Character education is a specific approach to morals or values education, which is consistently linked with citizenship education. But how is it possible for a heterogeneous society that disagrees about basic values to reach a consensus on what constitutes character education? This article explores how character education has returned to the agenda of British education policy, having been largely neglected since the 1960s in response to unsatisfactory attempts at character education going back to the nineteenth century. Between 1979 and 1997 (...) Conservative governments attempted to reverse a perceived decline in moral standards, established State control of the schools curriculum, imposed on State schools the duty to provide for moral and other development, and established a National Forum which attempted to articulate a set of consensus values in education. Labour has extended these developments in the curriculum, introduced compulsory citizenship education, and its White Paper of September 2001 speaks of 'education with character'. The character and virtues Labour seeks to promote through schools are pragmatic and instrumental in intention, linked to raising pupil school performance, meeting the needs of the new economy, and promoting democratic participation. Otherwise the vision is pluralistic and evades explicit directives, and there is no explanation or analysis of its theoretical basis. The question of how agreement can be reached on what counts as character education may benefit from Sunstein's analysis of how law is possible in a heterogeneous society - 'incompletely theorized agreements on particular cases' allow for common laws without agreement on fundamental principles. Many schools in fact operate in this way, but such a consensus is not entirely stable and runs the danger of teaching character education as a series of behaviour outcomes taught in a behaviourist fashion. (shrink)

In this thesis, I propose to explore Plato's moral and political thought in the Republic and compare it with similar ideas in Confucian thought, and in modern liberal thought. In Part I, I deal with Plato's notion of 'doing one's own job' in the just state (ch. 1), and with the Confucian approach to achieving an orderly society (ch. 2). In Chapter 3 the idea that both the Platonic just state and Confucian orderly society are communitarian by nature will be (...) discussed. It is noticeable that although both Plato's and Confucius' accounts of the just state have the colour of communitarianism, yet their accounts are in one way or another different from the modern communitarian's account of the just state. In addition, there are also important differences between Plato and Confucius. Take the relation between personal good and the common good as an example. Both Plato and Confucius hold that in the ideal state one's own good is identical with the good of the state as a whole. But communitarians hold that the common good is prior to personal good. That is, for the communitarians, there is a distinction between personal good and the common good (Section 3). In Part II, I shall consider a problem which arises from the discussion of Plato's notion of the tripartite soul that there is a sub-division in each part of the soul, which leads to infinite regress. I argue in Chapter 4 that this problem can be avoided. So long as there is no 'degree of rationality' among the three parts. That is, only reason is capable of calculating, and the other two parts do not have the capacity of reasoning. This account of the tripartite soul makes sense of why Plato puts such strong emphasis on education. For through education, spirit and appetite are willing to be under the control of reason. (shrink)

This research was submitted to the University of Manchester by Lord Abraham Elorm-Donkor for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Its title, “Christian Morality in Ghanaian Pentecostalism: A Theological Analysis of Virtue Theory as a Framework for Integrating Christian and Akan Moral Schemes” indicates the scope of the research within African Pentecostal Studies. Although scholars and Christian leaders have indicated that there is marked separation between morality and spirituality in the Christian praxis of many Africans and that the African worldview, (...) which African Christians still hold is responsible for this separation, there has not been a detailed study of the issue. The aim of the research is to offer an explanation, of a paradox in Ghanaian society where there is enthusiastic Christian spirituality that is separated from social morality, so that a deeper integration of the Christian and Akan traditional moral schemes can be proposed.My research focuses on Pentecostals in Ghana whose appropriation of the African worldview into Christian praxis has generally been considered as a positive response to African religiosity. By the use of a practical theological method of correlation whereby the Christian truth is represented by the moral theology of John Wesley and brought in dialogue with the Akan traditional moral scheme, this research offers reasons for and proposes a solution to the lack of social morality in Ghanaian Pentecostalism. It uses the virtue theory as a heuristic tool for the analysis of morality in a way that provides explanation for the situation and guides an integration of the two moral schemes at a deeper level. The examination of the two moral schemes has been guided by the elements of character, a central theme of the virtue theory. It has been shown that the ‘Deliverance Theology’ of Ghanaian Pentecostals involves significant misrepresentation of the Akan traditional scheme, and that this situation causes many Christians to focus on religion as a means for the supply of existential needs rather than the transformation of inner dispositions for moral character formation. This research shows that reinterpreting the Akan view of humanity and integrating it with the Wesleyan account of the Christian truth, transforms the ‘Deliverance Theology’ by portraying the Christian life as a pneumatological characterology. The moral responsibility that this entails will ensure that African Pentecostals understand social morality as an essential outcome of their Christian spirituality. (shrink)