Where Does the Right of Inclusion Come From? The Anthropological-Ethical Foundations of the Educational Model

The goal of this paper is to consider the phenomenon of inclusion from a philosophical— specifically, anthropological and ethical—perspective. The reason is simple: inclusive education employs terms such as “humanity,” “person,” “every person,” “person with special needs” and so on. It is therefore about people. But it also uses phrases like “an individual has the right,” “everyone has the right,” “no one must be ignored,” “respect for life”, and these are statements of moral character. There is the way that a person is and the way a person should be, and likewise for the schools which form a person — there is the way they are and the way they should be. Advocates of inclusive education naturally wish that schools were inclusive. This desire, however, stands on very definite assumptions about, or a certain philosophical pre-understanding of, human ontology: that is, being (how a human is) and ethics (how a human should be). My argument here is that the moral requirement of educational inclusion comes from a specific anthropological preunderstanding. The paper will demonstrate it in texts written by the famous Czech educationalist J. A. Comenius.