Vygotsky and moral education: A response to and expansion of Tappan

Abstract

Despite increasing studies and applications of Vygotsky’s theory of learning and development, little has been written connecting Vygotsky specifically to moral education. The most comprehensive attempt at formulating such an account is given by Mark Tappan. I critically evaluate Tappan’s account before raising several problems for his approach. I then offer suggestions for resolving these issues by turning to research in socialization theory and recommending additional sociocultural artifacts that can supplement moral education.

Keywords:

• Moral education
• moral development
• Vygotsky
• social constructivism
• moral psychology
• sociocultural tools

Notes

1. If a skill/capacity is far beyond a learner’s ZPD, then the learner may fail to acquire it (e.g. a child who has not yet developed competence in arithmetic will be incapable of understanding the Riemann hypothesis).

2. See also Balakrishnan & Claiborne, 2012; Fernyhough, 2008; Tappan, 1998a, 1998b, 2006. An additional article of interest is that of Crawford, 2001. Crawford focuses specifically on Vygotsky’s theory of concept-formation in the realm of moral development, a topic that, while interesting and useful, is narrower than the project that I pursue in this article.

3. It may also be the case that moral competence entails being properly motivated to do what one should do.

4. Admittedly, it is unclear what resources, if any, completely guarantee protections against a descent into cad-hood. My point is simply that Tappan’s account as given seems to offer little (if anything at all) in the way of fostering the psychosocial development necessary to engender capacities that produce a morally conscientious outlook.

5. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on the following point: one might, adopting a Davidsonian outlook, suggest that part of being a competent language-user also entails certain values/commitments, such as something akin to truth-telling/holding (see, for example, Davidson, 1967, 1973). Such commitments would seem to entail both semantic and moral components, and constrain our language use in important ways. My point, however, is that while such constraints may feature in being a functional member of a language community, they do not seem to be necessary for being a competent language user (as with cases of deception). Put differently, the Davidsonian constraints, as depicted, would not prohibit people from competently using language in ways that we would regard as immoral throughout (at least) much of their day-to-day living.

6. This is reflected, for example, in the fact that (at least to my knowledge) no standardized tests used to gauge linguistic competence employ such awareness as a criterion for determining competence.

7. Tappan may not intend this, since language plays an organizational role that might accommodate emotions.

8. Consequently, it might help to clarify that there is a distinction between moral development (the process by which moral (cap)ability is advanced and which does not, I argue, rely on prior language skills) and moral competence (a level of ability which, at least in many modern civilizations, does seem to entail language-use, because much of human life nowadays involves interacting with others through language).

9. Excessive information-giving may actually impoverish moral development, possibly because it can be construed as authoritarian lecturing. See Walker, Hennig, and Krettenauer (2000).

10. Following Fung (1999, 185): Language here is defined broadly as discursive pragmatics. As such, it goes beyond syntactical and representational systems and includes not only the said, but also the suggested, implied, and unsaid.

11. See Sterponi’s (2014) account of minimal prompting.

12. For related examples, see Sterponi, 2014; Grusec, 2014; and Nucci, 2014.

13. Huang (2011, 599) also supports this claim.

14. See, for example, Fu, Xu, Cameron, Heyman, & Lee, 2007 and Unsworth, Sears, & Pexman, 2005.

15. Similar points are made by Ochs and Schieffelin (1984, 277), as well as Fung (1999, 180).

16. This idea (arguably) originates in Sterelny (2012).

17. Limits of space preclude me from saying more on this topic here, but for one proposal of the sort of tool that might fit the description given here, see Lewis, forthcoming.