Session Information
Session 7B, Problems of Moral Education (Part 1)
Papers
Time:
2005-09-09
09:00-10:30
Room:
ENG
Chair:
Zdenko Kodelja
Contribution
This discussion of the relationship between justice and empathy in the conceptualization of the moral point of view attempts to respond to the frequently-voiced suggestion that the familiar judgment-centered approach to practical ethics education fails to appreciate the contribution empathy makes to moral reflection. Using Gibbs' recent work on justice and caring in the moral domain as a foil, we adumbrate two broad views on the role of empathy in moral reasoning-namely, the later Kohlbergian (1990) view that the moral point of view involves balancing the interests of justice and benevolence and Hoffman's (2000) idea, derived from moral sense theory, that an interest in morality supposes empathic engagement. In Moral development and reality (2003), Gibbs develops an integrative component conceptualization of the moral point of view. He argues that neither an interest in justice nor caring alone is capable of capturing the moral domain and that, accordingly, any balanced comprehension of moral maturity must account for both sub-components. The Kohlbergian theory of cognitive moral development captures the justice component, he argues, by articulating the growth of a more differentiated understanding of the meaning of fairness whereas Hoffman's theory of empathic moral development renders the same service to the empathy component by articulating the emergence of feelings connected with the avoidance of others' suffering. A closer look at Hoffman's and Kohlberg's own views on this issue, however, suggests that neither thinker would agree with Gibbs' compromise. Hoffman (2000) makes it explicit that his theory of empathic development was never intended to sit passively alongside Kohlberg's. Instead, it is best understood as a rectification of its underdeveloped answer to the crucial question of why people are ever interested in morality, a theoretical inadequacy Hoffman attributes to the Kohlbergian theory's exaggerated focus on rational, cognitive processes. In essence, Hoffman fills in this gap with the claim that human beings' interest in morality presupposes an active interest in others' well-being, a staple of moral sense theory. For Kohlberg's part, in a late publication he seems to endorse an interpretation of the moral point of view that leans towards this thesis as well. He argues that the fundamental moral notion "respect for persons" idealized in Stage 6 presupposes the co- primacy of justice and benevolence. In this conception, justice constrains benevolence by ensuring that the interest in promoting the good for some respects the rights of others while benevolence constrains justice by ensuring that the interest in promoting individuals' rights is consistent with the best for all. Hoffman's, Kohlberg's and indeed Gibbs' interpretations of the moral point of view all suggest that the educational question of what kinds of experiences help to foster the development of caring for others' well-being and interests is just as crucial as that of the conditions propitious to cognitive moral development. In connection with practical ethics education in particular, the implication unique to Hoffman and Kohlberg's idea that an interest in benevolence or empathy is a precondition of moral performance writ large is that even the frequently maligned judgment-centered approaches to practical ethics education-if we can concede that the model of practical wisdom promoted there captures at least something of the moral point of view-must already have some hand in the promotion of empathic development. Rather than a vindication of the explicit neglect of empathic development in practical ethics education, however, this argument underscores that the right approach to practical ethics education is the one that it is consistent with the actual relationship between the interest of justice and the interest of benevolence in the way people think about moral problems.
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