**4. The educational power of the content of values, social context and formal moral principles**

Pluralism is thus in a certain sense a solution even in the postmodern era, where, on the one hand, education is pushed into an amalgam of competences, while on the other there is talk of the twilight of ideologies and values. This provokes the question of how, in such a society, to plan education in accordance with the categorical requirements of classic moral principles such as the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you). Elster posits the question even more radically. How should I respect the golden moral rule if I can reasonably expect that acting in accordance with this rule will not be reciprocated? Is the individual obliged to act morally in situations when others do not? Does this not also nullify my obligation in respect of the moral law? What answer does pedagogical theory give? We cannot but agree with Elster that "the moral obligation in such cases may be quite different from what it would be on the assumption of universality of moral behaviour" [10].

individuals to freely realise their life prospects. Horkheimer later observes this goal in the context of the study of negative dialectics and distances himself from it. Because individualistic emancipation really means, first of all "an enormous extension of human control over nature … which finally becomes an obstacle to further development and drives humanity into a new barbarism that ends in an irrational system of division of human domination over nature, in which, within the social organism, man's domination over nature is reproduced as man's domination over man" [8]. Horkheimer thus understands emancipation as an ambivalent phenomenon that is realised in opposing value dimensions, and thus talks about "benign" (*gutartige*) and "malign" (*bösartige*) emancipation. The process of emancipation in society always

78 New Pedagogical Challenges in the 21st Century - Contributions of Research in Education

contains the risk of "benign" emancipation being reduced to "malign" emancipation.

**4. The educational power of the content of values, social context and** 

Pluralism is thus in a certain sense a solution even in the postmodern era, where, on the one hand, education is pushed into an amalgam of competences, while on the other there is talk of the twilight of ideologies and values. This provokes the question of how, in such a society, to plan education in accordance with the categorical requirements of classic moral principles such as the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you). Elster posits the question even more radically. How should I respect the golden moral rule if I can reasonably expect that acting in accordance with this rule will not be reciprocated? Is the individual obliged to act morally in situations when others do not? Does this not also nullify my obligation in respect of the moral law? What answer does pedagogical theory give? We cannot but agree

**formal moral principles**

A critique of the individualistic understanding of emancipation is also offered by Hannah Arendt. I cite her because she shows how emancipation can oppose pluralism. In her opinion, the autonomy of the individual is the myth of the atomised modern society, since "sovereignty, the ideal of uncompromising self-sufficiency and mastership, is contradictory to the very condition of plurality. No man can be sovereign because not one man, but men, inhabit the earth" [9]. Arendt accepted pluralism as a fundamental characteristic of human existence and action, since "to be" means "to be among men" [9]. In her opinion, a unitary ideological system represents the same threat to plurality as an atomised modern society and moral individualism. We will encounter this question once again when considering the problem of individual morality (which we shall analyse in the context of the implementation of human rights within the legal order) and will arrive at similar conclusions. Arendt's *vita activa* is conceived as an anthropology that defines the three key aspects of the human condition: labour, work and action. It is *action* that is the essence of human existence. Within it, we might also seek important implications for the modern understanding of education. For an individual, as Arendt puts it, can live in society without ever doing anything or even creating anything, but cannot live without acting [9]. Action for her means a sign of integration between people, and it is in integration that the essence of pluralism lies. That which takes place between individuals always points to their uniqueness, diversity and difference. Pluralism is a substantive point of human existence. Plurally understood interpersonal integration is the core of all other integrations, including the integration of customs and values.

Deriving from Elster's question is the currently extremely widely held opinion that it is simply not possible to understand a value correctly if we do not place it into a real context. The importance of real context for moral decision-making is greater than an abstract moral principle or value. That is why moral education today cannot close itself in the safe framework of the tradition of 2000-year-old values. Much has changed even in the way we talk about morals and moral education. Even in everyday speech and theoretical discussions, a certain discomfort can be sensed when we talk about "morals" or "moral education." The very phrase "moral education" sounds patronising and archaic. It contains no hint of the autonomy that, for the morally mature individual, is something as self-evident as the universality of moral principles or values. That is why, rather than about "moral education," we prefer today to talk about "formation of the moral self-image," in this way hoping to express the point of our previous reflection, namely that we understand the formation of the moral self-image far more broadly than moral instruction or a moral lesson. In the foreground, we place the educator's task of awakening in the child an awareness of the context of moral action, so that they become sensitive to the feelings of others, make independent and considered decisions about their actions and, finally, create and define their own personal ideals. This, however, requires a change in the way we view the importance of the content of values. As we will see later, formal moral principles (for example, the Golden Rule, Kant's categorical imperative, Aristotle's doctrine of the mean) are more important for the development of moral self-image than the content of values. The formal moral principle, in the words of Renata Salecl [11], is a substantively "empty universal idea… that can perform an affirmative and critical function" in the moral decisionmaking of the individual. Because of its "emptiness," it has a universal character and in every context enables a judgement that is the basis for a duly weighed moral decision. It might be better to talk about the "self-formation of the moral image" than about formation of the moral self-image. Here the emphasis on the activity of the individual is even greater and induces pedagogical reflections on our willingness to completely change our view of the process of socialisation and to talk instead about self-socialisation or self-education. It is of course worth being cautious about this idea, since it verges on the known phenomena of those free schools which the environment has proved unable to accept because they have slid into an anarchic educational style when teachers have been unable to respond productively to the freedom of the children. The schools that have been able to do this have been successful, as demonstrated by, among others, the classic case of Summerhill, the boarding school founded by A. S. Neill.

Among the attempts to enable pedagogical theory to go beyond the paternalistic orientation of moral education is the substitution of the expression "moral" with the expression "prosocial." Prosociality brings three important advantages to the theory of socialisation: (a) it highlights the importance of social situation or context, (b) it places the learner in an active relationship and, most importantly, (c) it places the *experiential learning of moral relationships, practices and values* in the foreground [5]. Compared to moral instruction, persuasion, example and other methods of traditional paternalistic moral education, prosociality is a highly complex phenomenon. For example, it also inherently includes the practising of various virtues such as participation, tolerance, cooperativeness, support for common goals and sensitivity in interpersonal relations.

The problem, however, is that it is not possible to unconditionally ascribe to the principle of proactivity the universality that applies to moral principles such as the Golden Rule. It is a similar situation with responsibility. In the case of responsibility, it is necessary to ask "responsibility to whom and for what," and in the case of proactivity, we have to ask "proactivity with whom and in what." Responsible (proactive) cooperation in an immoral action—in fraud, for example— is immoral. The essence of the moral thus cannot be defined either by responsibility or by proactivity. The same applies to other values such as freedom and justice. In reality, moral dilemmas are not clarified for us by values or their content. The response to dilemmas is to think about the quality of the objective that the individual is attempting to achieve responsibly, proactively and fairly. It follows from this that it is not possible to conclude directly from the *content* of a value whether a moral decision is good or bad. It is, for example, difficult to say in an absolute sense what is just. Lempert [12] thinks that expressing a *negative* assessment, in other words defining what is *not* just, is easier than assessing what is just. The value of justness, for example, becomes relevant in the case of an apology for or criticism of social inequality. But who in society should be the measure of what equal treatment or equal access to social goods actually means? May we (or should we) consider equity in access to goods on the basis of how this is experienced by those sections of society that feel discriminated against or underprivileged?

of conventional rules consistently, in accordance with the rules, while moral domains require special treatment because of their complexity. They contain norms on which the agreement (non-violence) that applies to conventional norms is not possible. The critical point of the theory of social domains perhaps lies in the actual classification of domains, above all in the danger that differences in the treatment of domains are absolutised into a didactic rule and, as a result, less

Education (*Bildung*) for Values

81

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.72450

Modern theories offer no concrete new answer to Elster's question of how we should act when we cannot expect reciprocity of moral action. The theory remains at the level of a warning to give careful consideration to context. We do, however, find an answer from the past, one that is precisely 101 years old. On the last page of his *Democracy and Education*, right at the end of his reflection, Dewey writes: "The something for which a man must be good is capacity to live as a social member so that what he gets from living with others balances with what he contributes" [16]. This formulation is somewhat similar to a categorical moral principle but in fact hypothetically expresses the requirement for proportionality in action. Elster's dilemma is thus an old one and a part of the life of society in all civilisations. The appeal to proportionality has always been a matter of the judgement and decision of the individual. Seminar students have frequently argued about whether Dewey's proportionality principle is an invitation to the morality of revenge, before finally concluding that it is an invitation to everyone to act positively towards others even in unfavourable circumstances, since according to

The pluralism of the modern age introduces a new characteristic to proportionality of action in that it also requires us to understand the customs and habits of other cultures and to recognise their moral code, before accepting a given action as immoral. Once again the idea is confirmed that moral activity cannot be understood simply and is not "learned" without wise

Ethical pluralism needs to be explained in more detail, since I am thinking here not only of a diversity of values, but of something deeper, of the pluralism of ethical discourses or paradigms. If we follow the structure of ethical discourses used by Kymlicka in *Contemporary Political Philosophy* [17], we find that political philosophies are characterised by three ethical discourses: liberal (libertarian), communitarian and the ethics of care. I shall begin by giving a brief and general definition of all three discourses. The *libertarian* discourse places freedom and autonomy in the foreground. Its key value or virtue is justice, and human rights are its key civilisational achievement. *Communitarianism* places commitment to the community in the foreground. Its key value is the common good, within which social rights are fundamental values and solidarity is a fundamental virtue. The *ethics of care* is focused on the intimate sphere of life, on the quality of interpersonal relations, on a feeling of connection and human

closeness. Its fundamental virtue is positive acknowledgement of one's neighbour.

attention is devoted to consideration of context in education.

Dewey's principle they can expect a positive response.

judgement and *sensus communis* or "communal sense."

**5. The school and ethical pluralism**

**5.1. On ethical pluralism**

Numerous discussions also draw attention to the fact that in the case of education for values it is necessary to take into account the nature of different values. Oser and Althof [13] believed that fundamental values should be given a special place in education compared to concrete values. Concrete values (possessing a toy, visiting a friend, helping the poor) should be preferences which can be established through observation of a concrete individual in concrete life circumstances and which may therefore be exposed to constant judgement. This also resolves to a certain extent the question of sensitivity to context. The problem, however, lies with fundamental values. In the opinion of Oser and Althof, it is not possible to understand these values when we are thinking of something concrete, and it is therefore simply not possible to judge them in concrete situations because, by their nature, they have universal value. This is a question that is also triggered in the case of human rights. On the one hand, they demand concrete engagement, while on the other, as commonly universal rights, they are not sufficiently transparent, particularly when it comes to their mutual hierarchy, when, for example, insults and hate speech are propagated in the name of the right to freedom of speech. Fundamental values (responsibility, justice, freedom, equality) should be able to be proved by intercultural studies, by the fact that some values are above concrete values and also above culturally specific values and we are able to attribute them the same moral criteria everywhere [14] stand these values when we are thinking of something concrete, and it is therefore simply context. According to Oser and Althof, taking context into account in the education process could, in the case of fundamental values, lead to a relativisation of values and to a dilution of them that would make it impossible for young people to adopt a value as something that is their own and they accept as a value towards which they strive for its own sake.

Attention is also drawn to the different position of "values" in education by the theory of social domains, which distinguishes between the moral and conventional domain and the domain of personal choice [15, 5]. This theory recommends that schools act differently in relation to the different domains. They should deal more tolerantly with personal choices and treat infringements of conventional rules consistently, in accordance with the rules, while moral domains require special treatment because of their complexity. They contain norms on which the agreement (non-violence) that applies to conventional norms is not possible. The critical point of the theory of social domains perhaps lies in the actual classification of domains, above all in the danger that differences in the treatment of domains are absolutised into a didactic rule and, as a result, less attention is devoted to consideration of context in education.

Modern theories offer no concrete new answer to Elster's question of how we should act when we cannot expect reciprocity of moral action. The theory remains at the level of a warning to give careful consideration to context. We do, however, find an answer from the past, one that is precisely 101 years old. On the last page of his *Democracy and Education*, right at the end of his reflection, Dewey writes: "The something for which a man must be good is capacity to live as a social member so that what he gets from living with others balances with what he contributes" [16]. This formulation is somewhat similar to a categorical moral principle but in fact hypothetically expresses the requirement for proportionality in action. Elster's dilemma is thus an old one and a part of the life of society in all civilisations. The appeal to proportionality has always been a matter of the judgement and decision of the individual. Seminar students have frequently argued about whether Dewey's proportionality principle is an invitation to the morality of revenge, before finally concluding that it is an invitation to everyone to act positively towards others even in unfavourable circumstances, since according to Dewey's principle they can expect a positive response.

The pluralism of the modern age introduces a new characteristic to proportionality of action in that it also requires us to understand the customs and habits of other cultures and to recognise their moral code, before accepting a given action as immoral. Once again the idea is confirmed that moral activity cannot be understood simply and is not "learned" without wise judgement and *sensus communis* or "communal sense."
