Stem-cell research. Euthanasia. Personhood. Marriage equality. School shootings. Gun control. Death penalty. Ethical dilemmas regularly spark fierce debate about the underlying moral fabric of societies. How do we prepare today's children to be fully informed and thoughtful citizens, capable of moral and ethical decisions? Current approaches…

This paper addresses the way in which we should go about introducing ethics into the study of our interpersonal relations in the hope of formulating a foundation upon which to base our theories and analyze our behavior. We should ask ourselves whether there should be different criteria for interpersonal ethics than for ethics in other areas of…

In the literature on citizenship education, frequent references are made to Dewey. However, educationalists do not always interpret him correctly. To provide some counterbalance, I explain Dewey's views on education and democracy. I base this, not only on "Democracy and Education", but also on 17 articles that Dewey wrote after…

Militaries that take a character development approach in their moral education programs but rely heavily on authority figures as subject matter experts to teach soldiers face two serious problems. First, soldiers improperly defer to their instructors and, as a result, do not understand the moral virtues taught in class. Second, instructors are in…

There are many things that sociology faculty have to consider as they begin planning a student course such as: (1) why students need to understand scientific methods, by conducting research for themselves; (2) What specific learning goals and objectives will be met by students doing research, either individually or collectively?; (3) Why do…

John Dewey's masterpiece "Democracy and Education", from 1916, is clearly far removed from the dominant tendencies of current education policy in the western world, with their emphasis on the narrow accountability of the New Public Management. Nevertheless, his book still challenges those tendencies and sets forth criteria for…

Geography has promoted responsibility in science for decades. However, a monster is on the loose of our own creation and is wreaking havoc. Geocoded/locational data have enormous research potential. However, expectations of privacy and confidentiality norms flux and turn gray. Does graduate training sufficiently prepare students to respond to…

In "We Need to Teach for Ethical Conduct," Dr. Robert Sternberg argued that students act unethically because they are unable to transfer principles of ethics into practice. While I agree that this is partially the case, it is also the case that unethical behavior is a result of the prevailing educational-philosophy: radical…

The authors use a Bourdieuean framework of "legitimating principles" and the "symbolic capital" of dominant "discursive themes" to explore (a) the genealogy and (b) the current state of the discourse on "character education" (understood broadly as any approach to moral education that foregrounds the…

Considering the German idea of "Bildung," I argue that it is a central concern of Habermas. First, he criticized the idea of being educated as a sign of innate abilities, emphasizing instead the significance of the social conditions of the upbringing. Subsequently, inspired by Adorno, he performed an analysis of "Bildung,"…

Many conservatives, including some conservative scholars, blame the ideas and influence of John Dewey for what has frequently been called a crisis of character, a catastrophic decline in moral behavior in the schools and society of North America. Dewey's critics claim that he is responsible for the undermining of the kinds of instruction that…

In this paper, we advance a novel conception of normative ethics and draw out its implications within the domain of professional ethics. We argue that all moral agents, and thus professionals, share a fundamental and constitutive normative interest in correctly conceiving of their ends. All professionals, we claim, by virtue of their positions of…

One of the main educational challenges we still face today--more than ever--is the humanistic challenge, namely how to promote humanistic moral values, how to strengthen in students the motivation to be morally active, and especially how to help them recognize the other as a human subject. I adopt Nel Noddings' approach of relational ethics of…

Most of human history and prehistory was lived in economic poverty but with social and ecological wealth, both of which are diminishing as commodification takes over most everything. Human moral wealth has also deteriorated. Because humans are biosocially, dynamically, and epigenetically shaped, early experience is key for developing one's moral…

Plans by the Hong Kong Government to introduce moral and national education (MNE) as a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools in 2010 encountered strong opposition. The controversy over the plans has lasted for two years, with the government and its supporters claiming that the subject will help to instil a stronger sense of national…