The Proper Object of Moral Judgment and of Moral Education

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Abstract There are three types of answers to the questions: what makes behaviour a moral act and the agent a moral person, and accordingly, what is the proper object of moral judgment? 1. Overt behaviour in conformity with moral norms and duties. 2. Morally meritorious motives and reasons for acting. 3. The beneficent consequences of behaviour under given circumstances. Three influential psychological approaches to moral education are analysed with a view to showing that they disagree with respect to the favoured object of moral education in terms of these three typical conceptions of morality. Havighurst's and Taba's character formation presupposes the first type; Kohlberg's stimulation of moral reasoning reflects a second‐type conception of morality: Kant's ‘ethics of mental disposition’ (Gesinnungsethik); and Dewey's emphasis on intelligent action, to be tested by its tendency to produce desirable consequences, embodies third‐type ‘ethics of responsibility’. Therefore, choice among such competing appro...