The argument from justified curriculum development for teaching philosophy in primary schools

Abstract This article offers a novel argument in favour of teaching philosophy as a compulsory subject from primary school onwards, the argument from justified curriculum development. This argument supplements a respectable line of reasoning in the existing literature according to which philosophy deserves a mandatory position in school curricula because of its unique capability to equip students to successfully encounter significant and inescapable problems in human life, specifically problems of how to rationally assess whether one is, or would be, justified in obeying various moral, political, religious, emotional, and practical norms with narrower or broader practical consequences. The argument from justified curriculum development identifies a comprehensive set of crucial normative problems that compose the problem of selecting the goals and content of school curricula and that are crucial for determining the justificatory status of obeying various norms. The ability to provide rational answers to such normative problems, and consequently to the problem of selecting the goals and content of curricula, requires the decisive contribution of philosophy and can exert a pre-eminent influence on the quality of human living conditions. Thus, people should be involved in philosophical thinking and argumentation, and for practical reasons, they would benefit by starting even in primary school.