Argues that a continuous concern for intellectual education from primary school to university is one of the chief educational ways of pursuing autonomy as an ideal. Characteristics of intellectual education are delineated and counter-arguments are advanced against the criticism that intellectual education is one-sided. (RH)

The aim of education should be the development of morally and intellectually autonomous individuals. The opposite of heteronomy, which means being governed by someone else, autonomy means being governed by oneself. Moral autonomy results from the application of "sanctions by reciprocity" in the context of mutual respect between adults…