Ethics and education as practices of freedom

Abstract

On the one hand, according to Richard Rorty, Paulo Freire and others, education is the practice of freedom. On the other hand, according to Michael Foucault, Mary Midgley and others, ethics is the practice of freedom. How, then, are education and ethics related to one another and what do these authors mean by ‘the practice of freedom’? In this piece, I argue that education and ethics are two mutually constitutive aspects of the practice of freedom. Individuals who are able to engage in this practice can most properly be said to be the authors of their lives, that is, individuals who, to borrow from Neil MacGregor, are able to find their ‘place in things’. To find our ‘place in things’ is to do the necessary educative work required for becoming the authors of our lives, that is, for self-actualization (as Rorty and John Dewey have argued). To take on the authorial role is, moreover, to be able effectively to take control of our lives, to organize them into unities for which we are individually responsible. This, according to Midgley, is precisely what it is to be ethical. This work, moreover, requires ongoing development, that is, education, in Dewey’s sense. I further argue that professional education and skills training cannot be understood properly in isolation from these broader educational aims and I criticize mainstream educational practices for not paying sufficient attention to the intimate relationship between the vocational and non-vocational aspects of education.

Keywords:

• Ethics
• education
• the practice of freedom

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See, for instance, (Pink, 2010).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pedro Tabensky

Pedro Tabensky is the founding director of the Allan Gray Centre for Leadership Ethics (AGLE), Department of Philosophy, Rhodes University (South Africa). He is the author of Happiness: Personhood, Community, Purpose and of several articles and book chapters. Tabensky is also the editor of and contributor to Judging and Understanding: Essays on Free Will, Narrative, Meaning and the Ethical Limits of Condemnation; The Positive Function of Evil; and, coedited with Sally Matthews (his wife), Being at Home: Race, Institutional Culture and Transformation at South African Higher Education Institutions. Until 2016 Tabensky ran a Ford Foundation sponsored yearly roundtable series on critical issues in higher education—CHERTL Roundtable Series on Critical Issues in Higher Education.