The perennial debate regarding the relative usefulness of various forms of knowledge, especially between the theoretical and practical and the intellectual and moral, lies at the heart of education in both past and present times in both the West and China (de Bary, 1988, 2004, 2005, 2015). Neo-Confucians remain relevant in the 21st century and can…

Richard Pring (1938-2024) was the first holder of a Chair in Education at the University of Oxford and the Editor of the present journal from 1986 to 2001. This article pays tribute to his legacy in the field of educational philosophy. After reviewing briefly some well-known recurring themes in Pring's educational philosophy, such as his busting…

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…

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…

There is a tendency for research on morality to focus on the individual, sometimes at the expense of context, using overly individual notions of the person. To some extent, this is an understandable consequence of disciplinary focus, and a scientific need to break phenomena down into manageable parts. I will advocate incorporating sociological…

This article critically discusses the concept of future-ready learning by drawing on the educational thought of Confucius as recorded in the "Analects." Two main arguments are made in this paper. First, Confucius views future-readiness as the preparedness to broaden "dao" (Way), which is a vision of human excellence. Secondly,…

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…

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…

When thinking about moral education, a concern of liberals is that such education ought not to be indoctrinatory. There are various definitions of indoctrination, but a common theme is that indoctrination prevents us from critically assessing our own beliefs. Indoctrinatory education, then, teaches a doctrine in such a way that students will not…

Amidst trends that emphasize languishing patterns in teen mental health, there is a bright spot: social science research indicates that adolescents who develop relationships with adult mentors demonstrate increased signs of flourishing. This social science research on mentors, though limited to school performance outcome goals, offers a lifeline…

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…

This article examines the many traces of John Rawls' theory of justice in contemporary philosophy of education. Beyond work that directly explores the educational implications of justice as fairness and political liberalism, there are many interesting debates in philosophy of education that make use of Rawlsian concepts to defend views that go…

This paper takes issue with the exemplarist strategy of fostering virtue development with the specific goal of improving its applicability in the context of education. I argue that, for what matters educationally, we have good reasons to endorse a "liberal" account of moral exemplarity. Specifically, I challenge two key assumptions of…

The centrality of learners and their learning in contemporary educational discourse and practice, seems to suggest that the self of the student should be at the heart of the educational endeavour. This is not just an educational programme, but actually an expression of a particular way of thinking about human beings and their position in the…