I argue that Rawlsian liberals should consider cardinal virtue habituation as a legitimate form of moral education and citizenship education in publicly funded schools. In "Political Liberalism," Rawls acknowledges that a liberal government can and should promote certain virtues or traits of moral character in citizens, but only those…

Following Lawrence Kohlberg it has been commonplace to regard Plato's moral theory as "intellectualist", where Plato supposedly believes that becoming virtuous requires nothing other than "philosophical knowledge or intuition of the ideal form of the good". This is a radical misunderstanding of Plato's educational programme,…

The Aristotelian concept of habituation is receiving mounting and warranted interest in educational circles, but has also been subject to different lines of interpretation and critique. In this article, I bring forward Aristotle's words on habituation, and then clarify the two lines of interpretation that have developed in the contemporary…

The beliefs both that sentimental education is a vital part of moral education and that habituation is a vital part of sentimental education can be counted as being at the hard core of the Aristotelian tradition of moral thought and action. On the basis of an explanation of the defining characteristics of Aristotelian habituation, this paper…