How Cognitive and Neurobiological Sciences Inform Values Education for Creatures Like us

Abstract

Historically, not much of values education theory has been rooted in the neuro-and psychological sciences. Kohlberg's enterprise was rooted in philosophy (Kohlberg 1981), Piaget's in non-human biology (1932), Gilligan's in psychoanalytic theory (Gilligan 1982), Shweder's in cultural anthropology (Shweder 1993). Yet a prescription for moral or values education requires an up-to-date and frank assessment of human nature, needs, and possibilities (Flanagan 1991; MacKinnon 1999). Like a chef, educators need to think about the nature of the ingredients with which they work and the potentials that lie within. In education, this requires having an empirically-derived human psychology and an empirically-grounded pedagogy. A smattering of each is provided here. After reviewing two main approaches to values education, I suggest new directions for values education more strongly rooted in recent findings of social sciences and in a Triune Ethics theory. ABSTRACT Recommendations for values education must be rooted in empirically-derived understandings of humanity. Taking its cue from moral philosophy and from the phenomenology of human experience, moral psychology historically has studied and emphasized reasoning and the conscious mind. The human is perceived as a rational creature who can learn to control baser instincts through the development of reason. Following this view, rational moral education (a la Kohlberg) emphasized moral reasoning as the foundation of moral development and behavior. More recently, psychological science has shown that human decision making is largely driven by unconscious systems and that most behaviors are the result of automatic, non-deliberative processing, sometimes called intuition. The ancient Greeks called this automatic responsiveness "virtue" and argued for its cultivation through the coached guidance of mentors and selection of environments. Both rational moral education and virtue education are supported by what we know leads to expertise. Both reasoning and intuition are necessary for moral behavior. Despite the fact that it may rarely be in full control, the deliberative mind is able to guide the cultivation of intuition or virtue and to counter immoral instinctual reactions, as in "free won't". I discuss how to cultivate citizens with good character through the coordinated education of both moral intuition and moral reasoning. Values education involves cultivating an individual's positive potential to the fullest within a supportive community in which values are expressed.