Session Information
13 SES 10 A, Parallel Paper Session
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
One of the justifications for the humanities has been their contribution to developing the qualities a person needs for success as a well-informed member of society capable of thinking and speaking for him or herself. However, successful functioning is now associated with higher level cognitive operations identified with critical thinking. The humanities have been claimed as ideal vehicles for developing such skills. One may still learn ‘how to think, not what to think’, but this is conceived within a narrow range of cognitive practices that promote the aims of critical thinking. In this paper I will argue that the position of the humanities has been undermined by this appropriation and their importance in developing individual ethical sensibilities is being neglected.
There has been a substantial contribution by philosophers working in the Wittgensteinian tradition to our understanding of the personal nature of ethical perception. I will argue that the current teaching of ethics for 16- 18 year olds fails to reflect this and this is symptomatic of a wider problem in the conception of rationality in education. The Wittgensteinian perspective is characterised by concerns for the personal in ethics, the idea of the individual as an ethical perspective on the world and the ways in which we come to recognise ethical values other than by formal reason.
I will draw on comments made by Wittgenstein in his Lecture on Ethics that ethics ‘is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply’ i.e. taking seriously, and his subsequent claim that it was essential to ‘speak for oneself’ on ethical matters.
I will discuss the way in which the notion of seriousness and its connection to first person expressions of ethical perception contrasts with the way students are expected to model an idea of authoritative rational speaking (writing) on ethics in which mastery of theory, disinterested reflection on it and an ability to apply it to specific beliefs on certain moral issues are taken to express understanding, rather than a requirement they speak for themselves.
I consider two counter-arguments to my case. Firstly, that we find our ethical voice against a background of the theory, practices and language of a tradition, much as an artist might and this requires a thorough grounding. I will argue that this misrepresents the way in which the individual is placed within a tradition.
A second consideration is that current approaches are in fact appropriate. Numbers taking the subjects (see methodology) have increased and methods are embedded. Moreover, there is a vulnerability in discussing certain kinds of ethical questions that is not best supported by public institutions like schools and colleges. Therefore an impersonal theoretical approach is the right one. I will argue such an epistemology is too rigid and changes are essential to accommodate the alternative approach to ethics I advocate. These methods would go some way to reclaiming a role for the humanities in educating the heart as well as the head.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Gaita, R. (1991) ‘Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception’, Ist Edition. London: MacMillan OCR Religious Studies specification (2008) GCE Religious Studies v2 Oliphant, J. (2007) ‘OCR Religious Ethics for AS and A2’ . Mayled, J (Ed). London: Routledge Pianolta, M. (2011) ‘Speaking for Oneself: Wittgenstein on Ethics’, Inquiry Vol 54 (3) pp 252 – 276 Waismann, F. (1965) ‘Notes on Talks with Wittgenstein’, The Journal of Philosophy 74 (1) pp12 – 16 quoted in Pianolta, M. (2011) Wittgenstein, L. ‘Lecture on Ethics’. http://www.galilean-library.org/manuscript.php?postid=43866
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