John Wilson and the place of morality in education

Abstract

This paper asks whether it would be better not to talk about morality in schools. The issue is raised through a consideration of changes in public discourse and especially in educational discourse, where categories such as "personal, social and health education" and "citizenship education" are more salient than "moral education". Drawing on John Wilson's arguments, the paper considers claims for the indispensability of the concept of morality. It is argued that such claims, in Wilson's own writings, are applied to both an "individual" and a "social" conception of morality. Contrary to Wilson, the paper argues that the "wisest strategy" for public education is to take the social conception of "morality in the narrow sense" as a central focus.