Character education and the instability of virtue

Journal of Philosophy of Education 56 (6):889-898 (2022)
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Abstract

Character education in schools in England is flourishing. I give many examples of the enthusiasm for it as well as drawing attention to the UK government's new ambivalence towards it. Character education seems largely impervious to the many criticisms to which it has been subjected. I touch on these only briefly as my focus is on a criticism that has received little coverage. This is because the virtues on offer are unstable. They are best understood as sites on which we contest our understanding of what it is to be a good person rather than reach conclusive answers. There is support for this argument in Aristotle, notwithstanding its many oddities and those of some modern uses of his conception of the virtues. The proliferation of the virtues in the practice and theory of education today is, I suggest, a sign of weakness and not of strength, while the very instability of the virtues demands that they be continually discussed and debated. This places them at the heart of any vision of education worth having.

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References found in this work

The Sovereignty of Good.Iris Murdoch - 1971 - Religious Studies 8 (2):180-181.
A case for irony.Jonathan Lear - 2011 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility.James Montmarquet - 1992 - American Philosophical Quarterly 29 (4):331-341.
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals.Iris Murdoch & Peter J. Conradi - 2001 - Journal of Religious Ethics 29 (2):307-335.

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