Moral learning through tragedy in Aristotle and Force Majeure

In this paper I challenge Critchley’s recent suggestion that tragic art is not morally educational in Aristotle’s analysis and instead argue it can be inferred from Aristotle that tragic art can morally educate in three main ways: via emotion education, by helping the audience come to understand what matters in life, and by depicting conduct worthy of moral emulation as well as conduct that is not. Halliwell’s reading of how catharsis helps the audience of tragedy learn to feel pity and fear appropriately is discussed. Two objections Lear makes to Halliwell’s account are thereafter outlined and responded to. I maintain that for Aristotle the pleasure proper to tragedy is prompted by understanding of what matters most in life – not making mistakes that threaten the prosperity of loved ones. I pull the paper together by questioning aspects of Falzon’s reading of Ruben Ostlund’s film, Force Majeure. I conclude that the film both exemplifies and critiques Aristotle’s account of moral learning through tragedy

Emotional Education as second language acquisition?

In this paper we argue that while emotional education intervention packages offer certain advantages, there are risks associated with their uncritical use. The main risk is that if the unwanted behaviour of some pupils is seen merely as a problem that can be dealt with through targeted intervention, then important, identity constitutive parts of their reality might become obscured. We reconsider sociological explanations of school disaffection, along with more recent sociological and philosophical attempts to explore the emotional aspect of schooling. We hypothesise that some of the challenging behaviour exhibited by young people in schools is solution seeking; that it is a functional adaptation to an essentially foreign emotional environment. We conclude that attempts to educate the emotions should aim to develop morally rich virtues rather than empty intelligences

Emotional education as second language acquisition?

In this paper we argue that while emotional education intervention packages offer certain advantages, there are risks associated with their uncritical use. The main risk is that if the unwanted behaviour of some pupils is seen merely as a problem that can be dealt with through targeted intervention, then important, identity constitutive parts of their reality might become obscured. We reconsider sociological explanations of school disaffection, along with more recent sociological and philosophical attempts to explore the emotional aspect of schooling. We hypothesise that some of the challenging behaviour exhibited by young people in schools is solution seeking; that it is a functional adaptation to an essentially foreign emotional environment. We conclude that attempts to educate the emotions should aim to develop morally rich virtues rather than empty intelligences.peer-reviewe

What should Educational Institutions be for?

In this article, I respond to the work of Gert Biesta regarding the question of what education should be for. He maintains education ought to be oriented towards the ‘good’ rather than measurement, accountability and efficiency. While sympathetic to such claims, I nonetheless question his avowal that discussion of the purposes of education needs to entail reflection upon tripartite processes of qualification, socialisation and subjectification. I also argue that the concept of subjectification presented by Biesta is elusive. He says educators cannot plan to produce it in students. He also suggests there is an unhelpful surplus of reason in education that constrains possibilities for subjectification. According to Biesta, education partly reproduces ‘rational communities’ that stifle the emergence of human uniqueness and inhibit persons from challenging accepted social orders. In response to this, I argue there is currently a deficit rather than a surplus of reason in education concerning the common good. Following MacIntyre, I claim that educational institutions should support students to learn how to think for themselves and act for the common good. I conclude that such utopian thinking about the purposes of education may be needed, now, more than ever