Abstract
Philosophers and psychologists have been vigorously examining the psychological capacities that realize our moral agency. Our purpose is to take some of this work and present its implications for moral education. To connect recent work with more long-standing debates in moral education, we frame this discussion with Helen Haste’s 1996 examination of liberal and communitarian positions on moral agency and education. We argue that contemporary research does not confirm the descriptive theory of moral agency offered by either liberal theorists or communitarians, but nonetheless the prescriptive theory of liberal moral education can be vindicated.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
It must be noted that we are not proposing that Taylor himself holds that human agents are ‘blank slates,’ but rather that his position implies this. This contrasts with the position we will offer bellow that suggests that human agents are not blank slates, but rather are born with innate moral capacities that are significant for moral agency.
It should be noted that this is an argument solely against the recommendations offered by Haidt and Joseph concerning moral education and not an argument against the intuitionist position offered most notably by Haidt. We would also like to acknowledge that nowhere in this paper are we endorsing Haidt’s intuitionist position. Although we have relied on empirical psychology to argue against a standard interpretation of liberal psychology, as well as communitarian psychology, we are not making the stronger claim, as Haidt does, that moral judgment and behavior results from intuitions and not reason (Haidt 2001). The claim that reason fulfills a limited role in the moral behavior of agents would likely be problematic for most liberals, but it is not the focus on this article and does not impact our recommendations concerning moral education.
References
Blair, R.J.R. 1997. Affect and the moral-conventional distinction. Journal of Moral Education 26(2): 187–196.
Dwyer, S. 2003. Moral development and moral responsibility. The Monist 86(2): 181–199.
Haidt, J. 2001. The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review 108(4): 814–834.
Haidt, J., and J. Graham. 2007. When morality opposes justice: conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize. Social Justice Research 20: 98–116.
Haidt, J., and J. Graham. 2009. Planet of the Durkheimians, where community, authority, and sacredness are foundations of morality. In Social and psychological bases of ideology and system justification, ed. J. Jost, A.C. Kay, and H. Thorisdottir. New York: Oxford University Press.
Haidt, J., and C. Joseph. 2004. Intuitive ethics: How innately prepared intuitions generate culturally variable virtues. Daedalus. pp. 55–66. Special issue on human nature.
Haidt, J., S.H. Koller, and M.G. Dias. 1993. Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65(4): 613–628.
Haste, H. 1996. Communitarianism and the social construction of morality. Journal of Moral Education 25(1): 47–55.
Hoffman, M.L. 2000. Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kohlberg, L. 1981. The philosophy of moral development. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Kohlberg, L. 1984. The psychology of moral development. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Okin, S.M., and R. Reich. 1999. Families and schools as compensating agents in moral development for a multicultural society. Journal of Moral Education 28(3): 283–298.
Pellizzoni, S., M. Siegal, and L. Surian. 2010. The contact principle and utilitarian moral judgments in young children. Developmental Science 13(2): 265–270.
Rozin, P., L. Lowery, S. Imada, and H. Jonathan. 1999. The CAD triad hypothesis: a mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76(4): 574–586.
Shweder, R. A., N.C. Much, M. Mahapatra, and L. Park. 1997. The ‘Big Three’ of morality (autonomy, community, divinity) and the ‘Big Three’ explanations of suffering. In Allen M. Brandt & Paul Rozin 1997.
Smetana, J. 1981. Preschool children’s conceptions of moral and social rules. Child Development 52: 1333–1336.
Smetana, J. 1993. Understanding of social rules. In Mark Bennett 1993.
Turiel, E. 1997. The development of morality. In William Damon and Nancy Eisenberg 1997.
Turiel, E. 2003. Resistance and subversion in everyday life. Journal of Moral Education 32(2): 115–130.
Turiel, E. 2006. Thought, emotions, and social interactional processes in moral development. In Melanie Killen & Judith G. Smetana 2006.
Turiel, E., M. Killen, and C.C. Helwig. 1987. Morality: Its structure, function, and vagaries. In J. Kagan & S. Lamb 1987.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Young, M., Sneddon, A. Communitarian and Liberal Themes in Moral Agency and Education. Rev.Phil.Psych. 2, 105–120 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-010-0036-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-010-0036-x