John Dewey on Moral Education Through Growth

• In Event: Self, Society, and Education for Belonging

Abstract

We are bombarded by media accounts of corruption in high places: The public calls for moral renewal through education. Two dominant approaches are character education and educating moral thinking. John Dewey offers a third approach, moral education through growth (MEG). MEG was developed by Dewey in Democracy and Education and Human Nature and Conduct. However, no comprehensive, accessible exposition of MEG and its critical reception exists in the moral education literature. This paper fills that need. It (1) explicates Dewey’s argument for MEG; (2) explains MEG’s moral education pedagogy; and (3) responds to the criticism that Dewey’s argument for MEG requires additional normative ethical premises.

Author

• Leonard J. Waks, Temple University