Is Mandatory Autonomy Education in the Best Interests of Children?

In this paper I argue that liberal proponents of mandatory autonomy education tend to overlook or underestimate the potential threats that such an education poses to the overall well-being of children (including, ironically, threats to the development of genuine autonomy). They do so by paying insuf...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Main Author: Moschella, Melissa (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: [2015]
In: Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Year: 2015, Volume: 89, Pages: 299-310
RelBib Classification:NBE Anthropology
NCA Ethics
ZF Education
Further subjects:B Threat (Psychology)
B Child Psychology
B Education
B Autonomy (Philosophy)
B Liberalism
Online Access: Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:In this paper I argue that liberal proponents of mandatory autonomy education tend to overlook or underestimate the potential threats that such an education poses to the overall well-being of children (including, ironically, threats to the development of genuine autonomy). They do so by paying insufficient attention to the importance of moral virtue as a constitutive element of and precondition for genuine autonomy, and by failing to recognize how the development and consolidation of moral virtue may be undermined by the sort of autonomy education they recommend. I develop my argument through engagement with the work of Eamonn Callan and Ian MacMullen, drawing on Aristotelian ethics to highlight the shortcomings in their accounts.
ISSN:2153-7925
Contains:Enthalten in: American Catholic Philosophical Association, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.5840/acpaproc201713159