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Education

Philosophising About Moral Education

Graham Haydon thinks about what it is to think about moral education.

If we could categorise and quantify all the thinking devoted to education, we would find that the great majority takes for granted certain assumptions about the goals of educational policy and the means by which they are to be achieved. But it is part of the role of the academic study of education, and of the philosophy of education above all, to reflect critically on a society’s understanding of the nature of education, its aims, and its underlying values. In doing this, philosophers looking at education necessarily draw on other fields of philosophy. Is education to be seen as shaping the future citizens of a democracy? Then we need political philosophy if we are to understand what we are doing. Do we assume that education is about transmitting knowledge? Epistemology will help clarify this aim, while philosophy of mind will call into question the idea that, once we have fixed our aim, achieving it is merely a matter of devising efficient means.

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