Beyond Rational Autonomy as an Educational Aim

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 7:45 am - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Ethics

Abstract

This paper explores the meaning of liberation and proposes that we move towards pedagogies that nurture communally-grounded freedom. Commonly, in the West, we reduce freedom and liberation to notions of rational autonomy that emphasize individualism, abstract reason, and universal knowledge. On a practical level, aiming towards rational autonomy can generate cultural erasure and social isolation. On a theoretical level, rational autonomy is enigmatic or even incoherent; it is either disconnected from who we are as people situated in histories and cultures or reduced to arbitrary choice. Inspired by the work of Cynthia Dillard, I offer “re-membering” as an alternative that affirms our embodied, relational, and historical being. Liberation, as re-membering, emerges not from isolation but from meaningful connection.

Author

• Justin Hauver, Harvard University