Johannes Giesinger

In this essay, Johannes Giesinger comments on the current philosophical debate on educational justice. He observes that while authors like Elizabeth Anderson and Debra Satz develop a so-called adequacy view of educational justice, Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift defend an egalitarian principle. Giesinger focuses his analysis on the main objection that is formulated, from an egalitarian perspective, against the adequacy view: that it neglects the problem of securing fair opportunities in the competition for social rewards. Giesinger meets this objection by expressing two basic theses: First, he argues that Brighouse and Swift themselves fail to give an adequate account of fair competition; and, second, he shows that the adequacy view provides the theoretical resources to face this problem.

This article discusses the educational significance of the moral demand for respect. In Ethics and Education, Richard Peters presents a conception of educational respect that was recently taken up by Krassimir Stojanov. This article responds to both Peters' and Stojanov's contributions and proposes another understanding of educational respect: to respect children is to treat them in a way that enables them to see themselves as persons endowed with dignity; that is, as having the equal standing to make claims on others