Learning from Moral Failure

Pedagogical environments are often designed to minimize the chance of people acting wrongly; surely this is a sensible approach. But could it ever be useful to design pedagogical environments to permit, or even encourage, moral failure? If so, what are the circumstances where moral failure can be beneficial? What types of moral failure are helpful for learning, and by what mechanisms? This chapter considers the possibility that moral failure can be an especially effective tool in fostering learning. It also considers the obvious costs and potential risks of allowing or fostering moral failure. It concludes by suggesting research directions that would help to establish whether, when, and how moral pedagogy might be facilitated by letting students learn from moral failure.