Middle childhood seems to be crucial for the emergence of a moral identity, that is, an evaluative stance of how important it is for someone's sense of self to be moral. This study investigates the effects of moral identity on the neural processing of moral content in 10-year-old children. Participants were presented with scenes portraying…

Psychological research has revealed that there is a strong tendency for people to believe that they have a 'true self', and to believe that this true self is inherently morally good. This would seemingly be very good news for virtue theorists, since this may help to promote virtue development. While there are some obvious benefits to people having…

This study aims to explore the relationships between different types of student engagement and moral reasoning development among U.S. college students. Using the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, a longitudinal dataset, and applying fixed-effect and random-effects models, the results indicate that various types of student…

Newly licensed nurses may enter the profession without the tools to cope with morally distressing events in the workplace. Experiences of moral distress at work negatively affect physical, emotional, and psychological wellbeing, and effects of moral distress on new nurses may result in job dissatisfaction, burnout, and abandonment of the…

Moral reasoning and theory of mind (ToM) are two distinct but related aspects of social cognition. While past research has clearly documented serious delays in ToM development for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) both cross-sectionally (e.g. Happe, 1995) and longitudinally (Peterson & Wellman, 2020) much less is known about the…

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…

The stages in an individual's moral development will determine how an individual will behave. Kohlberg divides moral development into three stages, namely pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. However, the stages of individual moral development may vary. These different levels of moral development will influence individuals'…

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)…

This multi-method study examined mothers' and fathers' cognitive stimulation during parent--child interactions and toddlers' moral regulation (assessed via parent reports) as predictors of their executive functioning skills approximately 2½ years later. Forty children (23 girls and 17 boys) and their parents participated in both timepoints.…

This article takes up three interrelated elements of Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy into an initial conceptual framework for moral education and explores a practical application of this framework to a lesson plan. The three elements are moral vocabulary, moral perception, and the quality of our states of consciousness. The framework constituted…

Nothing was more important to Tolstoy than character development. For him, the purpose of life is to grow morally. The purpose of literature -- as all art -- is to aid that growth. Abstract philosophy and pedantic scholarship are therefore redundant. Indeed, even the psychological novel is a distraction. Moral truths are self-evident. They are…

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…

In Aristotelian virtue theories, "phronesis" is foundational to being good, but to date accounts of how this particularly important virtue can emerge are sketchy. This article plumbs recent thinking in Aristotelian virtue ethics and developmental theorizing to explore how far its emergence can be understood developmentally, i.e., in…

Teachers' beliefs about teaching character values are pivotal in cultivating students' character. This study systematically reviewed teachers' beliefs towards character education in primary school. A systematic review following the PRISMA statement was applied to peer-reviewed papers published between 2011 and 2021. This review paper analyzed…

What is the obligation of schools in fostering compassion for others and a commitment to the greater good? In a year-long qualitative study, this research explores how one Northeastern private schooling environment aimed to cultivate social responsibility in adolescents through an egalitarian, discussion-oriented pedagogy. Guided by Westheimer and…