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…

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…

One aim of moral education is to help society progress from morally imperfect conventions towards more perfect ones. According to a popular view, "reflecting judgment" is the vehicle of this progress. In this paper, I argue that although reflection is important, it is not enough; moral development also requires practical synthesis. Moral…

This paper addresses a central aspect of Kant's theory of moral progress and its links to both political violence and pedagogy. Kant claims in the "Conflict of the Faculties" that the reaction to the French Revolution demonstrates that the 'human race has always progressed and will further progress toward the better'. It thus constitutes…

How should we assess the variety of ideas students encounter in education about the kinds of people they ought to be? What kind of people should students be educated to become? In this essay, I argue that the line of thought opened up by David Bakhurst's recent work offers a philosophically robust way to approach the twofold project of (1)…

My discussion suggests that one of Richard Peters' main contributions to the philosophy of education was in expounding and stressing the need for a particular view of the subject, essentially conceptual analysis. The paper proceeds to defend this view and Peters' specific account of education against the charges that his work relies simply on…

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…

In this paper, I investigate the potential of a Kantian account of moral education to facilitate the development of humanity towards much-needed change in individual and collective responses to global problems such as climate change. Kant's account of moral development is focused on the internal motivation for and not the external result of…

The early and late texts of the Russian psychologist and philosopher Sergei Rubinstein focus on ethical issues. The unfinished and fragmentary nature of these texts has contributed to the limited exploration of the ideas they contain. Rubinstein's main concern was the possibility of human moral improvement, a concern that originated in the young…

Soyoung Lee and Paul Standish have criticised my article 'Levinas: Ethics or Mystification?' for misunderstanding and misrepresenting the phenomenological subtleties of Levinas's formulation of ethics. However, although their arguments are cogent and persuasive, I still cannot see how Levinas's 'ethics of the Other', regardless of its merits qua…

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…

Iris Murdoch's famous case of M and D illustrates the moral importance of learning to see others in a more favourable light through renewed attention. Yet if we do not read this case in the wider context of Murdoch's work, we are liable to overlook the attitudes and transformations involved in coming to change one's mind as M does. Stanley Cavell…

In this paper I lay out the bare bones of my conception of practical reasoning, which I understand as similar in all relevant respects to theoretical reasoning except that (as it is put) the conclusion of practical reasoning is either action or intention, while the conclusion of theoretical reasoning is belief. I then turn to ask how, on this…

For Richard Rorty as well as Stanley Cavell, the realm of the literary carries particular educational force. Literature holds the potential to lead the insensitive and the superficial towards the responsive and the detailed. Literature prompts an interrogation of everyday expressions and the felt meanings we decide to invest or not to invest…

There is a sustained critique of autonomy in Iris Murdoch's work in moral philosophy and moral education. I explicate Murdoch's arguments against a moral education that aims at autonomy, showing that this kind of moral education is ensnared in problematic dualisms: a fact and value dualism (sometimes discussed as a dualism between metaphorical…