Education For Responsibility: Knowledge, Ethics And Deliberation

Abstract

That education for responsibility can be interpreted in different ways follows from the simple fact that we humans can ‘combine a limited repertoire of concepts in a potentially infinite number of ways’ (Davidson, 2004, p. 13). In this chapter, I discuss an epistemological, ethical and deliberative interpretation of the question of how it is possible to educate people so that they become responsible citizens. My overall purpose is to argue for a deliberative interpretation. Responsibility, in the epistemological interpretation, means learning more about the other and the world and us, being loyal to members of the nationstate and developing the capacity to be critical. Hence, the success of education for responsibility is evaluated against how far children and young people learn knowledge, are loyal to other citizens of the nation-state and develop their critical capacity. An ethical interpretation of responsibility suggests something different. It suggests a call upon the primacy of our ethical relation to the other as Other, which goes beyond our understanding and knowledge of the other. It proposes a radical openness to the Other as an absolute difference and a necessary asymmetry between others as Others. To be responsible for the other means that you are actively responsible for your responsibility for the other as an absolute, infinite and unknowable Other; a responsibility that precedes our knowledge and understanding of the other. This suggests, for advocates of postmodern ethics, that we give up the idea that we should learn more about the other as a correct ethical response to the Other. The success of education for responsibility then becomes a matter of whether teachers and students take their responsibility for their responsibility for the other as Other instead of just learning about others. In the deliberative interpretation, responsibility means that you are both accountable to and responsible for the other when rationalising actions. ‘Accountable to’ means that you have an obligation to explain your reason(s) for your action and to support your claims about the validity of your descriptions of the situation, the world, people and yourself and the validity of your explanations and reasons given. ‘Responsible for’ involves your obligation to ask the other for his/her reason(s) for his/her action(s) as well. The success of education for responsibility is then evaluated against how far children and young people are accountable to and responsible for each other and critically investigate the sincerity, righteousness and truthfulness of actions.