| In response to the moral complexities associated with late modernity that challenge educators, this study develops from and beyond "postmodern ethics", principally as formulated by Zygmunt Bauman (1993), an ethos of integrity, constituted by respect for the dignity of our and each other's being, and the acceptance of responsibility for the consequences of our moral choices.;After a consideration of the nature of late modernity and its consequences for contemporary moral comportment, the ethos of integrity is developed from the intuitionist assumptions underlying Bauman's postmodern morality and beyond his experience of a diminished moral responsibility in late modernity, his "ethics of authenticity." The ethos of integrity is defended as foundational to the development of further moral principles that are widely accepted, and compared and situated further with respect to Seyla Benhabib's situated universalism. The ethos of integrity is then developed as a dialectical ethics, sensitive both to universalist ethics and to a situated, face-to-face ethics, and defended as a principled but contextualized response to the moral complexity of late modernity's globalized and plural societies, and more particularly to moral challenges in education in those societies.;Assuming an interpretation of contemporary moral comportment as observed principally by Bauman, Charles Taylor, and Anthony Giddens, the study addresses moral questions facing educators as a consequences of the experience of late modernity. Notably and typical among these are the diminished moral responsibility associated with the increasingly fragmented, fragile, and transient nature of identity in late modern society; the problem of moral relativism associated with a non-foundational orientation and consequent on the contested nature of moral authority in increasingly globalized and multicultural urban environments; the professional and moral responsibilities of teachers; the role of teachers with respect to the socialization of their students into the ethical and cultural norms of their society; the moral challenges in citizenship education consequent on an increasingly globalized world; and the development of a moral foundation for an integrated conception of critical thinking. |
