by a Kohlbergian approach to moral education, which .. character educators accuse ...
of concentrating exclusively on moral process to the neglect of moral content”
(Noddings and Slote 2003 p. 351). Holt and Long’s argument also appears be overly
paternalistic and fails to recognise that the development of young children’s critical
moral capacities requires more than mere guidance from authority adult figures. At the
very least it needs a nurturing environment where ‘good’ reasons for morally acceptable
behaviour can be explored and discussed in terms with which the children can engage.
Hugh Sockett (1993 pp. 1-3) provides a telling illustration of the very moral reasoning
of which Holt and Long seem to think young children are incapable. He describes how,
in a few brief, unscheduled, moments, a teacher engages a group of 30 five-year-old
school children in discussion about acceptable moral behaviour in relation to a
particular issue unrelated to the ongoing class work. The teacher could have merely told
the children that such and such was out of bounds for the day but instead she helped the
children to work out for themselves why it was necessary not to go near a particular part
of the classroom for the rest of that day. This is no mere ‘moral guidance’ in the sense
in which Holt and Long have used that term; neither did the teacher think of it as
teaching in ethics. But it was a form of moral education that enabled those five-year-old
children to link together reason and action in the pursuit of individual and common
good.
Holt and Long state:
.. .moral guidance as a strategy is unacceptable, and that a basic introduction to
philosophical methods is the key to effective learning of the skills required for
autonomous analysis and decision making.
(Holt and Long 1999 p. 246)
They are, of course, quite right to note that in developing skills of philosophical method
students will be able to engage in autonomous decision-making but the binary contrast
is inaccurate and incomplete. Holt’s statement that “.. .you either set moral rules or you
develop critical thinking skills” (Holt 2005 unnumbered) reflects a restricted view of
available options. It also reflects Holt’s understanding of moral guidance as a form of
indoctrination or moral training that denies moral agency by seeking to get students to
become mere rule followers. This is, of course, an inappropriate educational aim for
nurses if they are to be autonomous and accountable practitioners, yet there is a
suspicion that some teaching of ethics to nurses takes this form. They say “... moral
guidance provided by an educationalist may be considered proper for primary school
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