Locally grounded, universally binding: The benefit of incorporating traditional care ethics, East and West, into current moral education

Abstract

In this article, I am suggesting that one effective strategy for revitalizing moral education consists in incorporating classical traditions of care ethics, East and West, which are very much alive in contemporary culture, into sentiments, insights and practices of contemporary care ethics. In so doing we might make moral education much more accessible, natural and friendly to both teachers and students. First, it is associated with down to earth affective and relational elements rather than with highly theoretical philosophical reasoning; second, it is grounded in local cultural traditions that are very much alive in the ‘cultural DNA’ of millions of people in their traditional communities; third, in terms of its moral tenets it is humanistic and universally binding. The desirable outcome, if this model proves tenable, is moral education oriented by care ethics, locally grounded and universally binding.

Keywords:

• Care ethics
• moral education
• multicultural education

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Since we are dealing here with care ethics rather than with rule-based deontological or utilitarian ethics, the reference to universally binding denotes a body of moral values, sensitivities, sensibilities, ideals and virtues that are shared by the majority of cultures in our global reality.

2 On the academic debate regarding narrow and wider conceptions of care ethics see for example Li (2015), Sander-Staudt (2015) and Lampert (2016). As stated in the opening paragraph, it is not my intention in this article to carry out metaethical discussion nor a sophisticated analytical elucidation of the notion of care ethics. In the wide working definition employed here, moral action, doing good to others, is conceived as emerging not out of deontological imperatives, nor by utilitarian calculation of happiness, nor by some theory of justice, but rather by the sentiments of care, concern, empathy and sympathy for others—for those with whom we have face to face relations (in an unmediated way), and with distant others (in a more mediated manner), seeking to facilitate for them flourishing lives.

3 This statement is uttered by Mr. Rogers in the new documentary movie (2018), Won't You Be My Neighbor? It is however a theme elaborated not only in popular culture but also in philosophical discourse such as in Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good (1970).

4 In light of the elements of care ethics, I presented above embedded in the Jewish culture, it is quite frustrating to notice, testifying from my personal experience in my home country, Israel, how difficult and challenging it is for a significant number of the Jewish population to make the moral leap, transformation or development from concern and carrying for fellow Jews – in a rather ethnocentric patriotism – to concern for other humans who are not Jews, often called gentiles. This is especially problematic due to the fact that not long ago many of their ancestors were refugees and asylum seekers. Yet so many are indifferent to the suffering of the Palestinians and the African refugees who live among them. Others, committed to a humanist care ethics, surely experience this kind of frustration in their home countries.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nimrod Aloni

Nimrod Aloni is a Senior lecturer in the area of Philosophy of Education at Kibbutzim College of Education, Tel Aviv. He is the head of ‘The Institute for Progressive Education’ and holds ‘The UNESCO Chair in Humanistic Education’. In The Jerusalem Center for Ethics he is the director of the division of Ethics and Education. Prof. Aloni has published books and article mainly on humanistic education, moral education, activist pedagogy and Nietzsche’s educational thought.