Hirst on rational moral education

Abstract

In Moral Education in a Secular Society, Paul Hirst offers accounts of the content and justification of morality and the aims and methods of moral education. My own recent book, A Theory of Moral Education, does the same. Here I explore the similarities and differences between our theories. In the first part of the essay, I outline what Hirst calls the ‘sophisticated view of education’, which I wholeheartedly endorse, and highlight his attention to the noncognitive as well as the cognitive aspects of morality. In the second part, I explain how Hirst’s transcendental justification of morality differs from my contractarian justification, and trace the implications of this difference for our respective accounts of moral education.