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I. INTRODUCTION
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This strong monolithic approach to the justification of moral education the development of a reasoned moral education curriculum through
logical terms of If theory A, not theory B (or C) forces a specific
argumentative strategy where adherents of one theoretical position try to
demonstrate the priority or superiority of the ethical concepts that the
position seems to handle best. Kant, for example, claims that the moral
worth of an action must lie in a principle of action conforming to universal law (4:401-403). Accordingly, Kohlberg formulates mature moral
reasoning from the standpoint of a universal principle of justice as the
apex of moral development (1981). The details of Kohlbergs theory are
well-known and do not need to be restated here. It is clear, nevertheless,
that his theory is best suited to those instances in which we have an obligation to consider the interests of others; to treat other persons with
respect. But what do we do with other ethical concepts such as moral
sensitivity, or care for others, or virtue?
One approach, already mentioned, might be to argue that one theorys central ethical concepts have greater educational priority than other
concepts. It is important here to distinguish between claims that certain
ethical concepts have educational priority from the claim that certain concepts have deliberative priority. After all, there is no necessary relationship
between the educational priority of ethical concepts and their priority in
our moral reasoning. Imagine for the sake of the argument that we agree
that judgments of justice have deliberative priority over judgments about
what is good. In this view, I should be moved by what is just when this
conflicts with what is good for me and my interests. It may be the case,
nonetheless, that for a variety of sound educational reasons it is more
important that we educate persons first in judgments of what is good
(perhaps we must learn the latter before we can understand the former,
or maybe we encounter hard cases about assessments of goodness far
more frequently than we do hard cases about what is right).
We can see this at play with Kohlberg. He argues that efforts at
inculcating traits in children reflect a bag of virtues approach that would
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many different aspects of ethical life (in fact, this is exactly what this
paper attempts to do). Rather, I am suggesting that by trying to assimilate
care into terms of moral respect, or rule-following into terms of character,
we run the risk of doing a disservice to all these factors. This can, in turn,
have negative implications for the way in which we develop and implement moral education curricula. For example, Kohlbergs rationalistic
principle of benevolence could be used to justify a moral education that
reduces the notion of care to a strictly cognitive exercise, neglecting much
of the emotive dimension of caring for others.
Based on the analysis offered so far, the viability of a monolithic
approach for the justification of moral education is fairly limiting. First,
trying to assimilate all aspects of ethical life under one theory runs the
risk of doing a disservice to both the theories and the concepts in question. Second, trying to demonstrate the educational superiority or priority
of one set of ethical concepts by excluding or marginalizing others can
result in an unjustified privileging of that one dimension of ethical life. If
there is little settled agreement on the superiority and cogency of rival
accounts at the level of theory, it would seem that we are at least equally
as unclear on what we can justify in moral education through a singular
framework. Asserting the educational priority of one set of ethical concepts over another on such philosophical grounds presupposes a degree
of clarity and substantive agreement in moral philosophy that is rarely, if
ever, achieved.
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education can and should consist in. In what follows, I want to examine
three different ways that this shift to pluralism can be interpreted. Does
such a shift, in any of its forms, offer much in the way of an alternative?
The first interpretation is what I term pluralism of outcomes. The
pluralism of outcomes interpretation claims that since no one theory can
sufficiently account for all our ethical concepts, there is no clearly defined
sense of moral rightness or wrongness, good or bad, which would require
us to construct a particular programme of moral education. This does not
entail an explicitly relativistic position. But I think it could lead to a fairly
robust instrumentalist approach to moral education. Here, we simply
inculcate in children those ethical conceptions that we think will serve the
most useful outcome at any given time. Maybe we think that children are
sufficiently morally sensitive, but the community needs them to be a little
more impartial in their judgments. If so, we adopt a more Kantian
approach. If children are thought to be generally slack and untidy, time
to break out some virtue ethics. What I have in mind here is an approach
to moral education that seems to be adopted by formal schooling generally i.e. a reactionary curriculum that responds to whatever policy trend
is dominant at a particular moment. I will leave this approach where it is,
as I suspect it would have little philosophical appeal even if it might have
merits from a policy perspective.
The second conclusion would reflect not so much a pluralism of
outcomes but pluralism at the level of moral principle. In this view, there
exist a variety of moral phenomena at any one time. There are demands
of moral respect, care, courage and empathy. All may offer good reasons
for acting at any one time, but life is complex, and sometimes these
demands call on us all at once. This perspective is best articulated by
Kenneth Strike:
In some contexts, we want to talk about respect, in others utility.
Sometimes we want to talk about care, sometimes about virtue. Sometimes we are unsure, and we become puzzled when these diverse conceptions are in tension. Philosophers are tempted to deal with such
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For Strike, this means that educators are not really faced with a conflict
between rival moral theories; rather, we are simply faced with a choice in
concrete circumstances between caring or justice, courage or duty, and so
on: To be faced, for example, with a choice between justice and mercy
is not like being faced with a choice between Kantianism and utilitarianism or Christianity and Islam. We are not asked to choose one in favor
of the other (2005, 43). The fact that justice, care, courage or duty sit
more comfortably within rival moral theories should not really be relevant
to our moral deliberations; rather, each moral theory is simply better at
explaining certain moral phenomena. For Strike, moral philosophy mistakenly inflates various theories into comprehensive doctrines that must
each defend themselves against the central claims of the other. Such projects should not interfere with a comprehensive moral education. What is
of educational relevance here is a learned ability to apply various principles
appropriately, depending on the context.
Is this a move forward? The application of moral understanding to
specific cases is an integral part of moral thinking, and there is something
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appealing about the idea that care, justice, virtue and duty can all be recognized as legitimate parts of our admittedly complex ethical lives. After
all, one of the problems with a strongly monolithic moral education is
that it might suggest that would-be students should ignore, or maybe even
look down on, other aspects of moral experience.
I am not convinced, however, that the separation between a plurality
of principles, on the one side, and their application to specific situations,
on the other, is a theoretically sufficient explanation of moral pluralism.
Consider that Strike needs to tell us how one is supposed to go about
deciding between such a plurality of principles. Yet, despite suggesting
that we can and should do away with moral theory in addressing this
question, he endorses a kind of ethic of balance that requires some kind
of theoretical justification. To see how this comes about, it is worth
reviewing his argument in some detail.
Strike claims that plurality at the level of moral principle creates situations where we must assess how the moral goods served by such principles can be balanced in situation (1999, 43). Consider the idea that in
trying to apply something like a principle of respect for persons, we can
have a conflict between two duties. What makes the duties conflict is that
while both may be valid (I have a duty to tell the truth but I also have
the duty to save an innocent life) it may be unclear which duty is appropriate to a particular situation. There is no balance to be struck. You can
either tell the truth and an innocent person will die, or you can lie and
save a life. This seems like a genuine problem in the application of the
principle of respect to a specific situation. But the application problem
makes sense here because even though two duties conflict it remains a
conflict of moral duty. Duty offers a reason to lie, but it also offers a
reason to tell the truth. The answer depends on what we think our duty
really is in this situation.
Strike suggests that as distinct goods, care and duty do not share a
common ethical metric. Each represents different values (or goods), and
each can offer reasons to act. But there is nothing within each of these
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values that can help us to assess which reasons are more appropriate to
act on in a given situation. The good of care will be a reason to act one
way, and the good of justice is going to recommend that fairness should
be a reason to act in different way. Only once we have chosen to achieve
a certain good (in this case, care or justice) does the question of application make sense. For example, having chosen justice, is it fair to encourage a student by boosting a mark, or does fairness suggest that encouragement is not a relevant reason for acting in this way?
What happens when two different moral goods or principles are at
play? A conflict between distinctly different moral goods seems like a
separate problem from that of application. I may want to give students
what they deserve, but I know that one student in particular needs encouragement. Should I boost the students grade? What about the other students who performed equally well but will now get a lesser grade by
comparison? I dont think we can really characterize this dilemma as a
matter of application at all. In this case, the question concerns which
principle is appropriate to the situation, a question that must be addressed
prior to a principles application.
In addressing such cases, Strike claims that judgments of appropriateness require that we strive for a balance between goods:
If we grant that there is a plurality of principles that people have developed to speak to certain kinds of situations and that work well in
certain contexts and less well in others, we might better conclude that
we should deal with the tensions among them by striking balances
rather than by constructing theories. Respect or utility? Both. Sometimes more of one, sometimes more of the other (43).
But what do we mean by balance here? Strike says that we can draw
from a plurality of principles, and we can reason our way to the right
balance (2005, 45). But what criterion does he have in mind? Perhaps
balance means that we should try to make roughly equal the number of
times we act on reasons proffered by care and justice, virtue and respect.
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Haydon and Habermas argue that each approach is asking a distinct question calling for a different kind of ethical assessment. Consequently, Haydon argues that by not making clear distinctions between questions of the
good and questions of moral permissibility, moral education struggles
with an over-reliance on various moral frameworks such as Kohlberg or
Aristotle (2010, 183-184). Conflating such distinctions encourages a certain antagonism between different approaches to moral education, as if
Kantian moral theory alone should be able to justify standards of a good
or well-lived life in addition to standards of moral permissibility, or Aristotelian theory alone should be able to settle contemporary questions of
social justice in addition to questions of character or virtue.
Such differentiation seems to make sense. After all, we make similar
distinctions in other aspects of social life. It would be odd, for example,
to argue that impartial rules can justify all relevant aspects of learning a
particular sport. As new generations of young players enter the game, it
will also be necessary to model teamwork, and encourage habits of training and practice. Educationally speaking, no one aspect is superior to
the other. Competent rule-following may be necessary for a sport to be
a game, but this is not all that new players will need to know. What kind
of player do I want to be? What habits will I need to acquire to be able
to play well? These are all distinct and important questions for the wouldbe athlete.
Pluralism at the level of ethical life can help address the insufficiency
of pluralism at the level of principle. There may be a plurality of principles, and we may come to learn to think carefully about the application
of such principles. However, what appears as a conflict between distinct
moral goods may, at least in some cases, reflect confusion about the kind
of ethical inquiry we must undertake. In the role of teacher it is impermissible to not act on the best interests of the students in my custody. This
is a question of public moral principle. My intentions in carrying out this
work address a different question, a question of the kind of teacher I
hope to be (or the kind of teacher that I am). For example, Haydon
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would say that the obligation to never act against the best interests of
students is a question of moral permissibility. But this requirement does
not stipulate that I may not be moved to do so out of care for those
students, fear of losing my job, or concern for impartiality. On this
account, whether I act in accordance with the interests of students and
the extent to which I do so because I care are two different ethical questions. One refers to what I may or may not do, the other reflects my
character. Both are part of the ethical life.
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The doctrine holds that the latter case is impermissible because here one
is intending to use another as a means to saving five. In this view, it is
the agents intention that determines, fundamentally, the moral permissibility of an action. However, Scanlon argues that intent cannot serve as a
fundamental explanation of the wrongness of an action. Consider the
example of educational programming. Now, in any programme of education there are risks: many students will succeed, but some others may fail
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and even be left worse off from the experience. Given these risks, is it
permissible to undertake the education of the young? The double effect
doctrine would try to explain the permissibility of education in terms of
intention: it would be wrong to undertake a programme with the intention of deliberately sacrificing the developmental interests of some students in order to increase the developmental benefits of others. But if a
programme intends to promote the learning of all students, and the failure of some is merely an unintended side-effect, the action is permissible.
Scanlon thinks that this is not a sufficient explanation. Intention does
not directly bear on the permissibility of action in the way claimed by the
doctrine of double effect. Consider a variation on the last example: imagine that you have extremely reliable empirical data predicting that the
majority of students targeted by a specific educational programme will
always show a healthy progression in their learning and development, but
a small number, who cannot be determined beforehand, will become
deeply indoctrinated. As the director of your school district, a local school
principal has asked if she may run this new programme in your school.
Clearly, your assessment would focus on whether there is justification for
implementing the programme, given the likely consequences. Yet, it
would be strange to reply that your decision to authorize the programme
depends on the principals intentions as the double effect doctrine would
suggest: does she intend to promote the development of most of the
students or is her intention to indoctrinate a minority? For Scanlon, this
shows that intention is not necessary for moral permissibility, rather, the
intention to run the programme is wrong because the act intended is
wrongful, and the act intended is wrongful because of the consequences.
Scanlons critique is far more complex than I can offer here and
would take us far from the topic at hand. What is important for our purposes is that Scanlon claims that the doctrine of double effect arises from
a failure to distinguish between assessing the agent and assessing the
permissibility of her proposed action (2008, 21). The distinction clearly
parallels the distinction between the ethical and the moral proffered by
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Habermas and Haydon, but can do so in a way that shows how both
dimensions can be operative in the same moment of moral experience.
Scanlon illustrates this distinction by showing that moral principles can
be used in either a critical or deliberative sense (2008, 22-28). In their
deliberative usage, a moral principle is used to assist agents in assessing
the permissibility of their proposed actions in the form of May I do X?
Principles tell us what reasons are relevant and which considerations
count for or against actions. In their critical usage, however, the same
principle can be used to assess an agents moral reasoning. Consider a
further variation of the previous example. The data predict, reliably, that
some students will become indoctrinated because of a new programme.
Let us assume that this is a decisive reason for not implementing the
programme (imagine something like a principle of non-indoctrination).
From a deliberative standpoint, the principle tells us that the fact that
some of the students could benefit from the programme and their better
test results would improve the overall performance of the school (and
therefore bolster the principals career) is not a sufficient reason for
implementing it. Imagine the school principal goes ahead and implements
the programme, and the predicted outcomes do occur. In assessing the
principals action, we could say that she acted wrongly in her intention to
take her own career advancement as sufficient reason to undermine the
rational autonomy of some of her students. Scanlon would say that this
is true, but only in terms of a critical assessment of agents thinking.
Fundamentally, what makes the action wrong is not that the principal
acted for a selfish reason, but the fact that indoctrination is morally
impermissible as a matter of principle.
Let us consider more closely the two usages of a general prohibition
against indoctrination. If the principal asks, May I implement the curricula? After all, it will benefit my career, we could criticize her for taking her own career advancement as a reason for risking the well-being of
the students in her care. This is a critique of the way the principal went
about deciding, not an explanation of why the action would be wrong.
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There are many other contexts in which acting for career advancement
would be permissible, after all. From a deliberative standpoint, what
makes the implementation of the curriculum wrong is that the principal
may not undermine the developmental interests of all her students. It
does not matter if she acts from a desire for career advancement or mistakenly sees indoctrination as a valid aim or purpose. In either of these
cases, the intended act results in indoctrination. Without a sufficient reason to do otherwise, the deliberative assessment, May I implement the
curricula? would result in a no.
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are based on confusion about this point. The idea that acting from duty
is something cold, impersonal, or even egoistic is based on the thought
that the agents purpose is in order to do my duty rather than in order
to help my friend or in order to save my country or whatever it might
be. But that is just wrong. Sacrificing your life in order to save your
country might be your duty in a certain case, but the duty will be to do
that act for that purpose, and the whole action will be chosen as your duty
(2009, 11).
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Scanlon identifies at least two aspects of ethical life in this example (or as
he calls them, moral dimensions). The first is moral permissibility: one
may not break ones promise without sufficient reason. For example,
if another friend offers him a ticket to a concert he really wants to attend,
is this is a sufficient reason to break the promise? The assessment of permissibility has nothing to do, fundamentally, with the reasons the agent
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himself may have for not showing up. The basic question is simply whether
anyone in that situation has sufficient reason(s) to break the promise.
This does not mean that the agents intentions are ethically worthless.
Intentions inform a different kind of assessment from permissibility,
potentially opening up a more comprehensive account of moral value or
meaning. For Scanlon, both the ability to be moved by a promise and the
reciprocity of friendship are of ethical value, and we have no need to
reduce one set of reasons to the other. Scanlon continues:
[G]iven that I see both of these considerations as reasons, there is no
need, for the purposes of determining the meaning of the act, to single
out one of them as the reason for which I act. Doing so would change,
and perhaps diminish, the meaning of the act (2008, 57).
On the one hand, a failure to see a promise as a reason to show up suggests a character flaw. In this case, the agent betrays an inability (or
unwillingness) to see other persons as worthy of equal respect. On the
other, to be moved out of a sense of obligation or duty alone suggests a
failure to understand what friendship involves. Disjunctively allowing for
only one or the other as morally relevant reasons diminishes the possibilities for the accurate and comprehensive conferring of moral meaning
on our actions. Accordingly, a case can be made that understanding both
respect for persons and friendship are educationally worthwhile from the
standpoint of moral education. Scanlons account shows how a reasoned
conception of moral education can justifiably recommend that one come
to understand a variety of morally laudable intentions. This suggests that
a more complex and educationally worthwhile picture of moral education
is possible despite the fact that, at least in the case of Scanlon, we are
operating with a particular tradition of moral theory.
Another example can be made in terms of permissibility, the moral
worth of duty and the ethical meaning of care. Consider the example of
a person whose wealthy relatives dying wish is to see that person one last
time. The person visits, but his or her only reason for doing so is in order
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duty (or both) reveals something lacking in the person. While failing to act
for the right reasons may not count against the permissibility of an action,
it can reveal a fault in the agent (Scanlon 2008, 58). So while we can make
clear distinctions between questions of permissibility and character, both
can coexist in the same action and both can have ethical relevance.
VI. CONCLUSION
Scanlons distinction between moral permissibility and the various moral
meanings of our actions represents one example of how a particular type
of educational moral pluralism can be supported by moral theory. I do
not mean to give a full defence of Scanlons account here, nor am I suggesting that Scanlons Kantian approach is the only theory that can do
so. However, what I want to show is that contemporary moral theory can
and does respond to the plurality in our ethical lives and is not necessarily as monolithic in its treatment of ethical concepts as it is often portrayed in the philosophy of moral education. Scanlons analysis, for example, can provide arguments for why children can and should be educated
in reasoning, not simply about deliberative assessments of moral permissibility (or Haydons education in public morality), but in the critical
assessment of the potential relevance and meaning those reasons for the
specific individual involved (what Haydon would call ethical questioning).
We may disagree with the particulars of Scanlons approach, but I think
the level of sophistication in the approach is right.
Finally, I am not suggesting that my account of Scanlons theory and
its relevance to moral education has been exhaustive. Much more, for
example, could be said about the relationship between character formation
and reasons, as well as Scanlons account of public standards of moral
permissibility. What I mean to show is how moral theories can progress
in ways that can be reflected in our justification of moral education. Moral
theories are not static. The idea that we adopt Kant in toto and apply his
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