Another Brick in the Wall? Moral Education, Social Learning, and Moral Progress

Abstract

Many believe that moral education can cause moral progress. At first glance, this makes sense. A major goal of moral education is the improvement of the moral beliefs, values and behaviors of young people. Most would also consider all of these improvements to be important instances of moral progress. Moreover, moral education is a form of social learning, and there are good reasons to think that social learning processes shape episodes of progressive moral change. Despite this, we argue that instead of being a cause of moral change, the main effect of moral education is often to provide stability or continuity. In addition, we will argue that even when the conditions are right for moral education to contribute to moral change, it is far from clear that the resulting changes will always, or even most of the time, end up being progressive.

Management of Strengthening Character Education in Junior High School

“…Finally, character education also helps students in becoming good and responsible citizens. By learning values such as openness, tolerance and social responsibility, students will be able to participate in community life by making positive contributions (Rehren & Sauer, 2022). Overall, character education in secondary schools is very important as it helps students in forming a good personality, developing social and emotional skills, facing challenges well and becoming responsible citizens.…”

Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper

“…According to Tobias Krettenauer, "moral education can be understood as the design, implementation and evaluation of programs aimed at fostering specific competencies crucial for moral functioning in everyday life (e.g., empathy, perspective-taking, moral reasoning, grit)" (Krettenauer 2021). In the growing numbers of studies on the effect of moral education on children, the concept of moral education is "the improvement of the moral beliefs, values and behaviours of young people" (Rehren and Sauer 2022), which can be achieved by "exposure to compelling texts, images, or oral narratives" (Morrow 2020).…”

Psychology of morality as a fundamental discipline in the higher education system

“…Более того, нравственный уровень таких студентов в идеале должен быть выше среднего, если общество желает эволюционировать. Так, по результатам моделирования нескольких сценариев Пол Ререн и Ханно Зауэр пришли к выводу, что морально-нравственное «воспитание может стать движущей силой» эволюции общества только тогда, «когда преподаватели передают информацию, которая отличается в лучшую сторону от моральных убеждений и ценностей их общества», а учебные и воспитательные учреждения «отклоняют учебную программу от существующего положения вещей в сторону улучшения» [21].…”

“…Этот процесс согласуется с современной государственной политикой по реализации задач нравственного воспитания и укрепления духовно-нравственных ценностей населения. 21 Благодаря большому объему эмпирических исследований по психологии нравственности возможно разнообразить содержание курсов, сделать их интересными и полезными в личной жизни и в будущей профессиональной деятельности студентов, а также обеспечить ненавязчивый воспитательный аспект.…”