Abstract In this article, which is the first of two to examine the ideas of R. S. Peters on moral education, consideration is given to his justificatory arguments found in Ethics and Education. Here he employs presupposition arguments to show to what anyone engaging in moral discourse is committed. The result is a group of procedural principles which are recommended to be employed in moral education. This article is an attempt to examine the presupposition arguments Peters employs, to comment on (...) the procedural principles he believes are presupposed, and to consider the strength of the presupposition argument. My conclusion is that Peters's arguments fail to establish the conclusion he arrives at, and that any gains from the form of argument he uses are hollow. (shrink)
Abstract Peters's views on moral education are to be found in several books and articles written over a period of about 20 years. Two essential elements of his ideas are what he calls procedural principles and basic rules. This article is an attempt to consider his recommendations, particularly in terms of any practical assistance that can be derived from them for those interested in moral education. Close examination reveals some inconsistencies, vagueness and difficulties which suggest problems for his procedural approach (...) and raise the issue of whether alternative, more positive efforts should be reconsidered. (shrink)
Abstract In several recent writings, including some of those discussed below, the promotion of tolerance is advocated as part of a programme of moral education for children. This suggestion is frequently made against a background claim of a current or expected pluralism in British society, sometimes together with a belief in some form of moral relativism. My article seeks to clarify what relationship there might be between pluralism and tolerance and to go further in exploring the concept of tolerance than (...) is usually done by some who advocate it, and to consider its claimed status as a virtue fit for our children to adopt as a result of the efforts of those engaged in moral education. (shrink)
Douglas R. Anderson's Philosophy Americana reads like a series of rescue attempts: an attempt to rescue academic teaching from institutional and bureaucratic logic; to rescue philosophers such as Bugbee and Royce from their pragmatist critics; to rescue the pragmatists themselves from their would-be champions among the postmodernists; to (in a related move) save Emerson from Cavell; to save country music from the charge that it is either politically retrograde or an experiential dead-end; and to save Kerouac and the Beats (...) from the charge of nihilism or its more enjoyable cousin, hedonism. Anderson connects his chapters through a common theme: the centrality of failure and loss to American culture and the need to both be at home in/with it and to move beyond its self-limiting aspects. Though this rubric may provide us with a clue as to Anderson's temperament as a writer it does not finally provide an adequate frame for the book, which reads more like a book of related essays than... (shrink)
To be human is to humanize; a radically empirical aesthetic, by J. J. McDermott.--Dream and nightmare; the future as revolution, by R. C. Pollock.--William James and metaphysical risk, by P. M. Van Buren.--Knowing as a passionate and personal quest; C. S. Peirce, by D. B. Burrell.--The fox alone is death; Whitehead and speculative philosophy, by A. J. Reck.--A man and a city; George Herbert Mead in Chicago, by R. M. Barry.--Royce; analyst of religion as community, by J. Collins.--Human experience (...) and God; Brightman's personalistic theism, by D. Callahan.--William James and the phenomenology of religious experience, by J. M. Edie.--Pragmatism, religion, and experienceable difference, by R. W. Sleeper.--How is religious talk justifiable, by J. W. McClendon, Jr. (shrink)
The individual and society: Meerloo, J. A. M. Freedom--our mental backbone. Allport, G. Freedom. Marcuse, H. The new forms of control. Kerr, W. A. Psychology of the free competition of ideas. Eysenck, H. J. The technology of consent. Dewey, J. Toward a new individualism. Emerson, R. W. Self-reliance. Fromm, E. Freedom and democracy.--Religion and the inner man: St. Augustine. The freedom and the will. Mercier, L. J. A. Freedom of the will and psychology. Dostoyevsky, F. The grand inquisitor. Berdyaev, N. (...) Master, slave and free man. Buber, M. I and thou. Govinda, A. Time and space and the problem of free will. Prabhavananda, S. Control of the subconscious mind.--Philosophy and philosophical psychology: Bergson, H. Psychological determinism. James, W. The dilemma of determinism. Mill, J. S. The freedom of the will. Sartre, J. P. Being and doing: freedom. Wyschogrod, M. Sartre, freedom and the unconscious. May, R. Will, decision and responsibility: summary remarks. Knight, R. P. Determinism, "freedom," and psychotherapy. Royce, J. Meaning, value, and personality.--Selected bibliography (p. 393-408). (shrink)
