Some of you might be wondering if this would even work. Would teaching children about morality make them more moral? The current scientific evidence suggests; yes it would.
In the 1970s, there was a philosopher and educator named Matthew Lipman. He was concerned about the reasoning skills of the students he taught at Columbia University. He founded “Philosophy for Children” with the goal of training children in reasoning and evaluation. Instead of teaching philosophy like at a university, he had them think and discuss concepts that were important to them.
Lipman wrote short stories in which young characters asked questions that they thought were important, this then led to discussion between teachers and students and thus would foster the creation of an “inquiring community. “Philosophy for Children” was later shortened to P4C. The P4C material has changed a lot over the years, but generally it is still a short story, picture, poem, object or some other stimulus that prompts the P4C students (ages 6 to 16) and the teacher to discuss. The children then take time to come up with their own questions, which are then briefly discussed before one is selected for more extensive discussion. ( Lipman, M. (1991) Philosophy for Children, in: Costa, A.L., 1991. Developing Minds: Programs for Teaching Thinking. Revised Edition, Volume 2. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development )
Research into P4C has been primarily focused on cognitive skills, which there's a large body of evidence it significantly improves (García-Moriyón, F., Rebollo, I. and Colom, R., 2005. Evaluating Philosophy for Children: A meta-analysis. Thinking: The journal of philosophy for children, 17(4), p 13-23)
However, there is also a smaller body of evidence indicating that P4C contributes to moral development. Schleifer et. al find that P4C improved children along four key moral dimensions: recognition of emotions, autonomy, judgment and empathy. (Schleifer, M., Daniel, M.F., Peyronnet, E. and Lecomte, S., 2003. The Impact of Philosophical Discussions on Moral Autonomy, Judgment, Empathy and the Recognition of Emotion in Five Year Olds. Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, 16(4), p 3-13 )
Josephine Russell researched another method of philosophical reflection very similar to P4C. In this method there is a qualitative improvement in moral conscience and an improvement in the ability to reciprocate when we are in conversation with others. (Russell, J., 2002. Moral consciousness in a community of inquiry. Journal of Moral Education, 31(2), p. 140-155)
However, relatively little research has been done on moral growth, so this aspect cannot be as robust. However, reference can be made to a research methodology that examines the impact of P4C on various affective traits. These traits include: self-reflection, openness, respect for others and their rights, assertiveness, kindness, cooperation, tolerance for the unconventional, reflexivity versus impulsiveness, achievement motivation and flexibility (García-Moriyón, F., González-Lamas, J., Botella, J., Vela, J.G., Miranda-Alonso, T., Palacios, A. and Robles-Loro, R., 2020. Research in Moral Education: The Contribution of P4C to the Moral Growth of Students. Education Sciences, 10(4), p 118-120)
With increasing interest in this field, more data on it will likely be available in the future. Overall, it seems clear that children benefit from teaching philosophy, with the strongest evidence so far on reasoning skills. Note that these lessons lasted 16 months at most. It seems likely that if children and teens at all ages were taught philosophy as a core subject, such effects would be significantly greater and, given the evidence for long-term effects, would continue even when the children are adults.
Some of you might be concerned that this points mostly towards it making children more moral with regards to other humans, but, some of you might object, the biggest moral impact we can have is the billions of animals suffering in factory farms. Do these lessons only make us behave better towards fellow humans or do they also make us better towards animals?
The scientific evidence is not as strong here, but what we do have suggests that it does make children more animal-friendly. In one study, it was shown that teaching high school students about animal welfare can lead to a reduction in meat eating (Bryant, C. and Dillard, C., 2020.Educated Choices Program: An Impact Evaluation of a Classroom Intervention to Reduce Animal Product Consumption)
Another study focusing on college students found a similar effect (Schwitzgebel, E., Cokelet, B., Singer, P., 2020.Do ethics classes influence student behavior?Case study: Teaching the ethics of eating meat. Cognition, Volume 203, 104397)
Overall, the moral and scientific case for teaching children about morality seems strong.
No, I use my stack for introducing new ideas, not for presenting other people's research. Though maybe I should, given how bad our media landscape is at disseminating research findings.
I also rejected the religious-supernatural basis and other authoritarian bases for morality. I was also unhappy with the absurdity of moral relativism and the calculus of utilitarianism. Reading sociobiology (evolutionary psychology), I was better prepared to accept many of John Dewey's and other American pragmatist's notions, including the notion that we are individually responsible for making, revising, and replacing our moral habits. See Hugh Lafollette's nice summary of pragmatic ethics: https://www.hughlafollette.com/papers/pragmati.htm
Seems the point is not to teach morality, but to teach (model?) a mode of contemplation, let’s call it ethical reasoning, with the hope that a moral sense emerges.
Religion teaches morality as a code. That is not what it seems you are describing.
My hot take is that we should partially replace middle and high school English classes with philosophy and social science classes.
I love literature, but I don’t think understanding it is all that much more fundamental to the human experience than understanding other arts (music, paintings, film, etc.) that aren’t part of the core curriculum. And English classes already function as a sort of makeshift philosophy and social science class - at least when I was in high school, it was the only place my classmates and I were supposed to engage with moral concepts (I think there was a book I had to read almost every year, the point of which was at least in part that ethnic prejudice is bad). But of course, high school English teachers aren’t trained in moral philosophy and can confuse kids just as often as they help them. I still remember being troubled by my 7th grade English teacher effectively teaching our class that The Ones Walk Away from Omelas refuted utilitarianism.
Some of you might be wondering if this would even work. Would teaching children about morality make them more moral? The current scientific evidence suggests; yes it would.
In the 1970s, there was a philosopher and educator named Matthew Lipman. He was concerned about the reasoning skills of the students he taught at Columbia University. He founded “Philosophy for Children” with the goal of training children in reasoning and evaluation. Instead of teaching philosophy like at a university, he had them think and discuss concepts that were important to them.
Lipman wrote short stories in which young characters asked questions that they thought were important, this then led to discussion between teachers and students and thus would foster the creation of an “inquiring community. “Philosophy for Children” was later shortened to P4C. The P4C material has changed a lot over the years, but generally it is still a short story, picture, poem, object or some other stimulus that prompts the P4C students (ages 6 to 16) and the teacher to discuss. The children then take time to come up with their own questions, which are then briefly discussed before one is selected for more extensive discussion. ( Lipman, M. (1991) Philosophy for Children, in: Costa, A.L., 1991. Developing Minds: Programs for Teaching Thinking. Revised Edition, Volume 2. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development )
Research into P4C has been primarily focused on cognitive skills, which there's a large body of evidence it significantly improves (García-Moriyón, F., Rebollo, I. and Colom, R., 2005. Evaluating Philosophy for Children: A meta-analysis. Thinking: The journal of philosophy for children, 17(4), p 13-23)
However, there is also a smaller body of evidence indicating that P4C contributes to moral development. Schleifer et. al find that P4C improved children along four key moral dimensions: recognition of emotions, autonomy, judgment and empathy. (Schleifer, M., Daniel, M.F., Peyronnet, E. and Lecomte, S., 2003. The Impact of Philosophical Discussions on Moral Autonomy, Judgment, Empathy and the Recognition of Emotion in Five Year Olds. Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, 16(4), p 3-13 )
Josephine Russell researched another method of philosophical reflection very similar to P4C. In this method there is a qualitative improvement in moral conscience and an improvement in the ability to reciprocate when we are in conversation with others. (Russell, J., 2002. Moral consciousness in a community of inquiry. Journal of Moral Education, 31(2), p. 140-155)
However, relatively little research has been done on moral growth, so this aspect cannot be as robust. However, reference can be made to a research methodology that examines the impact of P4C on various affective traits. These traits include: self-reflection, openness, respect for others and their rights, assertiveness, kindness, cooperation, tolerance for the unconventional, reflexivity versus impulsiveness, achievement motivation and flexibility (García-Moriyón, F., González-Lamas, J., Botella, J., Vela, J.G., Miranda-Alonso, T., Palacios, A. and Robles-Loro, R., 2020. Research in Moral Education: The Contribution of P4C to the Moral Growth of Students. Education Sciences, 10(4), p 118-120)
With increasing interest in this field, more data on it will likely be available in the future. Overall, it seems clear that children benefit from teaching philosophy, with the strongest evidence so far on reasoning skills. Note that these lessons lasted 16 months at most. It seems likely that if children and teens at all ages were taught philosophy as a core subject, such effects would be significantly greater and, given the evidence for long-term effects, would continue even when the children are adults.
Some of you might be concerned that this points mostly towards it making children more moral with regards to other humans, but, some of you might object, the biggest moral impact we can have is the billions of animals suffering in factory farms. Do these lessons only make us behave better towards fellow humans or do they also make us better towards animals?
The scientific evidence is not as strong here, but what we do have suggests that it does make children more animal-friendly. In one study, it was shown that teaching high school students about animal welfare can lead to a reduction in meat eating (Bryant, C. and Dillard, C., 2020.Educated Choices Program: An Impact Evaluation of a Classroom Intervention to Reduce Animal Product Consumption)
Another study focusing on college students found a similar effect (Schwitzgebel, E., Cokelet, B., Singer, P., 2020.Do ethics classes influence student behavior?Case study: Teaching the ethics of eating meat. Cognition, Volume 203, 104397)
Overall, the moral and scientific case for teaching children about morality seems strong.
This is amazing work Bob. Do you have an article on this topic on your stack?
No, I use my stack for introducing new ideas, not for presenting other people's research. Though maybe I should, given how bad our media landscape is at disseminating research findings.
I also rejected the religious-supernatural basis and other authoritarian bases for morality. I was also unhappy with the absurdity of moral relativism and the calculus of utilitarianism. Reading sociobiology (evolutionary psychology), I was better prepared to accept many of John Dewey's and other American pragmatist's notions, including the notion that we are individually responsible for making, revising, and replacing our moral habits. See Hugh Lafollette's nice summary of pragmatic ethics: https://www.hughlafollette.com/papers/pragmati.htm
LOVE the story.
Don’t love the title.
Seems the point is not to teach morality, but to teach (model?) a mode of contemplation, let’s call it ethical reasoning, with the hope that a moral sense emerges.
Religion teaches morality as a code. That is not what it seems you are describing.
My hot take is that we should partially replace middle and high school English classes with philosophy and social science classes.
I love literature, but I don’t think understanding it is all that much more fundamental to the human experience than understanding other arts (music, paintings, film, etc.) that aren’t part of the core curriculum. And English classes already function as a sort of makeshift philosophy and social science class - at least when I was in high school, it was the only place my classmates and I were supposed to engage with moral concepts (I think there was a book I had to read almost every year, the point of which was at least in part that ethnic prejudice is bad). But of course, high school English teachers aren’t trained in moral philosophy and can confuse kids just as often as they help them. I still remember being troubled by my 7th grade English teacher effectively teaching our class that The Ones Walk Away from Omelas refuted utilitarianism.