Learning for oneself: A Confucian‐inspired case for moral formation in ethics pedagogy

This article explores the disconnection between ethical theory and ethical practice in ethics courses at secular U.S. colleges and universities. In such contexts academic ethics focuses almost exclusively on “ethical reasoning” and leaves the business of practical moral formation of students in the realm of “student life.” I argue this disconnection is inevitable given the dominant understanding that moral formation must be guided by a consistent ethical theory, and must eventuate in certain prosocial behaviors, while norms of pluralism and free inquiry mandate that academic courses not attempt to dictate certain views or behaviors as normative. Drawing on the Confucian model of moral cultivation expressed by the early Chinese figure Mengzi, I argue for a different understanding of moral formation that focuses on open‐endedness, self‐direction, and the acquisition of skills in directing attention and will. This approach avoids the most serious challenges to practical moral formation in secular contexts, and I suggest some broadly applicable principles for implementing these ideas in ethics courses.     

‘Only one repertory’: American religious studies

This paper assesses American Religious Studies by attending to its institutional lineages, its tone and genre, and its sometimes unconscious methodological presumptions. Exploring the implications of Zora Neale Hurston's ‘lying up a narrative,’ this piece suggests that a series of narrative, curricular, and theoretical commitments produce a particular kind of ‘religion’ as normative in the study of American religions. As the narrative of post-denominational pluralism has become normative, a discursive ambivalence has been produced wherein a liberal, identitarian conception of religion coexists awkwardly with a radical suspicion of the analytical limits of ‘religion’ as an object of study. Identifying the different nodes of this ambivalence, this essay suggests that scholars might move beyond analytical repetition or paralysis by pluralizing method, genre, and style.     

How should the History of Education be Written? Some Reflections about the Nature of the Discipline from the Perspective of the Reception of our Work

How should history of education be written? To put the question is far more easier than to provide a concrete answer. In contemporary research, there continue to be pedagogistic complaints about finding answers to present-day educational problems via history. In our view, such an ahistorical utilitarianism as well as the legitimizing and/or mythologizing belief in a particular pedagogical system, in which the history of this field is so rich since the institutionalization of the discipline at the end of the nineteenth century, should be avoided at all costs. But the danger of presentism lurks around the corner as a sine qua non condition in any form of historical research. As can be found out via the comments on our own work, much of the criticism goes back to old conceptions of the discipline, conceived as historical pedagogy rather than as history of education. Apparently, in the field of pedagogy people are still convinced that the history of education, even if it does not provide edifying examples and useful lessons, must in any case have a training value for professionals – which in the light of modern, advanced research is rather a difficult idea to defend.     

Metaphor for Teaching: Good Teaching is Like Good Sex

Based on a real teaching experience in the classroom, the author reflects on the dynamics of gender, race/ethnicity, power, and privilege in the context of an undergraduate course in Christian sexual ethics. Through this analysis of pedagogical style and process initiated by a challenging moment at the midpoint of the semester, the author develops ten guiding principles for good teaching, using the metaphor that “good teaching is like good sex,” which emphasize the necessary elements and outcomes of a positive learning environment: intimacy, flexibility, creativity, satisfaction, care and attentiveness, vulnerability, fun and playfulness, reciprocity, full engagement, and risk‐taking. This experience provided the foundation for planning and assessment for the author's courses since.     

Professional education of psychologists using online problem‐based learning methods: Experience at Charles Sturt University

Abstract: Problem‐based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach to professional training that emphasises the development of clinical reasoning skills and self‐directed learning. In contrast to more traditional lecture‐based approaches that focus upon the linear acquisition of course content, PBL is undertaken in the context of actual case presentations. Although PBL has been adopted widely in the professional training of medical practitioners and nurses, it is only just beginning to be used in the professional education of psychologists. This paper examines the nature and benefits of PBL for education in clinical and forensic psychology by outlining its implementation and development at Charles Sturt University, located in a rural area of Australia. Although a full and independent evaluation of PBL for education in clinical or forensic psychology is yet to be undertaken, this paper argues that PBL can make a significant contribution to professional training in psychology.     

If and Then: A Critique of Speculative NanoEthics

Most known technology serves to ingeniously adapt the world to the physical and mental limitations of human beings. Humankind has acquired awesome power with its rather limited means. Nanotechnological capabilities further this power. On some accounts, however, nanotechnological research will contribute to a rather different kind of technological development, namely one that changes human beings so as to remove or reduce their physical and mental limitations. The prospect of this technological development has inspired a fair amount of ethical debate. Here, proponents and opponents of such visions of human enhancement are criticized alike for engaging in speculative ethics. This critique exposes a general pattern that extends to other nano-, bio-, or neuroethical debates. While it does not apply to all discussions of “enhancement technologies” it does apply to all ethical discourse that constructs and validates an incredible future which it only then proceeds to endorse or critique. This discourse violates conditions of intelligibility, squanders the scarce and valuable resource of ethical concern, and misleads by casting remote possibilities or philosophical thought-experiments as foresight about likely technical developments. In effect, it deflects consideration from the transformative technologies of the present.

第二人称人际互动中的婴儿学习:自然教育学假说评析

社会认知理论越来越突出第二人称动态互动对学习的重要性。认知发展心理学家Csibra和Gergely等人提出的自然教育学假说认为,婴儿在与成人面对面互动中基于对行为的目的论表征,能快速地理解“你”(成人)的教并且有效地完成“我”(婴儿)的学。自然教育学的发生机制由交流、示范与共享所构成,具体表现为婴儿敏感地接收到明示信号并识别出交际意图,产生指向性期望,并倾向于将“此时此地”的信息泛化为具有概括性的通用知识。自然教育学假说引领的第二人称互动方法在社会认知发展领域产生了深远影响,对儿童早期社会性学习具有重要意义,未来需要加强相关实证研究。