Can we teach moral reasoning?

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  • Behaviour change
  • Health & wellbeing

There is currently another curriculum review underway in the UK. Emma Worley asks whether lessons in morality be considered within the review and if schools should 'build character and virtue', how should this be done?

"Over the last two decades, many would agree that our educational philosophy at every level has been more and more dominated by an instrumentalist model; less and less concerned with a building of virtue, character and citizenship - 'civic excellence' as we might say. And a good educational system in a healthy society is one that builds character, that builds virtue.”

This was said in the House of Lords by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, following the recall to parliament last week.

The BBC ran a series of lectures by Harvard University professor Michael Sandel during its Justice season earlier this year. The programmes were recordings of his moral and political philosophy course, Justice: A Journey in Moral Reasoning. The course covers a range of political, ethical and moral issues from utilitarianism to surrogate motherhood and military service. Sandel’s classes are not lectures in the traditional sense. He does not stand in front of his packed audience (up to 1000 students at a time) and tell them about philosophers and arguments whilst they take notes. Instead, he facilitates philosophical enquiries, asks questions, and seeks reasons why students think what they think, he links ideas around the room, seeks tension in the dialogue and creates debate so that the participants are engaged in an interactive discussion.

These are lessons in moral reasoning, where the students think about decisions they might make, and then think further about why they might make them, the impact of their decisions on wider society and how this might affect everyone universally. This kind of enquiry can be fertile ground for re-thinking and re-evaluating students preconceived and sometimes knee-jerk reactions to moral dilemmas. It enables people to ‘practice’ moral decision making in a safe environment.

Why would lessons in moral reasoning be better than, for instance, learning about ethics, or considering different religions or lessons in citizenship? The answer perhaps lies in Dr Williams’ comment about the growing instrumenalism of our education system. Too much emphasis has been placed on passing exams, getting the right answer and moving up to the next level or shipping out as quickly as possible. Education is seen as a way to get a job, rather than a way to live in a community or for the sake of the flourishing individual. Utility has become king and as a result teaching seems to be focused on answers rather than on exploring questions; this is not down to teachers alone, but more on the pressure placed upon them to get children to recite the ‘facts’ in order to pass their exams.

Learning moral behaviour as a set of propositional facts to be churned out in exams, may have its role but there are limitations to this approach as stated by Aristotle, some two and a half thousand years ago. He noticed that people who are unrestrained in their actions (they act immorally or have a ‘weakness of the will’) resemble those asleep, drunk or mad. They may be able to reel off the moral verses of Empedocles yet they do not know what they mean, and therefore fail to act upon Empedocles' advice. They are like an actor speaking a part who does not have any understanding of the words spoken. Knowledge and moral behaviour takes time, Aristotle says, for it "to become part of the tissue of the mind".

In the classroom if you ask young children how they should behave they will generally respond with lists of moral behaviour taught to them by the school: ‘listen to each other, respect each other, don’t laugh at people’ and so on. But they do not necessarily act upon these well rehearsed lines. Though children tell teachers and parents what they want to hear they often act upon another set of principles. These principles are ‘operational beliefs’; the beliefs they implicitly hold and act upon, in contrast to ‘received beliefs’ which are those received from parents, teachers and society (and to be found on any classroom wall as ‘School Rules’).

It could be that moral education should begin in a received belief way, something Aristotle may assent to, but there is a point at which one must move beyond this so that the value of the good behaviour is recognised as such. The question then is how do we help children make the journey from received to operational beliefs? How do we make good, virtuous behaviour, part of what Aristotle called 'the tissue of the mind', so that good behaviour is internalised or naturalised? So that virtuous behaviour is part of what one is disposed to do rather than merely a list of principles on which one should act but doesn’t?

This is where moral reasoning as philosophical enquiry could help. By engaging students in a moral dialogue they have to think about why it is good to do one thing over another. They have to go beyond their immediate wants and consider other peoples opinions, beliefs and feelings, then take it further and apply these thoughts universally. Moral reasoning and enquiry are not just an exercise in rational thought, in premises and conclusions, but an engagement with the topic under debate, others in the room, and society at large; a way to listen to others and to creatively rethink and reflect upon our own thoughts and beliefs.

It is reflection that is perhaps crucial in moral development. It is by reflecting on our actions and thoughts and relating these to others and the wider world that we can consider whether what we do is right, or wrong.


Emma Worley is co-founder of educational charity The Philosophy Foundation. For more on philosophical enquiry see 'The If Machine: Philosophical Enquiry in the Classroom' available from the Philosophy Foundation.

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  • Very interesting. I'm actually thinking about studying to teach citizenship - I would hope that this could entail the more dialectical style that Sandel uses. I was actually glad when I heard this had become part of the curriculum, I'm 31 and we didn't have anything like that when I was in school. I don't think I'm pushing it to say that it could be a powerful and transformative development for civil society, along with much broader progressive economic and democratic reforms.

    At my college there was a course in 'Thinking Studies'. Of course we mocked this a bit. But I now think this might have been brilliant. What you say about 'propositional facts' is I think spot on. We need to encourage a broader type of reason, and learning, that is not simply about a rational outcome (e.g. exams) - this is a very narrow type of knowledge. I think the reason it's so pervading currently (although it may be beginning to be challenged) is because of nature of modernity, the power of science, and the broadly teleological and rational idea of 'value' we've adopted in the West. It's hard to assess the value of values and morals this way, they are more complex and built on empathy and non-instrumentalism, actually on emotion to some extent, and the cynicism and scepticism of modern life and modern notions of value I think undermines such ideas.

    I also think this is part of what lies behind the recent events in the UK. It feels like there's a fine line between saying there are external reasons for these things happening and denying that people should take individual responsibility for their action, which is certainly not what I'm saying. But they went for trainers and iPhones, and most importantly, the thrill I think. What kind of culture have we created where these things have value over others, like community or solidarity? Where people have so little confidence of being able to change their lives that they are caught up in a kind of selfish and nihilistic immediacy?

    And I'd give up on categorical imperatives. If we had an more empowering and democratic political system then I think there's plenty that the vast majority could agree on as being right or just. How do we create an environment where this happens, not just in classrooms? I think this has to be one of the main challenges for people concerned with changing the world for the better.

    That's just what I reckon anyway.
     

  • Yes, indeed, we were talking this morning about the philosophical differences between cognitivist and non-cognitivist approaches to moral reasoning. However, I do not think it is necessarily as dichotomous as morality either being cognitive or non-cognitive. On a personal note I attended a course (many years ago) on advertising and neuro-linguistic programming which highlighted the manipulation we are prone to everyday. When I asked about how it was possible to 'defend' yourself from this manipulation the course facilitator said that being aware of it was the first step. I think self-reflection and dialogue using reasoning (creative and critical thinking and argumentation) can be hugely important in moral development for this reason. The power of dialogue was shown during the riots by the Muslim and Sikh communities in Birmingham after the three young men were killed. 

    There is some research into the affective skills that philosophical enquiry can develop on the Montclair State University IAPC research site.

  • Hi Tim, I take Dr William's reference to the instrumentalist model to be schools focusing on results rather than the whole child. Schools are run as industrial factories churning out children as products, creativity and divergent thinking are side-lined in favour of passing exams. For more on this see Sir Ken Robinson on changing the education paradigms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... or read his re-released "Out of Our Minds".

  • Emma - can you explain to me what the problem Dr Rowan Williams has with an instrumentalist model?  Engaging students in a moral dialogue would seem all to the good - but could it lead to them developing an instrurmentalist model of their own, much as some philosophers have?  Would this interfere with them also developing 'civic excellence’, 'character' and 'virtue', even if they chose not to use this language?

  • I'm less pessimistic than you about finding a list of valid moral rules to impart. 'Don't loot', for example. But my point really was that moral education is not only, and perhaps not primarily, an intellectual matter - not just a matter of reasoning well or thinking clearly or forming the right moral beliefs. As Rowan Williams suggests in your opening quote, it's also about shaping character, about making children care about doing the right thing. This is more affective rather than cognitive.