Education Ethics

Chapter 11 reflects on what educators owe students in higher education institutions and the broader society when it comes to which knowledge to teach. It points out how utilitarianism and Kantianism naturally ground a cosmopolitan approach to instructing matters of culture, whereas the communal ethic does not. Rightness as friendliness instead supports prioritizing local cultures, an implication that is defended. The chapter also notes how the relational moral theory probably entails that it is right to strive to develop students’ virtue, a view that is not salient in the works of those who adhere to the Western ethical principles. Finally, the chapter considers the question of whether it can be right to instruct some knowledge for its own sake. Doing so seems ruled out by utilitarianism and Kantianism, but the relational moral theory is shown to admit of an interpretation that would permit it.