Abstract

Education and Human Values provides valuable (if narrow) contributions to the philosophy of education and the ethics of care. The ethics of care, or care ethics, is distinguished from the three main schools of normative ethics—Kantianism and other forms of deontological rationalism, consequentialism of various kinds, and Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics—because it takes the importance of empathy and caring relationships as its starting point. Slote has provided the outlines of such a philosophy in his earlier work, especially The Ethics of Care and Empathy and Moral Sentimentalism, and here develops new ideas and arguments that are worthwhile reading for those interested in the ethics of care or the philosophy of education, and might be assigned in classes on those topics. It may also have value to those interested in moral sentimentalism in general. Those in the aforementioned groups, however, should take the time to read it and consider its arguments.