There seem to be obvious virtues to keeping a sense of balance. In this paper, I consider some examples from ordinary life and education where the pursuit of balance would appear to be a benefit. Yet I also draw upon lines of thinking from John Stuart Mill and Adam Phillips to examine whether the apparent good sense of balance can be disturbed. I…

The goal of moral education is moral formation and moral improvement. Kant's duty of moral self-perfection applies to people who have undergone preliminary stages of moral formation and are in the position to strive for moral improvement based on a grasp of principle and an understanding of ends that are also duties. We are familiar with standard…

To speak of democracy is often to speak less of a fact than of a hope. In his introduction to "Democracy in America," Alexis de Tocqueville admitted that '… in America I saw "more than" America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices and its passions, in order to learn what…

There is more to the moral life than mere adherence to a set of moral rules or principles to which the moral agent has autonomously subscribed. Something more fundamental is required for moral personhood, requiring explication in terms of 'sensitive perception' in relation to the particularities pertaining to any given set of circumstances…

Character education in schools in England is flourishing. I give many examples of the enthusiasm for it as well as drawing attention to the UK government's new ambivalence towards it. Character education seems largely impervious to the many criticisms to which it has been subjected. I touch on these only briefly as my focus is on a criticism that…

From the first co-operative trust school at Reddish Vale in Manchester in 2006, the following decade would witness a remarkable growth of 'co-operative schools' in England, which at one point numbered over 850. This paper outlines the key development of democratic education by the co-operative schools network. It explains the approach to democracy…

Innovations in genetics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence involve the possibility of enhancement of human attributes and capacities--offering humans innumerable opportunities for diverse, unprecedented experiences and developments both physically and cognitively. These new innovations, frequently associated with theoretical frameworks…

In the past few years, we have seen emerging new work that brings into focus the role of historical change and its moral implications in Iris Murdoch's philosophy. This paper strengthens this reading of her work and investigates the implications of this aspect of Murdoch's thinking for education in general and for moral education in particular. It…

In the previous chapters of "Interpreting Kant in Education," some different understandings of Kant's key terms were contrasted in order to begin to bring a more favourable picture of Kant into view. This third chapter continues the process through a discussion of Kant's 'Copernican revolution'. Most in education will be familiar with…

Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot all studied at Oxford University during the Second World War. One of their wartime tutors was Donald MacKinnon. This paper gives a broad overview of MacKinnon's philosophical outlook as it was developing at this time. Four talks from between 1938 and 1941--'And the Son of Man That…

The study of literature needs a kind of justification that it currently does not appear to have. It needs a justification that can articulate its role in relation to democratic social and political values, and it needs to do so in ways that are able to distinguish those from the economic motives and the interests of science that also drive…

After showing discipline's centrality in Kant's pedagogy, I briefly highlight Montessori's alternative and then turn to three fundamental differences between Kant and Montessori that partly explain their divergent accounts. My goal is not to assess whether Kant or Montessori gets the role of discipline 'right', but to highlight broader stakes of…

This paper considers the style of moral philosophy that emerged in the mid-1970s in the writings of John McDowell and David Wiggins and examines its implications for moral education. After characterising the position, I examine whether it broadens or narrows the horizons of moral philosophy. Though McDowell's notorious quietism might suggest the…

Inspired by the debate about character between situationism and virtue ethics, I argue that John Doris's idea, "local trait", offers a fresh insight into contemporary character education. Its positive variant, "local virtue", signals an inescapable relay station of the gradual development of virtue, and serves as a promising…

Criticisms of autonomy-based justifications of toleration as an educational aim and as a political principle assume that personal autonomy can provide only a partial justification of toleration and that it serves as a basis for illiberal educational enforcements of a particular conception of the good. In this article, I defend an autonomy- and…