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In my contribution today I want to talk about the place of private schooling in a society devoted to educational justice. I should say at the outset that although there are no principled reasons for opposing private schooling - certainly none in favour of the idea that the state should have a monopoly on provision - I do not share the enthusiasm that many of today's speakers have shown for private schools. Whether or not they are consistent with a just distribution of schooling is a highly conti…Read more
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11Most of the estimated 855 million people in the world (one sixth of the population) without access to schooling are women and girls. Two thirds of the 110 million school age children not in school are girls (UNGEI, 2002). This injustice has been a focus of attempts at coordinated international policy interventions since the 1990s, sometimes loosely referred to as the Education for All (EFA) movement. The first of the millennium development targets - gender equity in education - is supposed to be…Read more
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2670Moral and political aspects of educationIn Harvey Siegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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10. Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (pp. 820-823)In Stephen Everson (ed.), Ethics, Cambridge University Press. 1998.
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19In Defence of Educational EqualityJournal of Philosophy of Education 29 (3): 415-420. 1995.The principle of educational equality is important for the plausibility of egalitarianism. I argue against John Wilson’s recent attempts to show that two particular versions of the principle are incoherent, and I rebut his argument that even if it were coherent it would be wrong to endorse it. Two other objections to this version of the principle are considered and shown not to be decisive. The principle governing the distribution of educational resources that Wilson advocates is also rejected.
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46Why Should States Fund Schools?British Journal of Educational Studies 46 (2). 1998.In arguing for government withdrawal from funding and regulating schooling, James Tooley claims that equality of opportunity in education implies only that all deserve an adequate minimum education. However, he concedes the 'abstract egalitarian thesis' that all should be treated with equal concern and respect. I show that this thesis indeed implies educational equality, and that Tooley's arguments against educational equality rest on a misunderstanding of the foundations of egalitarianism.
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33Critical Moral Liberalism: Theory and PracticePhilosophical Review 108 (3): 442. 1999.While it forms the framework for most analytical political philosophy, liberalism is widely attacked and even ridiculed outside that small world. It is, according to one widely accepted line of thinking, tainted by the color and sex of its most prominent formulators, its use in defense of the morally indefensible behavior of imperialist states and their agents, and its presumption that the rights it prescribes are applicable to all people in all places at all times.
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10A Modest Defence of School ChoiceJournal of Philosophy of Education 36 (4): 653-659. 2002.This is a response to Samara Foster’s engaging critique of my book School Choice and Social Justice. In this response to her criticisms I clarify and try to correct some apparent misunderstandings of the book, but also take the opportunity to pose again a challenge to opponents of choice which neither she, nor other of my critics, has taken up.
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139Should marxists care about alienation?Topoi 15 (2): 149-162. 1996.We have found that a sparse version of the claim that alienated labor is a bad thing can inform a political morality without turning that morality into one which makes more comment on people's ends than the liberal can accept. We have also seen that a modification of the ideas of alienation from our species being can play a limited role in a liberal political morality, but that the rational kernel of the critique from species alienation is already a familiar part of the liberal tradition. Howeve…Read more
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99On EducationRoutledge. 2005.What is education for? Should it produce workers or educate future citizens? Is there a place for faith schools - and should patriotism be taught? In this compelling and controversial book, Harry Brighouse takes on all these urgent questions and more. He argues that children share four fundamental interests: the ability to make their own judgements about what values to adopt; acquiring the skills that will enable them to become economically self-sufficient as adults; being exposed to a range of …Read more
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28Educational Justice and Socio-Economic Segregation in SchoolsJournal of Philosophy of Education 41 (4): 575-590. 2007.Sociologists exploring educational injustice often focus on socio-economic segregation as a central measure of injustice. The comprehensive ideal, furthermore, has the idea of socio-economic integration built into it. The current paper argues that socio-economic segregation is valuable only insofar as it serves other, more fundamental values. This matters because sometimes policy-makers will find themselves facing trade-offs between increasing integration and promoting the other, more fundamenta…Read more
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1CitizenshipIn Catriona McKinnon (ed.), Issues in Political Theory, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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34The egalitarian virtues of educational vouchersJournal of Philosophy of Education 28 (2). 1994.The paper argues that there is no fundamental incompatibility between the use of vouchers and managed market mechanisms in the distribution of education und the principled aims of egalitarian educational policy. It takes those aims to be equality of opportunity, education for autonomy, and democratic education, and shows in each case how a voucher scheme could accommodate the aim. It explains why a judiciously designed voucher scheme may constitute a more politically feasible method of achieving…Read more
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133Neutrality, Publicity, and State Funding of the ArtsPhilosophy and Public Affairs 24 (1): 35-63. 1995.
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10Is There a Neutral Justification for Liberalism?†Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (3): 193-215. 2017.Neutralist defenses of liberalism fail because they cannot account for essential features of an acceptable liberal theory: a firm guarantee for a sphere of individual liberty, an account of our interest in being able to revise our moral commitments, a wide range of applicability, and the possibility of legitimate government in the face of rejection by unreasonable citizens. A liberalism based on the value of autonomy can address the problems which motivate neutralists, while succeeding in provid…Read more
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2436What's wrong with privatising schools?Journal of Philosophy of Education 38 (4). 2004.Full privatisation of schools would involve states abstaining from providing, funding or regulating schools. I argue that full privatisation would, in most circumstances, worsen social injustice in schooling. I respond to James Tooley's critique of my own arguments for funding and regulation and markets. I argue that even his principle of educational adequacy requires a certain level of state involvement and demonstrate that his arguments against a principle of educational equality fail. I show,…Read more
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36Distribution of what? How will we know if we have achieved education for all by 2015?3rd Conference on the Capabilities Approach. 2003.In 1990 at the Jomtein Conference in Thailand organised by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP and the World Bank the 157 governments present agreed to a Declaration, the World Declaration on Education for All that signalled their commitment to achieve Education for All (EFA) by 2000. EFA was not defined succinctly, but was laid out as comprising: universal access to education services ‘of quality’; equity with regard to removing disparities ‘in access to learning opportunities’ for certain groups (girls.
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18A Modest Defence of School ChoiceJournal of Philosophy of Education 36 (4): 653-659. 2002.This is a response to Samara Foster’s engaging critique of my book School Choice and Social Justice. In this response to her criticisms I clarify and try to correct some apparent misunderstandings of the book, but also take the opportunity to pose again a challenge to opponents of choice which neither she, nor other of my critics, has taken up.
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84Should We Teach Patriotic History?In Kevin McDonough & Walter Feinberg (eds.), Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities, Oxford University Press. 2003.Harry Brighouse’s essay concludes Part I of the book by taking up one aspect of the task of clarifying the role of common education, by applying it to the teaching of patriotism in public schools. He asks whether liberal and cosmopolitan values are compatible with a common education aimed at fostering patriotic attachment to the nation. He examines numerous arguments recently developed to justify fostering patriotism in common schools from a liberal–democratic perspective, and finds them all wan…Read more
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53Political Equality and the Funding of Political SpeechSocial Theory and Practice 21 (3): 473-500. 1995.
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Liberal legitimacy and civic educationIn Stephen Everson (ed.), Ethics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 108--4. 1998.
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1011Equality of opportunity and complex equality: The special place of schooling (review)Res Publica 13 (2): 147-158. 2007.This paper is an engagement with Equality by John Baker, Kathleen Lynch, Judy Walsh and Sara Cantillon. It identifies a dilemma for educational egalitarians, which arises within their theory of equality, arguing that sometimes there may be a conflict between advancing equality of opportunity and providing equality of respect and recognition, and equality of love care and solidarity. It argues that the latter values may have more weight in deciding what to do than traditional educational egalitar…Read more
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