Moral Philosophy and Teacher's Role

Our class recently read chapter 1.2 in a book by Louis Pojman. The chapter was titled “What is Moral Philosophy?”. This chapter lists five purposes for morality:

1. To keep society from falling apart.
2. To ameliorate human suffering.
3. To promote human flourishing.
4. To resolve conflicts of interest in just and orderly ways.
5. To assign praise and blame, reward, and punishment, and guilt. (Pojman, 1995)

I agree with these to some extent, but think Pojman’s description of the problems without morality are a bit extreme. I do think society would fall apart without some sense of morality. Morals contribute to the making of laws, which provide a framework upon which individuals can live their lives. I think today there is a wide range in the amounts of morality that people have. Some people are very moral and some are not. I think it will always be that way. It’s sort of like the checks and balances system we have in government. Moral people are needed to balance the immoral.

When applied to education, what is the teacher’s role? Youth learn and grow a great deal from parents/role models. Ideally, parents, religion, and society as a whole, would contribute to instilling the morals and values in youth. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be good enough these days. There are too many kids these days that grow up in households lacking in model moral behavior. Teachers need to help reinforce and instill some common moral values. If we didn’t have some expectations for student behavior, instruction would be disrupted and ineffective. I think it’s especially important to put an emphasis on instilling these moral values in the earlier grades. As kids start getting to the middle school ages, they start becoming more set in their moral values.

Reference:

Pojman, L (1995). What is Moral Philosophy?, Technology and values (pp. 11-23).