The Research On Herbert Spencer’s Moral Education Thoughts

Herbert Spencer built a huge philosophy sociology system according to the theory of evolution.His educational thoughts had a great influence on the British and American educational circles,and spread to all over the world.At present,the negative influence of social Darwinism can not be ignored,and some of Spencer’s social evolutionism thoughts have been misunderstood.Therefore,it has certain theoretical and practical significance to interpret Spencer’s sociological thoughts,educational thoughts and moral education thoughts in a deep and systematic way.Spencer expounds the relationship between morality and social evolution from the three levels of purpose,model and principle of social evolution.He believes that moral perfection,as the purpose of social evolution,as the characteristics of an ideal society and as a means of social evolution,is an important factor to realize social evolution.He put forward the first principle of society and advocated that moral education should strengthen the moral requirements of individuals.Spencer’s thought of moral education mainly includes the purpose,principle and way of moral education.He believes that the purpose of moral education is to achieve the greatest happiness of the society,to promote the moral progress of people,and to autonomy and independence of people.His moral education principles include two levels: one is the basic principle of Moral Education-"natural consequence" punishment principle;the other is "don’t want children to have any large number of virtues" and "don’t rush to promote the realization of children’s good behavior".The main way of moral education is to improve the moral education knowledge level of moral educators,improve the quality of moral educators.Moral educators take a cautious "autocratic" strategy in the implementation of education.Spencer’s thought of moral education has the characteristics of foresight,liberalism and scientificity,but its thought of moral education also has the defects of only effect theory,extensive use of evolutionism and utilitarianism.Therefore,in the moral education,we should pay attention to the cultivation of respect,responsibility and justice,cultivate students’ ability of independence and autonomy,and promote the integration of rationality and emotion,Make moral progress possible.