothing more or less than the feral, foaming cunt, where the thing that matters most in the world— is the world—is the frenzy that’s in your face.

“Boom-o”: sex is the key that unlocks the mystic’s logic, releasing some mechanism of grace that flips the values of the workaday world on their head and delivers one, inexplicably, to an experience of plenitude and bliss. In the novel’s final scene Sabbath returns to Drenka’s gravesite, where he has spent so many nights weeping and masturbating, and the book’s engagement with the negative syntax and paradoxical image repertoire of mysticism reaches its peak. “Imagine a stone carrying itself,” Roth instructs his reader as he describes Sabbath climbing the hill to Drenka’s grave. And then, once he reaches the final resting place of the woman he loved—in many ways the entire book has been a cry of grief for her—he proceeds to piss on it.

“It’s not hard not to be terrible” is a sentiment I see floating down my social media feeds with alarming regularity. But I am a novelist because I think it is hard not to be terrible.

It’s worth pausing to note that Sabbath is a remarkably liquid man, constantly spouting fluids: his ejaculations and tears, his three-times-nightly trips to piss, not to mention the words that come, endless, fluent, from an apparently limitless source. And yet now, as he tries to piss over Drenka, he finds himself dry: “He was fearful at first that he was asking of himself the impossible and that there was, in him, nothing left of him.” His watering of Drenka’s grave, which he imagines as an “anointing,” recalls an earlier scene in which Drenka, on her deathbed, relives with Sabbath an afternoon when they pissed over each other. Roth considered this scene one of the two greatest he wrote in his career; it’s the most extraordinary sex scene I know. In remembering, re-narrating, re-experiencing this scene, a memory of kinky erotic experience—of transgression, of generosity to each other (“Why not?” Drenka responds to Sabbath’s request, “Life is so crazy anyway.”)—allows them to mourn together Drenka’s imminent death, and also generates an expansiveness that transcends their current situation and its limits. “It was like we were forever united in that,” Drenka says to him. “We were. We are,” Sabbath replies, turning piss-play into a sacrament—a kind of marriage—that affirms a scale of temporality not typically available in Roth’s novels: everlastingness. Hoping to commemorate this moment, Sabbath finds himself unable to piss, literally out of juice. “Perfect metaphor,” he thinks, “empty vessel.” I’m not sure how to understand this emptiness except as an example of kenosis , the self-emptying necessary before the aspirant can be filled up in divine union. “There was, in him, nothing left of him.” And, as is the mystic’s hope, emptiness is followed by plenitude; Sabbath begins not just to piss but to gush, to overflow, in something that seems like a violation of the natural order of things—that seems, I mean to say, miraculous. “Sabbath was peeing with a power that surprised even him, the way strangers to grief can be astounded by the unstoppable copiousness of their river of tears.” He finds he can’t stop; in another mystically charged image—Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich both figure Christ as a nursing mother—he becomes “to urine what a wet nurse is to milk.” He imagines his urine drilling a hole to Drenka’s lips, reviving her, bringing her miraculously to life—but here the book closes the door on the transcendence it has courted: “he could never again reach her in any way…nobody dead can live again.” Again and again in the novel, Roth gives only to take away; he opens a door and then slams it shut. And yet the very restlessness of the book calls all finality into question, even the finality of finality itself. Maybe the door isn’t shut forever.

IV: A MORAL EDUCATION sabbath isn’t alone at Drenka’s grave, as it turns out: his miraculous flow of urine finally stops when he is accosted—swung around by his prophet’s beard—by Matthew, Drenka’s grieving and aggrieved policeman son. To Matthew, locked out of the circuit of desire and devotion that transforms what looks like an act of degradation into a sacrament, Sabbath can only be what he seems: an old adulterer pissing on his mother’s grave. “What are you?” Michael asks when Sabbath refuses to be penitent, refuses even to put his dribbling cock back in his pants. “This is a religious act,” Sabbath insists, a claim he only somewhat revises a few pages later: “I do not say correct or savory. I do not say seemly or even natural. I say serious.” But Matthew has his own grief and his own devotion; his tears, his forbearance as Sabbath baits him, wanting to make him his final puppet, the instrument of his suicide, carry a moral force that make his reading of Sabbath’s act undismissable. The power of this final scene lies in its presentation of radically incommensurable interpretive frames, and in the novel’s refusal to reconcile them. We feel the force of both meanings: Sabbath pissing on Drenka’s grave is a sacred act and an act of desecration, an act of love for Drenka on the part of her grieving, beloved lover and an act of cruelty against her grieving, beloved son. In a world of conflicting authoritative interpretive frames there is no final judgment we can pass. Whatever calculus might make the competing claims of Sabbath and Matthew commensurate, and so allow us to weigh one against the other, is unavailable to us, in the novel as in life. The novel forces us to experience both meanings, to live in the dilemma of their conflict.

Confronting us with that dilemma is crucial to the moral education art can offer. How should one judge Sabbath, who has done so many things that are, by any reasonable standard, unforgivable? The wonder of Sabbath’s Theater , the measure of its achievement, is that after 450 pages with this intolerable man I don’t want to turn my back on him. I can’t, because I’ve come to cherish him. This posture, of finding another intolerable and at the same time cherishing their existence, is deeply uncomfortable and urgently necessary. Because, at least in part: what’s the alternative? What do we do with people who refuse to act in accordance with our standards, our sense of decency, who have no interest in being reformed? Lock them all up? Exterminate them? (People who commit sexual crimes should be locked up forever, some of my friends believe, who also believe that prisons should be abolished.) I am a decided atheist, as was Roth, and I also, as perhaps Roth did, feel nostalgia for certain theological concepts. Chief among these is the idea of the Imago Dei —that no matter what someone might do, they are still possessed of an inalienable dignity, an infinite value that derives from the divine image in which they are made. Roth said that Sabbath was his most autobiographical character, which one can see both as a puckish provocation—Sabbath is 5'5", fat, destitute, a failed artist, a much less obvious surrogate than Portnoy or Zuckerman or Kepesh—and also as not entirely untrue. Roth also said that were Sabbath sitting on the couch next to him, he would kick him out of his house. In life, we bear what we can bear and risk what we can risk, and make our necessary accommodations. But in art we don’t have to make those accommodations: we can bear things in art we can’t bear in real life, and so art can offer us a crucial moral training, placing us in the impossible position, which is also the only morally defensible position, of cherishing the existence of others we cannot bear. By repeatedly tempting us to pass judgment on Sabbath and then inviting us past that judgment, Roth’s novel reminds us how much more a person is than their worst acts. Had I turned my back on Sabbath at his first indefensible act, had I canceled him or blocked him or deplatformed him, had I cast aside the book as terminally problematic, I would have missed much that has felt useful to me, in the not-quite-articulable way art is useful: the sense of life, of manic energy, the texture of existence and the terror of the abyss. Our current obsession with purity, our sense that we cannot associate with others who do not share our political and social values, our intolerance of disagreement are not just corrosive of civil society and democratic discourse. They are also impoverishing of ourselves. I feel the appeal of that intolerance. Sabbath’s Theater helps me to resist it.

The ability of art to do this moral work, the work I think it is uniquely equipped to do, depends on our acknowledging the power of a frame as a kind of magic circle separating the world of art from the actual world. I don’t mean to suggest that art is cut off from politics or history, or that this separation is absolute. I mean that representation has a fundamentally different moral and existential status from that of reality. This is a point that needs defending. The moral and political demands currently placed on art, the charge that art has responsibilities and consequences as grave as actions in the world beyond the frame, the conflation of art and activism, don’t just mistake the nature of art and art making. They make it impossible for art to do the moral work proper to it. I can’t imagine a book like Sabbath’s Theater being published today, certainly not by anyone save a writer of Roth’s stature—and, since Toni Morrison’s passing, it’s not clear to me that there are any writers of Roth’s stature. The idea that art should address the monstrous, that much of the moral office of art might lie in making us identify with the monstrous—identification not as consolation but as indictment—is entirely foreign to our current thinking. Terence’s famous line, humani nihil a me alienum puto , nothing human is alien to me, which Hardy’s Jude echoes when he says, “I have the germs of every human infirmity in me”—well, that seems nearly unsayable now, nearly unthinkable. These days we’re desperate to claim the opposite: “It’s not hard not to be terrible” is a sentiment I see floating down my social media feeds with alarming regularity. But I am a novelist because I think it is hard not to be terrible. I think it’s the work of a life, and most of us fail at it almost all the time. Certainly I do. The greatness of Sabbath’s Theater lies in its assertion that the human is ample and impure beyond all codes of conduct, and in its challenge not to reject or unmake that humanity, but instead to acknowledge it ours.

Rachel Cusk

Renaissance women, fady joudah, you might also like, three queer writers on craft and cruising, philip roth, landlord, how should one read a book, the yale review festival 2024.

Join us April 16–19 for readings, panels, and workshops with Hernan Diaz, Katie Kitamura, and many others.

Essay on Importance of Moral Education For Students

In today’s society, morality and etiquette are both subjective and often defined by the individual. In this article, we will discuss some of the major perspectives on moral education for students.

Table of Contents

The Importance of Moral Education Essay for Students

Moral education is essential for students to have in order to create good, ethical citizens. It teaches students about right and wrong, values, and the responsibilities that come with having those values. It also helps students make informed decisions and handle difficult situations.

Moral education should start early in a student’s life. Many people believe that moral education starts with kindergarten or preschool, when children are still developing their sense of right and wrong. However, moral education can also be taught in high school or college.

There are many benefits to teaching moral education in schools. For one, it helps students develop a strong character. Character is critical in life, and it’s important for students to learn how to build healthy relationships, cope with stress, and handle adversity. Moral education also teaches students how to think critically and solve problems. This skill set is valuable in any field, but is especially important in fields such as law, business, journalism, engineering, and medicine.

Unfortunately, not all schools provide adequate moral education. In fact, according to the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), only about one-third of U.S. schools offer any type of moral education at all (NASP 2013

How to Increase Moral Education for Students

Moral education is an important part of a child’s development. It teaches them how to make good decisions and behave ethically. It also helps them understand the consequences of their actions.

There are many benefits to moral education for students. They learn to think critically and to be self-aware. They also learn how to cooperate and work together. In addition, they learn how to treat others ethically, which can help them become responsible citizens in the future.

Moral education is important for all students, but it is particularly important for students who are growing up in a time when there are more choices than ever before. Today’s children face difficult decisions every day, and they need guidance in making the right ones. Moral education gives them the skills they need to make well-informed choices, and it helps them develop a sense of responsibility and compassion for others.

Moral education is an important part of any student’s education. It can help them become more responsible, compassionate and ethical individuals who are able to navigate the complexities of life with greater ease. In order to develop these qualities, students need to be exposed to a variety of moral theories and arguments. Moral education should not be limited to religious institutions; it should be available in all schools so that every student can benefit from it.

Hello! Welcome to my Blog StudyParagraphs.co. My name is Angelina. I am a college professor. I love reading writing for kids students. This blog is full with valuable knowledge for all class students. Thank you for reading my articles.

Paragraph on hard work is the to success

Moral Education

Ethics and Cognitive Science ( 2,191 | 570)
Moral Character ( 3,821 | 1,268)
Moral Enhancement ( 387 )
Moral Judgment ( 1,185 | 356)
Moral Reasoning and Motivation ( 1,861 | 368)
Moral States and Processes ( 9,359 | 2,075)
Moral Psychology, Misc ( 792 )
Moral Emotion ( 922 | 380)
Philosophy of Education ( 34,574 | 28,909)
Aristotle: Moral Education ( 58 )
Plato: Moral Education ( 103 )

+1 (519)-670-9769
[email protected]
Privacy Policy

My Edu Corner

Make Education Better

Importance of Moral Education: Essay, Article, Short Note

Introduction (essay on moral education).

Morality is one of the fundamental aspects of human life and society. It is this moral code that allows people to trust each other, cooperate and form a culture and community with a common set of values and beliefs. Going by the definition, morality is defined as “Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior”. In this modern day and age with rising uncertainty and crime rate, a serious contemplation is required over the kind of education and values being instilled into children and teens.

Importance of Moral Education: Essay, Article, Short Note

History of moral education

Ever since the beginning of civilization moral teachings and ethical values have been a major part of the education system. Teaching virtues of moral values like honesty, responsibility, and respect for others, was the founding base for the education system. The idea is to develop a system to instill these virtues into children so that they can go on to become productive members of society and contribute towards the common good. In those early days, teaching morality was one of the main objectives of schools. In India, we had “gurukul system” where the students were supposed to live in gurukuls along with their gurus (teachers) and learn to live an ideal life while also acquiring knowledge and relevant skills. Our history is the proof that such a system was indeed very effective and it contributed a lot towards societal advancements in those days.

Present system

In stark contrast, our modern education system is severely lacking moral education. This globalized system of education is now an industry. Education has become a profit making business where information is sold as knowledge. We are living in a world where people are valued solely based on a number of degrees and domain knowledge. Although it isn’t bad to prioritize knowledge and innovation, none of it can take place of moral values. Humans are social beings and as a society, we need a basic set of principles and values to be respected and followed by all. Living a healthy and fulfilling life is an art which cannot be learned without incorporating life lessons and moral values.

These are troubled times for our society. We are dealing with not just an increased crime rate and violence but also an increased rate of depression and suicidal tendencies among kids and teenagers. Lack of moral teachings is a major cause of all these problems. Schools and universities can be likened to factories churning out workforce for the ever-changing and dynamic market. Schools are no longer teaching students how to live in society, how to face problems and importance of empathy and care for others. Due to this, kids these days do not know how to deal with life problems and hardships and increasingly they are taking extreme measures. They do not know the solution to their problems and they lack the self-esteem to ask for help. It is like they are stuck in this perpetual misery.

5 thoughts on “Importance of Moral Education: Essay, Article, Short Note”

this essay is very helpful .

Comment Text*excellent

#i love it. this had helped to complete my question paper solution #thank you piyush

Good essay but need to be improved

Comments are closed

Sherlock has Detected Adblocker In Your Browser

Best Universities in Luxembourg

Streamlining Student Management: The Power of Automated Systems

All You Need to Know about Scholarship to Study Abroad

International School Fees: Unveiling the True Value

Top 10 SEO company in Bangalore Specialized in SEO Educational Institute .

Career & Jobs
Career Guidance
Study Abroad
Personality Development

Importance of Moral Education in Students Life

Why Moral Education is Important in Students Life

What is moral education?
Objectives and need for moral education
Moral and ethical values -A comparative study
The four pillars of moral education
Why do we need moral education to be part of the modern education curriculum?
How can schools implement moral-education values to students?

Over the years, the term moral education has been defined in various ways by numerous scholars. There is no particular definition for the term.

However, to understand it in simple and plain language we can say that moral education is the teaching of values that distinguish between right and wrong. It is this set of values that finally guides your behaviour and intentions towards others around you.

For centuries, academicians and intellects have debated the world over whether moral values should be taught in schools or not. Many believe that moral and ethical values cannot be taught but can only be learned through the actions of peers and elders.

In this case, the foremost question that may arise is how do we distinguish the right action from a wrong one if we are not taught the same. One act may be considered right for a particular person and wrong to another.

Therefore, it becomes necessary to universally consolidate a certain set of values and morals to enable community living. Moral values in education are as important as a Doctor of Philosophy.

The debate about adopting moral education in schools may go on for a long time, but the importance of moral education cannot be undermined.

The importance of moral education in schools can be determined through the objectives of moral education.

The objectives of moral education can be summarized as below.

Moral education helps to differentiate between what is universally accepted as right and what is accepted as wrong.
It defines an individual’s personality. A person may be classified as a moral or immoral person.
Moral education helps to eliminate or minimise the vices like jealousy, greed, etc.
Inculcating or adopting moral values can positively impact one’s self, and it can build a positive attitude and develop self-confidence .

Need for Moral Education

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” Theodore Roosevelt

With the rapid development of the internet and technology over the past few years , the world has become a global village.

With distances being shortened, high-speed communication, and closer interactions between different groups, the world has become a single community linked together by telecommunications.

This fast-paced world has brought about the need for the introduction of ethics, values, and morals to promote community living. Moral education has never been felt more required than today.

Surveys reveal that the early 1980s saw a drastic decline in students’ academic performance and behavioural patterns. It was then that educators reintroduced the term “character” in their tutoring sessions.

Character can be defined as the moral qualities that are distinct to an individual. Educators emphasized on introducing students to good character and eliminating bad habits.

Educators then believed that an early introduction to good habits or ethical values was conducive to building harmony in society. Therefore, it can be clearly seen why moral education is essential.

Moral and Ethical Values

As Albert Einstein once said “The most important human endeavour is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life”

The term moral and ethics is more often interchangeably used though in practice the two words have entirely different connotations.

Morals are more like values that define an individual in society. Morals are values that protect and respect life.

Not only the life of one’s self but the life of everyone around. Every moral value function to enhance the quality of life. Here, it is pertinent to note that moral values may differ according to the situation one is in.

For example, one of the core moral values in society today is honour and respect for oneself and another. However, this same honour may be construed as disrespect and conceit for another to protect one’s own dignity.

The real moral value of honour should therefore be taught as universal respect and honour for another life irrespective of other catalysts.

Ethics on the other hand can be defined as an individual who possesses moral values and expresses willingness to do only the right thing despite the difficulty in performing the morally right act. A person is said to be ethical if he possesses and practices moral values.

Listing out a set of defined moral or ethical values is not a realistic task.

However, religious texts, philosophers, and preachers have laid down the principle of moral and ethical values that ought to be followed by every individual for a harmonious society.

However, ethics and morality have little to do with religion. The values have more to do with living in a civilized society , graciously and amicably.

The Four Pillars of Moral Education

The four pillars of moral education describe the foundation upon which moral education rests.

1. Character and Morality

Here moral education are individual-centric. It concentrates on individual character building.

2. Individual and Community

Moral education concerning the individual and the community is how each individual behaves himself and concerning the community at large.

The focus is on building an individual that will be part of a greater community.

3. Civic Education

The main aim of cultural education in moral education is to learn how the nation came to be what it is today.

The ideals of our forefathers and the teachings of great scholars are contributing factors that have shaped humanity and the nation.

4. Cultural Education

Close on the principles of civic education, cultural education also forms an integral part of moral education. Culture denotes the customs and traditions of a particular nation or ethnic group.

You May Also Like Importance of Education in Life

Why Is Moral Education Important in Schools ?

“Education without morals is like a ship without a compass, merely wandering nowhere.” – Martin Luther King

Imparting moral values to a child begins with elders at home. This education however does not end in the formative years and before the child is ready for school.

Imparting value education requires years of understanding and absorption. Every age and stage of the child entails different levels of perception.

Therefore, it becomes imperative that teachers would have to continue this education in schools to ensure continuity of moral education from the elders at home.

Schools are the heart and soul of a child’s life. The formative years of a child are the most important. It is at this time that the child’s character can be moulded and defined.

School teachers and peers are the greatest influence on these impressionable minds. Laying a standard set of values and morals to be taught in school can go a long way in building student character.

Moral education in schools is an effective method of inculcating values in children.

How Schools Can Adopt Better Methods to Impart Moral Education for Students?

Imparting moral values for students is a difficult mission. Keeping students engaged in value-based classes can be a daunting task.

Young minds often wander and get distracted soon. Keeping students engaged and at the same time imparting moral values is the key.

One of the tried and tested methods in many schools is by introducing community activities in the form of designated dates such as lend a helping hand day, share a smile day or even a visit to an orphanage or an old age home.

Practicing activities that involve community assistance can give students first-hand experience. Such activities can inculcate a sense of belonging right from a tender age.

What Is the Right Age to Teach Moral Values in Students?

As there are no defined set of rules or a particular curriculum or syllabus related to moral education, the question of when to initiate this value education comes into picture.

Is there a right age? Is there a time when it becomes too late to initiate value education? To answer these questions, one must necessarily reflect on life as a whole.

Value education begins at a very tender age. The process of growing and evolving involves the inculcation of values.

Learning to share, learning to respect, learning to help others in need are all virtues imbibed in us in our formative years. Some of these values are not even taught. They are learned from experience.

At later stages of life, one may make mistakes, minor or grave errors. Such situations demand a reiteration of values. That is why moral education is essential in schools.

There is no particular age that is considered the right age to impart moral education to students. The earlier one is introduced to moral and value education, the easier it is to mould a character. Moral education is a lifelong learning skill.

In conclusion, it must be noted that imparting value and moral education in schools is as important as a subject in mathematics or science.

A doctorate in these subjects is of no use without a sound moral character. Knowledge will most definitely give the students the power, but good character will earn respect.

The truth of one’s character is judged by a choice of actions. These actions are guided by moral principles learned over the years. The importance of moral education can never be undermined.

Weekly Newsletter

subscribe to our latest blog and weekly newsletter

Popular News

7 Tips to Avoid Distractions and Stay Focused on Studying

- Advertisement -

Certifications

Top Categories

Subscribe us, for quick admission assistance.

Username or Email Address

Remember Me

Read our research on: Gun Policy | International Conflict | Election 2024

Regions & Countries

3. problems students are facing at public k-12 schools.

We asked teachers about how students are doing at their school. Overall, many teachers hold negative views about students’ academic performance and behavior.

48% say the academic performance of most students at their school is fair or poor; a third say it’s good and only 17% say it’s excellent or very good.
49% say students’ behavior at their school is fair or poor; 35% say it’s good and 13% rate it as excellent or very good.

Teachers in elementary, middle and high schools give similar answers when asked about students’ academic performance. But when it comes to students’ behavior, elementary and middle school teachers are more likely than high school teachers to say it’s fair or poor (51% and 54%, respectively, vs. 43%).

A horizontal stacked bar chart showing that many teachers hold negative views about students’ academic performance and behavior.

Teachers from high-poverty schools are more likely than those in medium- and low-poverty schools to say the academic performance and behavior of most students at their school are fair or poor.

The differences between high- and low-poverty schools are particularly striking. Most teachers from high-poverty schools say the academic performance (73%) and behavior (64%) of most students at their school are fair or poor. Much smaller shares of teachers from low-poverty schools say the same (27% for academic performance and 37% for behavior).

In turn, teachers from low-poverty schools are far more likely than those from high-poverty schools to say the academic performance and behavior of most students at their school are excellent or very good.

Lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

A horizontal stacked bar chart showing that most teachers say the pandemic has had a lasting negative impact on students’ behavior, academic performance and emotional well-being.

Among those who have been teaching for at least a year, about eight-in-ten teachers say the lasting impact of the pandemic on students’ behavior, academic performance and emotional well-being has been very or somewhat negative. This includes about a third or more saying that the lasting impact has been very negative in each area.

Shares ranging from 11% to 15% of teachers say the pandemic has had no lasting impact on these aspects of students’ lives, or that the impact has been neither positive nor negative. Only about 5% say that the pandemic has had a positive lasting impact on these things.

A smaller majority of teachers (55%) say the pandemic has had a negative impact on the way parents interact with teachers, with 18% saying its lasting impact has been very negative.

These results are mostly consistent across teachers of different grade levels and school poverty levels.

Major problems at school

When we asked teachers about a range of problems that may affect students who attend their school, the following issues top the list:

Poverty (53% say this is a major problem at their school)
Chronic absenteeism – that is, students missing a substantial number of school days (49%)
Anxiety and depression (48%)

One-in-five say bullying is a major problem among students at their school. Smaller shares of teachers point to drug use (14%), school fights (12%), alcohol use (4%) and gangs (3%).

Differences by school level

A bar chart showing that high school teachers more likely to say chronic absenteeism, anxiety and depression are major problems.

Similar shares of teachers across grade levels say poverty is a major problem at their school, but other problems are more common in middle or high schools:

61% of high school teachers say chronic absenteeism is a major problem at their school, compared with 43% of elementary school teachers and 46% of middle school teachers.
69% of high school teachers and 57% of middle school teachers say anxiety and depression are a major problem, compared with 29% of elementary school teachers.
34% of middle school teachers say bullying is a major problem, compared with 13% of elementary school teachers and 21% of high school teachers.

Not surprisingly, drug use, school fights, alcohol use and gangs are more likely to be viewed as major problems by secondary school teachers than by those teaching in elementary schools.

Differences by poverty level

A dot plot showing that majorities of teachers in medium- and high-poverty schools say chronic absenteeism is a major problem.

Teachers’ views on problems students face at their school also vary by school poverty level.

Majorities of teachers in high- and medium-poverty schools say chronic absenteeism is a major problem where they teach (66% and 58%, respectively). A much smaller share of teachers in low-poverty schools say this (34%).

Bullying, school fights and gangs are viewed as major problems by larger shares of teachers in high-poverty schools than in medium- and low-poverty schools.

When it comes to anxiety and depression, a slightly larger share of teachers in low-poverty schools (51%) than in high-poverty schools (44%) say these are a major problem among students where they teach.

Discipline practices

About two-thirds of teachers (66%) say that the current discipline practices at their school are very or somewhat mild – including 27% who say they’re very mild. Only 2% say the discipline practices at their school are very or somewhat harsh, while 31% say they are neither harsh nor mild.

We also asked teachers about the amount of influence different groups have when it comes to determining discipline practices at their school.

67% say teachers themselves don’t have enough influence. Very few (2%) say teachers have too much influence, and 29% say their influence is about right.

A diverging bar chart showing that two-thirds of teachers say they don’t have enough influence over discipline practices at their school.

31% of teachers say school administrators don’t have enough influence, 22% say they have too much, and 45% say their influence is about right.
On balance, teachers are more likely to say parents, their state government and the local school board have too much influence rather than not enough influence in determining discipline practices at their school. Still, substantial shares say these groups have about the right amount of influence.

Teachers from low- and medium-poverty schools (46% each) are more likely than those in high-poverty schools (36%) to say parents have too much influence over discipline practices.

In turn, teachers from high-poverty schools (34%) are more likely than those from low- and medium-poverty schools (17% and 18%, respectively) to say that parents don’t have enough influence.

Social Trends Monthly Newsletter

Sign up to to receive a monthly digest of the Center's latest research on the attitudes and behaviors of Americans in key realms of daily life

Report Materials

Table of contents, ‘back to school’ means anytime from late july to after labor day, depending on where in the u.s. you live, among many u.s. children, reading for fun has become less common, federal data shows, most european students learn english in school, for u.s. teens today, summer means more schooling and less leisure time than in the past, about one-in-six u.s. teachers work second jobs – and not just in the summer, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

IMAGES

Moral Values Essay
Essay on Need of moral education in our institutions
Solving a Moral Dilemma Personal Essay on Samploon.com
Essay on the importance of moral education far 8th class
Moral education essay in English || Moral education par English essay
Write a short essay on Moral Values

VIDEO

MORAL EDUCATION |CHAPTER 04| Class 12th PHYSICAL EDUCATION
The Ethical Erosion: Unveiling the Demise of Morality in Children by Sahil Adeem
write an essay on moral education in english || essay on moral education || role of moral education
Catechism 2023-24 Second Semester Exam
10 Lines Essay on Moral Values in English//Moral Values//English Essay
Catechism 2023-24 Second Semester Exam

COMMENTS

Importance of Moral Education Essay
Essay On Importance Of Moral Education In 250 Words. For a young student moral lessons are just as important as technical and scientific ones as these help in shaping their entire personality. The word moral comes from the Latin root 'moris' which means the code of conduct of a people, and the social adhesive that holds a community together
What Is "Moral Education"?
For Durkheim, modern moral education is the activity of transmitting good and right behaviors of a society to its future citizens. He regarded the teacher as a "secularized" priest or prophet charged with the mission—by means of words, demeanor, and actions—of transmitting society's core values and behaviors.
The Importance of Moral Education in Developing a Just Society: [Essay
The Development of Moral Education. Moral education is a lifelong process that begins in early childhood and continues throughout an individual's life. It is shaped by various factors, including family upbringing, cultural and religious influences, and formal education.
Moral Education in the 21st Century
Kristján Kristjánsson - University of Birmingham, UK, and Editor, Journal of Moral Education 'Together, these essays position moral education at the heart of human existence, invigorating our sense of what is at stake in the aspiration to behave better in day-to-day and collective life. The result is a powerful demonstration that reflecting ...
Moral Values in Education
Moral Values in Education Essay. The responsibility of educating a child falls on both the parents and the teachers. In most instances, teachers are always trying to get the parents to be part of their children's education. On the other hand, parents tend to handle any communication from their children's teachers delicately.
Defining Moral Education
One task for moral education in the modern college or university, then, is to articulate and scrutinize the moral ends of our shared enterprise. Truth seeking, a willingness to think deeply about alternative positions and arguments, to be swayed by evidence and argument, to acknowledge our intellectual debts to others, and to judge others on ...
Moral education, emotions, and social practices
Introduction. Arguably, in moral education there are currently two dominant approaches in research, policy, and practice (Nucci and Narvaez 2008; Walker and Thoma 2016).One of them, which can be referred to as reason-based moral education, has as its main purpose the development of moral reasoning competencies or moral judgement.The other, mostly based on an idea of virtues or values, is aimed ...
(PDF) What Is "Moral Education"?
modern moral education is the activity of transmitting good and right. behaviors of a society to its future citizens. He regarded the teacher as a. "secularized" priest or prophet charged with ...
Duke University Press
"Debating Moral Education makes an indispensable contribution to moral education's expanding bibliography." — Jerry Pattengale, Books & Culture "[An] engaging collection of essays by prominent scholars from religious, philosophical, and political backgrounds who debate the role of morality and ethics in the university. . . .
Moral education 21st century
'Together, these essays position moral education at the heart of human existence, invigorating our sense of what is at stake in the aspiration to behave better in day-to-day and collective life. The result is a powerful demonstration that reflecting philosophically on educational practice is a necessary bridge to a morally better future ...
An introduction to the special issue on wisdom and moral education
This essay introduces the present special issue on wisdom and moral education, which draws on a conference held in Oxford in 2017. Some of the seven contributions (by Sanderse; Ferkany; and Hatchimonji et al.) make use of the Aristotelian concept of phronesis, or practical wisdom, while others focus more on the wisdom concept as it has ...
Philosophy of Education
Philosophy of education is the branch of applied or practical philosophy concerned with the nature and aims of education and the philosophical problems arising from educational theory and practice. Because that practice is ubiquitous in and across human societies, its social and individual manifestations so varied, and its influence so profound ...
Moral Education
1.3 Moral Conduct. Moral education concerns proper ways to act toward other people and, in some cultures, proper ways to act toward supernatural forces (gods, ancestral spirits), nonhuman beings (animals of specified types), and physical surroundings (sacred forests, mountains, and waterways). All cultures teach such virtues as honesty, loyalty ...
Moral Education Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines
ARISTOTLE AND PLATO'S IDEAS ON MORAL EDUCATION The paper will present an essay in which the comparison of Plato and Aristotle's ideas about moral education will be taken into consideration. Plato's ideas are found chiefly from the last half of Book II through Book VII of the Republic and in the digression of the Theaetetus; Aristotle's ideas are in Book II of Nicomachean Ethics; and I "It is ...
Moral Education Essay
The Importance Of Moral Education. focuses on children, and their moral education. A moral education encompasses what children need to be taught including right and wrong. A moral education consisted of ethics and morals. Morals included personal character, and ethics put morales to the test . What happens if a parent does not do their job of ...
The Yale Review
This essay is an attempt to clarify my sense of what the relationship between art and morality might be, since the loudest accounts of that relationship in our moment seem to me inadequate. ... A moral education depends not on condemning or averting our gaze from filth, the novel suggests, but on diving wholeheartedly into it. FILTH 1: AN ...
Importance of Moral Education Essay For Students
Moral education is essential for students to have in order to create good, ethical citizens. It teaches students about right and wrong, values, and the responsibilities that come with having those values. It also helps students make informed decisions and handle difficult situations. Moral education should start early in a student's life.
Journal of Moral Education
The Journal of Moral Education (a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee) provides a unique interdisciplinary forum for the discussion and analysis of moral education and development throughout the lifespan. The journal encourages cross-disciplinary research and submissions across the human sciences and humanities that use a range of methodological approaches and address aspects of moral ...
Moral Education
The "Moral Education" umbrella covers a number of loosely-connected topics that span ethics, aesthetics, cognitive science, and history of philosophy. These topics are connected through their interest in people's acquisition of moral judgment capacities and understanding of moral norms. Ethicists tend to focus on the cultivation of virtues and ...
Importance of Moral Education: Essay, Article, Short Note
Introduction (Essay on Moral Education) Morality is one of the fundamental aspects of human life and society. It is this moral code that allows people to trust each other, cooperate and form a culture and community with a common set of values and beliefs. Going by the definition, morality is defined as "Principles concerning the distinction ...
Durkheim: Essays on Morals and Education on JSTOR
Durkheim's sociological approach to morals and moral systems has always aroused considerable interest, be it by way of criticism or praise. Two notable contributions to the subject have recently appeared in English, that of Ernest Wallwork, Durkheim: Morality and Milieu (1972), and relevant chapters in Steven Lukes's Émile Durkheim (1972).
Why Moral Education Is Important?: An Essential Guide
Moral education concerning the individual and the community is how each individual behaves himself and concerning the community at large. The focus is on building an individual that will be part of a greater community. 3. Civic Education. The main aim of cultural education in moral education is to learn how the nation came to be what it is today.
Moral Education Essay
Moral Education Essay. Moral education can be described as the guidance and teaching of good behaviour and values. It is taught to young children in schools, providing them with a sense of politeness and lawfulness. The critical objective of moral education is to instruct these human values in the students. When defining moral education we are ...
3. Problems students are facing at public K-12 schools
About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.
Teens are spending nearly 5 hours daily on social media. Here are the
41%. Percentage of teens with the highest social media use who rate their overall mental health as poor or very poor, compared with 23% of those with the lowest use. For example, 10% of the highest use group expressed suicidal intent or self-harm in the past 12 months compared with 5% of the lowest use group, and 17% of the highest users expressed poor body image compared with 6% of the lowest ...

Importance of Moral Education Essay

Definition Of Moral Education

Essay On Importance Of Moral Education In 150 Words

Essay On Importance Of Moral Education In 250 Words

Essay On Importance Of Moral Education For Class 7&8

Relevance Of Moral Education During The Present times

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

What Is “Moral Education”?

The Moral Situation

Approaches to Moral Education

Into the Twenty-First Century

Bibliography

Author information

Rights and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Download citation

Share this chapter

The Importance of Moral Education in Developing a Just Society

Table of contents

Cite this Essay

Related Essays

Still can’t find what you need?

Related Essays on Art History

Related Topics

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

Moral Values in Education Essay

Article Contents

Moral education, emotions, and social practices

Email alerts

Affiliations

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Open Access

Debating Moral Education

On Decoloniality

On Being Included

Vibrant Matter

Necropolitics

The Problem with Work

Conspiracy/Theory

The Coloniality of the Secular

Israel/Palestine and the Queer International

Bad Education

Making the World Global

Pikachu's Global Adventure

Poor Queer Studies

Bibliography

Philosophy of Education

1. Problems in Delineating the Field

3. Areas of Contemporary Activity

Acknowledgments

Support SEP

A Moral Education

National Magazine Award Winner

Rachel Cusk

Essay on Importance of Moral Education For Students

The Importance of Moral Education Essay for Students

How to Increase Moral Education for Students

Related Posts:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Moral Education

Importance of Moral Education: Essay, Article, Short Note

History of moral education

Present system

5 thoughts on “Importance of Moral Education: Essay, Article, Short Note”

Sherlock has Detected Adblocker In Your Browser

Best Universities in Luxembourg

Streamlining Student Management: The Power of Automated Systems

All You Need to Know about Scholarship to Study Abroad

International School Fees: Unveiling the True Value

Top 10 SEO company in Bangalore Specialized in SEO Educational Institute .

Why Moral Education is Important in Students Life

Need for Moral Education

Moral and Ethical Values

The Four Pillars of Moral Education

1. Character and Morality

2. Individual and Community

3. Civic Education

4. Cultural Education

Why Is Moral Education Important in Schools ?