Randall Curren

Aristotle’s educational politics and the Aristotelian renaissance in philosophy of education

This paper assesses the historical meaning and contemporary significance of Aristotle’s educational ideas. It begins with a broad characterisation of the project of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, which he calls ‘political science’ (hê politikê epistêmê), and the central place of education in his vision of statesmanship. It proceeds through a series of topics fundamental to his educational ideas, culminating in the account of education in Politics VIII. A concluding section appraises the uses to which Aristotelian ideas are currently put in philosophy of education, identifying some confusions in the influential literature of ‘practices’.

Can virtue be measured

This article explores some general considerations bearing on the question of whether virtue can be measured. What is moral virtue? What are measurement and evaluation, and what do they presuppose about the nature of what is measured or evaluated? What are the prospective contexts of, and purposes for, measuring or evaluating virtue, and how would these shape the legitimacy, methods, and likely success of measurement and evaluation? We contrast the realist presuppositions of virtue and measurement of virtue with the behavioral operationalism of a common conception of measurement in psychometrics. We suggest a realist and non-reductive conceptualization of the measurability of virtue. We then discuss three possible educational contexts in which the measurement of virtue might be pursued: high-stakes testing and accountability schemes, the evaluation of programs in character education, and routine student evaluation. We argue that high-stakes testing of virtue would be ill-advised and counterproductive. We make some suggestions for how program evaluation in character education might proceed, and offer some examples of evaluation of student virtue-related learning. We conclude that virtue acquisition might be measured in a population of students accurately enough for program evaluation while also arguing that student and program evaluation do not require comprehensive evaluations of how virtuous individual students are. Routine student evaluation will typically focus on specific aspects of virtue acquisition, and program evaluations can measure the aggregate progress of virtue acquisition in all its aspects while evaluating only limited aspects of the learning of individual students.

Educational measurement and knowledge of other minds

This article addresses the capacity of high stakes tests to measure the most significant kinds of learning. It begins by examining a set of philosophical arguments pertaining to construct validity and alleged conceptual obstacles to attributing specific knowledge and skills to learners. The arguments invoke philosophical doctrines of holism and radical interpretation and the theory of situated learning, and they are found to be unsound. The article goes on to examine the difficulties involved in combining adequate validity and reliability in one test. The literature on test item formats is brought to bear on the potential validity of multiple-choice items, and the rater reliability of constructed-response items is addressed through discussion of the methods used by the Educational Testing Service (USA) and a summary report of alternative methods developed by the author and others in cooperation with the California Golden State Examination.

A Neo-Aristotelian Account of Education, Justice, and the Human Good.

This article sketches the contours of a neo-Aristotelian account of education, justice, and the human good, organized around a sequence of three increasingly distinctive features of the Aristotelian understanding of respect for persons as rational beings. The first and second of these features bear on important aspects of educational justice, especially in the realm of civic education, and the third bears more generally on the just provision of educational foundations for human flourishing or eudaimonia. A liberalized and empirically grounded version of Aristotle’s conception of flourishing and its promotion by means of ‘liberal’ education is presented in the context of a contractualist reconstruction of Aristotle’s account of a just constitution.

Motivational aspects of moral learning and progress

This article addresses a puzzle about moral learning concerning its social context and the potential for moral progress: Won’t the social context of moral learning shape moral perceptions, beliefs, and motivation in ways that will inevitably limit moral cognition, motivation, and progress? It addresses the relationships between habituation and moral reasoning in Aristotelian moral education, and assesses Julia Annas’s attempt to defend the possibility of moral progress within a virtue ethical framework. Focusing on the motivational core of the puzzle, the article argues that Self-determination Theory (SDT) provides resources for better understanding how moral progress is possible and how moral education can facilitate such progress.

Sustainability: Why the Language and Ethics of Sustainability Matter in the Geoscience Classroom.

ABSTRACT Because challenges to sustainability arise at the intersection of human and biophysical systems they are inescapably embedded in social contexts and involve multiple stakeholders with diverse and often conflicting needs and value systems. Addressing complex and solution-resistant problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation thus demands not only a scientific understanding of Earth systems, but consideration of the underlying human values, institutions, and norms that drive unsustainable ways of living. The search for solutions amidst a multiplicity of players and an array of potential outcomes inevitably leads to ethical quandaries. The purpose of this commentary is to synthesize perspectives from the geosciences and philosophy to provide a rationale for including the ethical dimensions of sustainability in geoscience education and to clarify the nature and ethics of sustainability. Drawing on an approach developed in the book Living Well Now and in the Future: Why Sustainability Matters (Curren and Metzger, 2017), we outline a way to conceptualize sustainability that bridges scientific and ethical perspectives and present four fundamental principles of sustainability ethics derived from our analysis and from core commitments of common morality. We supply a compilation of relevant teaching approaches and materials to help geoscience educators connect the enumerated concepts and principles to classroom practice and we conclude with a call for further cross-disciplinary conversations among geoscientists, philosophers, and social scientists who share a commitment to including sustainability concepts and ethics in their teaching.

Preserving Opportunity: A Précis of Living Well Now and in the Future: Why Sustainability Matters

Abstract This article is a précis of the book, Living well now and in the future: Why sustainability matters. It provides an overview of the book, focusing especially on its conceptualization of the nature and normative dimensions of sustainability. The latter include its formulation of an ethic of sustainability and eudaimonic theory of justice. Some central claims are that the fundamental normative concern of sustainability is the long-term preservation of opportunity to live well, and that the conceptualization of preservation of opportunity should be focused on the satisfaction of basic psychological needs associated with fulfillment of potential.

Aristotelian versus virtue ethical character education

Abstract This article examines some central aspects of Kristján Kristjánsson’s book, Aristotelian Character Education, beginning with the claim that contemporary virtue ethics provides methodological, ontological, epistemological, and moral foundations for Aristotelian character education. It considers three different formulations of what defines virtue ethics, and suggests that virtue ethical moral theory has steered character educators away from important aspects of Aristotle’s views on character education. It goes on to suggest a broadening of attention to psychology beyond personality and the psychological status of virtues, and it concludes with an examination of Kristjánsson’s understanding of phronesis.

My Life in Philosophy

My earliest memory, at the age of three months, is of the bright interior of an airplane, and being carried into the dark, chill air of what I later learned was Kalamazoo, Michigan, in December 1955, for Christmas with my father’s family. I remember the following Easter gazing across a sun drenched room as my uncle, visiting from Kalamazoo, spoke and our “colored” maid stood quietly ironing what might have been my father’s white shirts.

Sustainability Ethics Across the Curriculum

This chapter identifies confusion about the normative dimensions of sustainability as an important obstacle to teaching the ethics of sustainability across the curriculum. It aims to overcome this obstacle by presenting a framework of sustainability ethics consisting of principles derived from the most basic commitments of common morality. Four rationales and related models for teaching ethics across the curriculum are identified, and an argument for infusing education at all levels with education in sustainability and sustainability ethics is framed on this basis. The prescribed model involves cross-curricular integration and collaborative public service projects, where possible.