Is Learning Instrumental to Other Ends? Toward the Ontological Primacy of an Ethics and Politics of Learning

• In Event: Teacher Thinking, Knowing, and Action

Abstract

Every educational decision presupposes a conception of ethical and political value within which the value of learning is situated. In this paper, I argue that the many views that hold that learning is instrumental to other ends misconstrue the nature of persons and their essential interests. I draw on two premises of liberal political philosophy, the truth of which is discoverable by meta-induction, to establish this claim: (a) that persons have a critical interest in living a truly good life; (b) that persons do not know where and when they hold false beliefs, including beliefs about the ultimate good.

Author

• Nicolas Jordan Tanchuk, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author