Generative Community as a Regulative Ideal: The Moral Assessment of Educational Aims and of Educational Policies and Practices

[摘要] The United States system of education is guided by broad underlying educational aims, whether or not those aims are critically examined or recognized. Contemporary educational discourse, however, has primarily focused on the level of implementation of policies and practices. This is a problem, because the broad underlying educational aims that guide the system of education have profound effects on humans' lives and the larger social structure. The question of what aims ought to guide education is a moral question that requires moral justification. In this dissertation I develop the concept of Generative Community as a regulative ideal and use it to assess the moral value of six educational aims and six educational policies and practices. In conceptualizing Generative Community, I draw on the insights of Deweyan pragmatism. I draw on Dewey's work because of the clarity Dewey brings to the concept of education, the notion of an ideal, and because of the clarity Dewey brings to the concept of moral value. There are two parts to this dissertation. Part I is titled Developing a Regulative Ideal for Educational Aims, Policies, and Practices. In Part I, Chapter 1, I first explicate the concept of education that I employ. Second, I examine the scholarly literature in the field of educational philosophy on the subject of educational aims. Third, I set out the ethical theory of Dewey's reflective morality and critically assess its merits. I conclude that Deweyan reflective morality is a well warranted moral theory and can serve as the means to reach morally justifiable decisions. In Part I, Chapter 2, I first discuss the multidimensional notion of the Good Life as an ultimate aim of education. I draw on Dewey's notion of moral happiness to give definition to the concept of the Good Life, and argue that society is best enabled to approach the Good Life if its decision making processes conform to a Deweyan form of reflective moral reasoning. Given this, a morally good education must provide conditions that are conducive to a) the occurrence of reflective morality and b) the realization of moral happiness and the Good Life. I then develop a conception of a state of affairs that would constitute an ideal, in the Deweyan sense, such an ideal being necessary for the Deweyan process of reflective morality. This is the concept of generative community. This concept is intended to serve as a regulative ideal. Part II of

[发布机构] University of Iowa