Dwight R. Boyd

The Legacies of Liberalism and Oppressive Relations: Facing a Dilemma for the Subject of Moral Education

This paper was written for presentation as the annual Kohlberg Memorial Lecture for the Association for Moral Education (AME). The AME is an interdisciplinary, international organization founded at Harvard in 1976 for the purpose of sharing academic and practical perspectives on moral education.

The Condition of Sophomoritis and its Educational Cure

Abstract A problematic phase in the transition from conventional to principled moral judgement is characterized as the condition of ‘sophomoritis’. Then an experimental course designed around this problem is described. The course sought to integrate material from ‘Introductory Ethics’ courses with perspectives on moral development from Kohlbergs theory. The effects of the course are described in terms of change on Kohlbergs stages and in terms of qualitative analysis of interview data. The quantitative data indicate an average development of one‐third of a stage, compared to no change in a comparison group. The qualitative analysis presents a framework within which the condition of sophomoritis can be understood in more depth and the impact of this educational experiment can be described.

Dominance Concealed through Diversity: Implications of Inadequate Perspectives on Cultural Pluralism.

After the publication of “The Moral Part of Pluralism as the Plural Part of Moral Education” (Chapter 5), I became increasingly interested in why the question that motivated that paper was not getting more attention in the literature and in public discussions. That question concerned what moral perspective could effectively ground commitments to deep cultural pluralism.

A Question of Adequate Aims.

I wrote this paper as my contribution to the 25th anniversary issue of The Journal of Moral Education in 1996. Since its first issue in 1971 until now this journal has been the only English refereed journal in the field of moral education. As such, it has been the central academic forum for sharing work in this field, having matured now to the point of serving this function world-wide for a genuinely international body of contributors and readership.

An Interpretation of Principled Morality

Abstract The commonly used notion of principled morality is interpreted philosophically and psychologically. Five sets of philosophical assumptions embedded in this notion are identified, dealing with the purpose of morality, the place of reason in morality, the autonomy of the moral agent, the autonomy of moral discourse and the nature of moral principles. An attempt is made to make these assumptions more meaningful to the non‐philosophical reader by offering a phenomenological account of how they might be reflected in the real processes of moral judgment. The interpretation emphasizes the dynamic nature of principled moral judgment.

The Moral Part of Pluralism as the Plural Part of Moral Education

This paper is my response to an invitation to participate in a conference entitled “Moral Education in a Pluralistic Society” at Notre Dame University. The conference organizers also anticipated using the presentations as chapters in an edited book, subsequently published as The Challenge of Pluralism: Education, Politics, and Values (Power & Lapsley, 1992).

Moral Education, Objectively Speaking

This is a paper on one of the perennial, really big questions of ethics – the question of “objectivity” in moral judgment. In plain words, that question is, “What sense, if any, can we make of our felt experience that some moral judgments and their concomitant actions are ‘better than’ others?” Despite appearing in different forms to different philosophers, its difficulty and centrality to moral experience has been recognized by most, resulting in a very rich and varied history even just in Western philosophy.

Perspectives on Moral Education Within the Canadian Multicultural Mosaic

Abstract This article provides an overview of the current situation and problems of moral education in Canada today. After a brief summary of some multicultural dimensions of the Canadian context, three difficulties in point of view are discussed. The first concerns the status and nature of official policy on moral education within Canadian educational jurisdictions. The second identifies two general directions of contemporary change in Canadian society with high potential to affect moral education in incompatible ways. Finally, it is argued that the most crucial problems revolve around the central role of the teacher in moral education efforts.

Character Education from the Left Field

This paper was written in response to an invitation from one of the editors of the book in which it was published (DeVitis & Yu, 2011). I had met Tianlong Yu in 1993 on my first trip to China when he was working at the National Institute for Educational Research in Beijing in the area of moral education.

The Skeleton of Racism in Liberalism’s Closet: Rawls as Suspect

This paper has occupied my on-and-off attention for many years, at least since 2005. As such, it has taken on the quality of something like the philosophical equivalent of worrying a sore, loose tooth. I have alternated between the suspicion that I would be better off to just give up and yank the tooth out and the hope that it would heal itself if I just had the patience to stick with it long enough.