Moral education and the construction of meaning

Abstract

In this article, I develop the idea that the starting point of moral education is formed by the affective commitments individuals make in the course of growing up. The task of education is to enable children to critically consider and revise these commitments, as part of the development of a reflective personal identity. Ethical concepts like justice as well as other culturally developed ‘instruments’ may be taught in order to structure the discursive development of identity. This points to a view of moral education that differs from the two approaches that are now most popular.

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Willem Wardekker