Review Of Jacques Maritain's Philosophy Of Moral Education

The modern society is characterized by relative shortness of morality, in which social ethics morality embodies defensive moral norms, moral education in school is limited to instillation of moral norms which ignores students' spiritual needs and moral emotional experience, renders school education without subjects. All of these make moral education less effective, and moral qualities of student poorer. When we rethink and try to solve the problems existing in the present moral education, one important dimension is to base our education on human culture from which we may draw rich culture resource and with which we can enlarge the insight of moral education. The paper is intended to do so.Jacques Maritain' s statement on moral education is concise and dispersed among his educational thoughts. But the significance of his view cannot be denied for it is representative of Noe-Thomism. The author wishes to interpret his philosophy of moral education completely and evaluate it tentatively.The first part concerns the theoretic foundation of Maritain' s philosophy of moral education. Generally, he develops his theory on the basis of revelation ethics, which is an enormous ethical system. In the article, the metaphysical existent theory, personality theory, the true humanism and views on happiness and freedom are discussed in detail. With these theories, Maritain indicates that man is a purposive being and reveals man' s ethical character, and also describes and analyzes the relationship between God and man and the real human situation. Finally, he indicates the way by which man could be free from dilemma ?recovery of religious faith and moral reeducation.The second part expounds Maritain' s philosophy of moral education in two respects. One is about the morally educated person and the rational for his description of this person. Morally educated persons are those who have learned to love God and neighbor in such a way that they merit eternal life with God. Universal love, the love of God and the love of neighbor are their tallest virtues. All of above is linked closely with his opinions on human nature.The other concerns the means suggested for educating this person and rational for the recommended means. Basing on the philosophical theory of the relationship between knowledge and morality and the fact that efforts inmany countries engaged in a direct training of the will disregard students' intellectual development, Maritain not discusses the direct and indirect moral formation but makes an important distinction between the educational tasks of school and those of family and church. With regard to the direct influence on the morality, the school is involved in premoral training, which is not with morality but rather with the preparation of the person for moral education. This could be realized through storage of knowledge, healthy development of thinking and intellectual enlightenment and reinforcement. The family and the church educate through common experiences, spiritual training, and liturgy. In Maritain' s eyes, the final form of moral education is religious education. What is most distinctive about his view is his assertion that the moral life is necessarily linked with religious life and experience.The third part contains tentative evaluations on Maritain1 s morally educational theory. His ethics remains religious essence, but Maritain tries to modernize and secularize it by self-perfection to adapt to the modern times. Strong fixation runs through his whole ethical thought. Maritain places great emphasis on reason and regards it the foundation of moral education. He objects to anti-intellectualism and voluntarism in education. What Maritain reveals and criticizes about the negative results which result from the extremity of the utility of instrumental reason of science and technology is profound, and he tries to wake mankind up to the inner consciousness of the human value and rebuilds religious faith system, which is beneficial to the modern moral education practice.Moral education in schoo...