Anders Schinkel

At first glance, one of the most obvious places to look for moral progress is in individuals, in particular in moral development from childhood to adulthood. In fact, that moral progress is possible is a foundational assumption of moral education. Beyond the general agreement that moral progress is not only possible but even a common feature of human development things become blurry, however. For what do we mean by ‘progress’? And what constitutes moral progress? Does the idea of individual moral progress presuppose a predetermined end or goal of moral education and development, or not? In this article we analyze the concept of moral progress to shed light on the psychology of moral development and vice versa; these analyses are found to be mutually supportive. We suggest that: moral progress should be conceived of as development that is evaluated positively on the basis of relatively stable moral criteria that are the fruit and the subject of an ongoing conversation; moral progress does not imply the idea of an end-state; individual moral progress is best conceived of as the development of various components of moral functioning and their robust integration in a person’s identity; both children and adults can progress morally - even though we would probably not speak in terms of progress in the case of children - but adults’ moral progress is both more hard-won and to a greater extent a personal project rather than a collective effort.

There are deep connections between education and the question of life's meaning, which derive, ultimately, from the fact that, for human beings, how to live—and therefore, how to raise one's children—is not a given but a question. One might see the meaning of life as constitutive of the meaning of education, and answers to the question of life's meaning might be seen as justifying education. Our focus, however, lies on the contributory relation: our primary purpose is to investigate whether and how education might contribute to children's ability to find meaning in life or at least deal with the question. This issue is not only theoretically interesting —it also has practical urgency. For people have a need for meaning that, if unfulfilled, leads to personal and potentially social crises—a need that often expresses itself first and strongly in adolescence; and there are reasons to have doubts about the contribution of today's traditional formal education system to the meaningfulness of children's lives. We argue for the importance of frameworks of values, as well as for a greater emphasis on the affective dimension of meaning, though we reject pure subjectivism. The underlying purpose of this article, however, is not to argue for a particular comprehensive position, but to persuade philosophers of education of the importance of the issue of life's meaning in thinking about education today.

It is safe to say that in recent years there has been no dearth of publications on well-being, happiness, and human flourishing. That is true even if we disregard the psychological literature, and focus on philosophy. In 2014 alone, at least two other books have appeared with a similar purpose and purview as Badhwar’s: Paul Bloomfield’s The Virtues of Happiness and Lorraine Besser-Jones’ Eudaimonic Ethics: The Philosophy and Psychology of Living Well . The renaissance of virtue ethics, in particular the rise of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, has greatly stimulated renewed reflection on the concepts of happiness and well-being, on the relations between prudential value and moral goodness, the instrumental and intrinsic value of the virtues, and so on. In this context, it is not easy to come up with something that is both original and convincing. Neera Badhwar’s tightly argued Well-Being: Happiness in a Worthwhile Life goes a fair way towards being both, although I am n ..

The aim of this article is twofold. Against the traditional interpretation of ‘the conscience of Huckleberry Finn’ (for which Jonathan Bennett's article with this title is the locus classicus) as a conflict between conscience and sympathy, I propose a new interpretation of Huck's inner conflict, in terms of Huck's mastery of (the) moral language and its integration with his moral feelings. The second aim is to show how this interpretation can provide insight into a particular aspect of moral education: learning a moral language. A moral education that has a proper regard for the flexibility of moral language and the importance of the integration of moral language and (pre-)moral feelings should prevent such conflicts as Huck experienced from arising

In this article Doret J. de Ruyter and Anders Schinkel argue that parents' ideals can enhance children's autonomy, but that they may also have a detrimental effect on the development of children's autonomy. After describing the concept of ideals and elucidating a systems theoretical conception of autonomy, de Ruyter and Schinkel explore the ways in which the ideals of parents may play a role in the development of their children's autonomy. They show that abstract and complex ideals of parents (be it ideals for their children, ideals with regard to their parenthood, or their personal ideals) are most likely to enhance their children's autonomy. They also explain that an authoritative parenting style is most conducive to autonomy, although whether or not it does benefit children's autonomy also depends on the types of ideals pursued by parents