Can Morality Be Taught? Aquinas and Mencius on Moral Education

Abstract

Question 11 of Aquinas’s De Veritatae, ‘On the Teacher’, begins with the question ‘Can a Man or Only God Teach and Be Called a Teacher?’ On the surface, this question is rather puzzling. It seems rather odd to ask if any one person can teach, and be called a teacher of others, given the fact that the teaching of men and women by some other men and women has been going on for thousands of years and has reached the point where it is now a major enterprise in a modern society (and a booming industry in many economies!). How can Aquinas’s question be understood given this history? While Aquinas discusses education in general, I will argue in this paper that we can make better sense of Question 11 if we understand it as a question about moral education. Understood as such, this question is not at all puzzling—it is indeed pertinent—given the fact that moral sceptics certainly do not believe that morality can be taught and many believers in morality nevertheless think that one cannot be taught to be moral. Understood as a question about the possibility of moral education, Aquinas’s answer makes some interesting comparisons with the Confucian account of moral education, particularly that of Mencius.