Philosophy of Education

1
Philosophy of Education

• The Many Dimensions of Education in the
  Development of Individuals and Societies

2
Norm of Reciprocity

• Any claim fails to respect reciprocity if it
  imposes a requirement on other citizens to adopt
  ones sectarian way of life as a condition of
  gaining access to the moral understanding that is
  essential to judging the validity of ones moral
  claims.
• Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson quoted, page 67
  in Brighouse, On Education

3
Moral Agency

• Agency means the ability to act. All people have
  agency in all situations, but no one ever has
  utterly boundless agency. Each of us, as
  individuals, is constrained in our choices -
  constrained by law, custom, convention,
  oppression, fear, and danger. Consider what you
  can and cannot do in this class right now, as an
  example.

4
Moral Agency

• Allowing people to exercise their moral agency is
  a necessary part of maturation. Our society
  feels that giving a six-year old access to
  driving an automobile would not be a good use of
  moral agency. However, giving sixteen-year olds
  this power is fine, even though we know some will
  misuse this agency, even with fatal consequences
  for themselves and/or others.

5
Moral Agency

• Consider three gray-area life death situations
  eating meat, abortion, killing in wartime.
  Consider how we use (or avoid using) these
  situations as opportunities for exercising moral
  agency.
• In each of these situations, are we (as
  individuals, and as a society) willing to allow a
  free range of moral choices? Are we (as
  individuals and as a society) willing to suffer
  the consequences of a rash or poor choice?

6
The Moral Agency of Children

• Consider how Brighouses arguments about
  flourishing, citizenship, and self-sufficiency
  for economic life in adulthood, provide
  opportunities for developing the moral agency of
  children.