Nel Noddings is arguably one of the premier philosophers of moral education in the English‐speaking world today. Although she is outside the mainstream theory, research, and practice traditions of cognitive‐developmentalism (the Kohlberg legacy) and of character education (which is in public ascendancy), her body of work is unrivalled for originality of insight, comprehensiveness and coherence. Whilst Carol Gilligan's In a different voice (1982) introduced the ethic of caring into academic and public discourse, it is Noddings ‘who has done most to (...) outline a specific feminist position on moral education’ (McClellan, 1999, p. 104), and whose influence extends to educational practice. This essay explicates Noddings's vision in sufficient depth to make the foregoing claims credible. Thematic focus is given to her attention to the ethical self or ethical ideal. The paper also examines Noddings's perspective on character education and the need to incorporate a morality of evil into any serious educational philosophy or practice. It is less a critical appraisal of that vision and perspective than an invitation to others to more fully engage with Noddings's writings.1. (shrink)

In Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis wonders why it took the Church so long to condemn slavery unequivocally. Indeed, the place of slavery in Catholic teaching provides a test case of change in official Church intellectual tradition. This paper examines the divergent arguments of four authors who have written about Church teaching on slavery: Pope Leo XIII, Fr. Joel S. Panzer, Judge John T. Noonan Jr., and Fr. John Francis Maxwell. It considers the statement on slavery in the Catechism of the (...) Catholic Church in light of Pope John Paul II’s meditation on the nature of human labor in Laborem exercens, itself a meditation on Leo’s Rerum novarum (On the Condition of Labor), and offers a critique of the position that papal teaching, because it must be self-consistent, is therefore irreformable or unsusceptible to development. This provides one response to the pope’s provocative question. (shrink)

Despite the affirmation below from a chapter entitled “The Moral Self” in his Ethics, Deweyseems not to have used the term “moralself” outside that context. Perhaps he didn’t think it that crucial in his overall philosophy. I argue, on the contrary, that the concept ofthe moralself is fundamental to Deweyan moral psychology and that it provides an illuminating lens through which to view his philosophy of education. This paper explicates Dewey’s perspective on moral education as education of the moral self.