Study On Dewey's Thoughts Of Moral Education

John Dewey is one famous philosopher, educator and psychologist of America, he is still one new kind of scholar in the filed of ethics and moral education. A so-called new kind of scholar lies in that he adapted to the request of his ages and put forward the new ideas about morals and moral education. Then he took them as one part of his whole philosophical reformation. The ideas of philosophical reformation run through the whole system of his thoughts. He replaced the absolute method of the traditional philosophy with the empirical,scientific and intellectual method, then he called this kind of philosophical reformation a revolution of Copernicus'type by himself. In fact, in spite of taking Dewey's thoughts as a kind of philosophical theory or a kind of educational theory, it represented a kind of theory of moral education at first. His thoughts not only included almost all relevant theories of morals and moral education, but also conceived the enlightening thoughts of the moral education in the future, and it has affected the later theories of moral education profoundly. Generally, the study about Dewey's thoughts in the local academic field(such as philosophy and pedagogy)has discussed some his thoughts of moral education.Because of the distinction of different academic fields, there isn't a scholar to explain and analyze the scientific and the actual characteristic of Dewey's thoughts of moral education from the angle of the boundary science of philosophy and pedagogy. We can say, the systematic study on Dewey's thoughts of moral education has not been launched, particularly from the professional angle of ethics. By analyzing the connotation, formation and Contents of Dewey's thoughts of moral education, this article tries to find a new angle to put forward a few aspects of being urgently improved for our current moral education (such as emphasizing individual demands, unifying knowledge and behavior, showing the function of intelligence, paying attention to the actual life) under the background of the transformation period, and our current moral education can draw some significent lessons from Dewey. It is of great importance to analyze and understand Dewey's thoughts of moral education for a thorough thinking on the essence and the regulation of moral current education.The train of thought of this article aims to constitute the theoretical foundation of the whole frame of Dewey's thoughts, by defining the basic contents and characteristics of the moral theory of pragmatism, at the same time, contacting the above two aspects with the reformation of the moral theory of pragmatism. Then the article divides his thoughts of moral education into the humanistic, the overall, the intellectual and the actual aspects, according to a few categories about individual and society, knowledge and behavior, experiences and intelligence……etc. On this foundation, the article tries to tidy up Dewey's thoughts of moral education clearly. For the sake of this aim, the main contents of each part of this article are:Chapter 1, " the reformation of the concepts- the moral theories of pragmatism". This chapter is the theoretical foundation of Dewey's thoughts of moral education. Being a representative of the pragmatic philosophy, his moral theory shows an obvious characteristic of pragmatism. It is necessary to clarify the foundation, the contents, and the method of the moral theory of pragmatism for studying the characteristic of moral theory of pragmatism, these are all basic problems for the moral theory of pragmatism. The moral theory of pragmatism takes human nature as the base, the morals escaping from human nature also escaped from the actual life; The moral theory of pragmatism takes experience as the contents, the process of moral growth and the process of empirical growth are united; The moral theory of pragmatism takes the method of reflective thinking as the basic method, the morals that lackes the self-reflection is not scientific. The reason of Dewey putting forward these assertions lied in that these assertions are closely-related with the philosophical reformation and the reformation of moral concepts. He thought that it had seemed to be a kind of instinct to look for a certain and ultimate end for the occupation moralist,such tendency had made mankind's morals sink into the abyss of inconvertibility and not adapt to the development of the new situation. So Dewey abandonned the kind of tradition of looking for a certain and ultimate rule of morals. The aim was to find a hope for the moral theory in the realistic world of continuous Change.Chapter 2,"emphasizing on the individual- the humanistic moral education". The moral theory of pragmatism is founded on the emphasis of the human nature, or the emphasis of the human nature is the foundation of the moral theory of pragmatism, which initial performance is also to emphasize on the individual. The standpoints of the emphasis on the individual are as follows: Each individual not only is a pure individual as a living creature, but also is also an individual in the social activities that contacts each other with person, things and objects. Thus, the moral education must not only insure of the inborn instincts that a person acquires as a living individual, but also insure of the community and the association that he acquires as a social individual.The former constitutes the individual aspect of moral education, the latter constitutes the social aspect of moral education.Dewey believed that the two above aspects are the realistic paths of moral education returning to the actual life. He tried to reform the moral education by making the individual and societies unified. The most basic assertion on this problem is "the new individualism". As for "the new individualism ", how to unify the individual and the societies? How to face the critical standpoints and establish the moral ego? How to handle the relations of the characteristic, self, freedom and ego ? These problems are all the keys to the establishment of emphasizing on human nature.Chapter 3," the unity of knowledge and behavior-the overall moral education". The problem of the relation between knowledge and behavior is also a basic problem in the field of philosophy and pedagogy. Dewey had a dissimilarity with the former scholars about this problem. He thought mankind being had resulted in the result of the Separation between knowledge and behavior for the reason of the tradition of looking for the certain and safety. The tradition had also brought a kind of cognitive mode of on-looker, it believes people can acquire knowledge through the way of observing or thinking isolatedly, then the cognitive functions of behavior and practice are belitted.The relation of knowledge and behavior has its special characteristic in ethics, that is, the value of the moral knowledge lies in the intellectuall behavior of one person, at here, the behavior is more important than the knowledge. But in the actual life, some people always neglect moral behavior because of emphasizing on the ideal of moral knowledge improperly. Aim at this condition, Dewey put forward a solution,that is, making the distinction between" the ideas of morals" and "the ideas concerning morals". Corresponding to this thought, he Laid claim to replace the direct mode of the traditional moral education with the indirect mode of moral education. The biggest dissimilarity between the two modes lies in the latter not being the infusion of moral norms and principles, but emphasizing on the importantence of individual growth of intelletuall behavior, and it can make moral concepts take effect in concrete behavior.Chapter 4,"showing the function of intelligence - the scientific moral education". It is one of the basic problems in ethics for the relation of intelligence, emotion and desires. From this problem, Dewey emphasized on the position of intelligence in moral life. The tranditonal standpoints thought that Dewey was a scholar of empiricism, it is ture, but it is wrong to think of there being complete spread of empiricism, but not a bit of intellectual factors in his thoughts, it is indeed a prejudice. Intelligence occupied the outstanding position in Dewey's thoughts." the scientific humanism "is a substantial evidence.The aim of " the scientific humanism " is to unify science and morals by reforming the traditional ethics, it also can make up the weakness of the scientific spirits and the scientific attitudes of the traditional moral education. Futhermore, it can make ethics little blindness and make moral education little inflexiblility.Chapter 5," paying attention to the actual life- the actual moral education". This chapter is the ultimate mission for Dewey's thoughts of moral education.His moral theories of pragmatism took moral growth of individual as the ultimate aim, and also took the actual moral education as the ultimate mission. The moral education of actual characteristic should promote the endless growth of individual morals in the actual moral life.In his theories of moral education, Dewey took children as the center of education,but his thoughts was not totally a children-center theory, he thought that the purposes of the social organizations and systems all should aim to promote the overall growth of each individual. As a result, moral educator should make every citizen become an object of the moral education. The educational purpose of moral education should be placed on the process of the individual growth of morals by himself, this purpose is the end of the moral educaiton, which is inside and inborn , but not outside or being forced on.This article is an inquiry of the same topic, there must be many shortages in it.But the article also has some creative aspects on some concrete problems. The first, it carries on an overall description to the whole feature of the moral theory of pragmatism from a few aspects, such as the concept, foundation, contents and method...etc, and this is the premise of analyzing Dewey's thoughts of moral education; The second, It delineates the whole frame through some core phrases of his thougts, such as individual, behavior, experience, intelligence, life and growth; The third, it points out the basic pragmatic characteristic of Dewey's thoughts of moral education, which embodies the attention to the actual life, and it also elaborates Dewey how to concentrate on the actual moral life for the actual moral education.