Abstract

The role of rules in moral education has often been recognised by moral philosophers, but sometimes with the implication that this role is rather unimportant from the moral philosopher's point of view. Thus Geoffrey Warnock (1971, p. 51): It is often said, reasonably enough, that the moral education of children at any rate may include, at a certain stage, the promulgation to them by parents and teachers of rules for their conduct on certain moral matters.… However, if it is to be admitted that there are moral rules in this sense, it must surely be added at once that they are of no great theoretical importance.