Identity and morality: Cultivating persons in the Asia-Pacific region

Abstract

This article defends a view of personhood based on regarding oneself as ‘one among others’. This relational conception stands in contrast to Western and Eastern stereotypes of the free-standing individual who sees himself in competition with other individuals, and the collectivist individual who sees himself as part of a larger political, religious, cultural or ideological grouping, respectively. The article criticises the status often assigned to such collectives due to confusion over the concept of identity. It appeals instead to the ordinary concept of a person, in order to ground knowledge, morality and moral education. It offers the framework of the classroom community of inquiry in order to accommodate both the relational conception of personhood and an account of how knowledge is intrinsically linked, via language, to each person’s self-awareness and awareness of others. I apply these conceptual considerations to some contemporary thinking about education and identity in the Asia-Pacific region.