We appreciate and respond to Cokelet's thoughtful criticisms of our book. First, he points to deliberative forms of practical wisdom as objectionable to anti-rationalist's. In response, we point to non-conscious (yet complex) forms of deliberation that occur as individuals automatically process and respond to virtue-relevant stimuli. Second,…

In this article I develop ideas for supporting character education through sociology and virtue ethics philosophy. A combination of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of habitus together with (neo) Aristotelian virtue ethics philosophy is used to promote a critical form of character education--one that accents the individual as well as the social context…

The resurgence of Confucian education in present-day China has received increasing academic attention over the last two decades. However, certain aspects of this trend remain poorly understood, particularly parents' involvement in their children's Confucian education. Based on a qualitative study conducted at a Confucian school, this article sheds…

Matthew Clayton, David Stevens [see EJ1233331] and Laura D'Olimpio [see EJ1233332] have advanced a series of objections to arguments I set out in my recent book "A Theory of Moral Education" -- in particular to the problem-of-sociality justification for basic moral standards. Here I reply to their objections.

Recent critics have suggested that character education (either in and of itself or certain instantiations of it) is overly individualised and, as a result, fails to engage adequately with the political. In this paper, I offer an account of character education which takes issue with such criticisms, and seeks to make clear connections between the…

In "A Theory of Moral Education," Michael Hand claims that a directive moral education that seeks to persuade children that a particular conception of contractarian morality is justified can be undertaken without falling foul of the requirement not to indoctrinate. In this article, we set out a series of challenges to Hand's argument.…

Elevation is the emotion elicited by witnessing acts of moral beauty and may be framed as the opposite of disgust. Two studies investigated the role of elevation in moral judgment and its relation to disgust. In Study 1 it was investigated whether elevation can attenuate the effects of disgust on moral transgression judgments. Participants were…

This is an interview with Frans de Waal who gave the Kohlberg Memorial Lecture at the AME Conference in St. Louis in November 2017. Frans de Waal's research with non-human primates documents that primates share our tendencies towards fairness, reciprocity, loyalty, self-sacrifice, caring for others, strategies for conflict avoidance and for…

In this article I respond to the commentators on my Kohlberg Memorial Lecture.

In maintaining that virtue is a legitimate concept worthy of empirical study, a strong situationist approach to the study of behavior is countered. An earlier analysis is then drawn upon to maintain that virtue has the capability of integrating several themes in positive psychology: ethics and health, embodied character, strength and resilience,…

Moral Self-Cultivation plays an important, even a central role, in the Confucian philosophical tradition, but philosophers in the West, most notably Aristotle and Kant, also hold that moral self-cultivation or self-shaping is possible and morally imperative. This paper argues that these traditions are psychologically unrealistic in what they say…

This article examines the principal arguments found in the work of Paulo Freire concerning policy and ethics in the field of higher education in Latin America. It critically analyzes the university reform in Latin America dominated by the thought and practice promoted by various international financial institutions (such as the World Bank and the…

Many conservatives, including some conservative scholars, blame the ideas and influence of John Dewey for what has frequently been called a crisis of character, a catastrophic decline in moral behavior in the schools and society of North America. Dewey's critics claim that he is responsible for the undermining of the kinds of instruction that…

This study examined the application of Lesson Study for professional development (PD) for a domain approach to moral education. A comparison was drawn between the effects of Lesson Study with 17 teachers and 144 students representing middle schools in the same district as a prior study employing intensive traditional PD. In Lesson Study, groups of…

Interculturalism, in its two forms, critiques multiculturalism. A European version emphasises cultural encounter and novelty, and is relatively apolitical except for its disavowal of the national in preference for the local and the transnational. In contrast, its Quebecan counterpart gives significance to the idea of the right of a national…