Livability, Education and the Aims of Moral Theory

Abstract

Can Philosophers make a genuine and substantive contribution to the theory and practice of moral education? Contrast the following two answers. According to one approach, analytic moral philosophy is concerned with constructing moral theories. As such, moral education is a secondary concern of the moral theorist and a moral theory will, at most, only have implications for moral education. Call this the strict theoretical approach. An alternative account holds that moral education is a central topic of moral philosophy. As such, moral theorists who ignore questions of moral education are offering incomplete theories. Call this the educative approach. In this dissertation, I argue that moral philosophers need to take the educative approach more seriously. In part one, I argue that the educative approach is well grounded in the western tradition of moral philosophy (particularly in the eudaimonist tradition of ethics). In part two, I show how recent work in virtue theory can make a genuine and substantive contribution to the interdisciplinary field of moral education.