Emotion,Imagination and Virtue in Education

Abstract: ABSTRACT This essay addresses meta-ethical concerns related to educational aims and the teaching of ethics, in part, by examining the effects of societal changes on such teaching from a philosophical point of view, and in part by suggesting that the skills of critical reasoning stipulated in the curriculum are insufficient to the task of promoting civic engagement. A theory of ethical judgment based on the emotions as cognitive judgments of value and the imagination as a productive faculty that structures moral understanding in narrative form is presented. This is then related to virtue epistemology in order to show that emotions structure our knowledge about the world and are always ‘about something’, that is to say they have intentional content and constitute reasons for action. While emotions are generally regarded as belonging to a private realm this essay sees involvement of the emotions as related to participation in the public sphere. Virtues are seen as individual capacities which emerge from appropriately directed emotion. Virtue epistemology is thus agent-based rather than act based. While emotions cannot be taught, through methods of teaching that focus on aesthetics and ethics in combination virtue can be learned. The development of virtuous capacities should therefore be the aim of civic education.