“Thick” Ethical Concepts and School-Based Moral Education

At its most ambitious, moral education aims at shaping the pupils’ character and at developing their moral judgment. That obligates educators to adopt strategies most likely to help them achieve these goals. In the context of school-based education, it is tempting to assume that the development of moral capacities of pupils is best supported by teaching them the proper usage of moral language. Once dominant, such directive approach to teaching has been harshly criticised, but I want to argue that in the case of moral education, there exist in fact good reasons for reassessment of its value. As stressed especially by virtue ethicists, true competence in using “thick” ethical concepts entails exactly what moral education aims at—the ability to properly interpret the moral meaning of observable facts, and the motivation to act accordingly. However, there are some conditions to developing and sustaining authentic “thick” concepts. The goal of this paper is to suggest some implications these might have for the process of school-based moral education.