Those who claim to have made discussion of moral education easier by establishing a value-free concept of morality appeal to ordinary language as justification. This article claims that the discourse of ordinary people conceals at least four significantly divergent conceptions, and shows how the implications for curriculum which flow from each of these differ seriously.
References
1.
Representative publications are WilsonJohnWilliamsNormanSugarmanBarry. Introduction to Moral Education. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1967; Beck, C. M., Crittenden, B. S., and Sullivan, E. V. (Eds.), Moral Education: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971; and Kohlberg, Lawrence. Moral education in the schools: a developmental view. The School Review, 1966, 74, 1–30 and Stages of moral development as a basis for moral education. In BeckC. M., (Eds.), op. cit., 23–92.
2.
See WilsonJohn, op. cit., footnote to page 11, also pp. 39–44.
3.
Thus the intention of several articles collected in WallaceG.WalkerA. D. M. (Eds.), The Definition of Morality. London: Methuen, 1970; and William K. Frankena's protracted quest, following on Recent conceptions of morality, in Castañeda, Hector-Neri and Nakhnikian, George (Eds.). Morality and the Language of Conduct. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963, 1–24. Kleinig, John. Moral education and normative neutrality. Journal of Christian Education, 1970, 13, 7–17; and Robischon, Thomas. Is a morally neutral moral education possible ? Philosophy of Education, 1970: Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society. Edwardsville, Illinois: Southern Illinois University, 1970, 165–176.
4.
On Wilson, see HillBrian V., Education for rational morality or moral rationality. Educational Theory, 1972, 22, 286–292;.
5.
As Frankena's celebrated reply to Moore points out, the fallacy, if there is one, is not a logical one, but a misreading of the facts; i.e., whether it is a fact that ‘good’ can be defined with reference to an optimum state of affairs. Moore claims that it cannot, naturalists that it can. (FrankenaWilliam K., The naturalistic fallacy. Mind, 1939, 48, 464–477.)
6.
DurkheimEmile. Moral Education: A Study in the Theory and Application of the Sociology of Education (1925). Trans. WilsonEverett K.SchnurerHerman. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1961, pp. 107, 24 and 25 respectively.
7.
DeweyJohn. Theory of the Moral Life. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960 (Part II of Dewey and Tufts' Ethics), 3 ff.
8.
See, e.g., SkinnerB. F.Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971, esp. pp. 66, 81, 103 ff.
9.
DeweyJohn, op. cit., passim.
10.
FrankenaWilliam K.The concept of morality. In PahelKennethSchillerMarvin (Eds.), Readings in Contemporary Ethical Theory. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970, 391.
11.
FrankenaWilliam K.Recent conceptions of morality, op cit., 11.
12.
CooperNeilTwo concepts of morality. In WallaceG.WalkerA. D. M., op. cit., 72–90.
13.
OlafsonFrederick A.Principles and Persons: An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967, 51.
14.
See, e.g., Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morals, vols. 12 and 13 in The Complete Works. LevyOscar (Ed.). New York: Russell and Russell, 1964.
15.
E.g. SartreJean PaulBeing and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. Trans. BarnesHazel E.New York: Citadel Press, abridged ed., 1965, part I, chapter 2.
16.
E.g. in FletcherJoseph. Situation Ethics: The New Morality. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966.
17.
E.g. FletcherJoseph, pp. 24 f. and Reflection and reply, in CoxHarvey (Ed.). The Situation Ethics Debate. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968, 258.
18.
Situation Ethics: The New Morality, op. cit., 79.
19.
Situation Ethics: The New Morality, op. cit., 48.
20.
Thus Situation Ethics: The New Morality, op. cit., 13 and 43. See also Reflection and reply, 252–260.
21.
E.g. RogersCarl. Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become, Columbus, Ohio: C. E. Merrill, 1969, passim.
22.
E.g. HareR. M.Freedom and Reason. London: Oxford University Press, 1963. chapter 7 and WilsonJohn, op. cit., 130 ff and 180 ff.
23.
KohlbergLawrence. Stages of moral development as a basis for moral education, op. cit., 71.
24.
In Education and human development, in SelleckR. J. W. (Ed.), Melbourne Studies in Education. Melbourne University Press, 1970, 83–103.
25.
See KayA. William. Moral Development: A Psychological Study of Moral Growth from Childhood to Adolescence. 2nd edition. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1970, 217–243 and Burton, William. Behavioral morality ? A critique of William Kay's Moral Development. Religious Education, 1972, 67, 302.
26.
OliverD. W.BaneM. J.Moral education: is reasoning enough?. In BeckC. M., 252.
27.
OliverD. W.BaneM. J.Moral education: is reasoning enough?. In BeckC. M., 265–270.
28.
WilsonJohn, op. cit., see pp. 128 and 143.
29.
DurkheimEmile, op. cit., e.g. pp. 134–143, 246–248.
30.
Which, he says, is “the ultimate objective of ‘moral education’”. (WilsonJohn, op. cit., 102.)
31.
E.g. JacquesMaritain. Thomist views on education. In HenryNelson B. (Ed.), Modern Philosophies and Education. N.S.S.E. Yearbook, LIV, Part I. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955, 65.
32.
E.g. BuberMartin. Between Man and Man. Trans. SmithRonald Gregor. London: Kegan Paul, 1947, 88.
33.
MontefioreAlan. Moral philosophy and the teaching of morality. Harvard Educational Review, 1965, 35, 446.
34.
WilsonJohn shows that he has profoundly misread the Personalistic conception when he embraces such notions as “attempts to cash out the notion of [moral ?] rationality into practical terms.”. (Harvard Educational Review, 115.)
