The Return to Wonder : Education Among Morality and Immorality

Abstract

In this study I present the topic of education in its essence, away from the two opposites, the two fires between which it usually tends to fall: amorality and immorality. We tend to confuse such opposites with one another. But what is meant by amorality? And what by immorality? Why is it important to offer a non‑tendentious approach to education that takes morality into account? Following Dietrich von Hildebrand’s personalist philosophy, I will revisit one of his reflections presented at a Workshop he held in Washington, and which finds its greatest expression in his major work, Ethics. In his talk Hildebrand noted how there is “the tendency to eliminate the moral point of view in our approach to life.” He made this observation especially considering the attitude of many teachers in public schools and in high schools to oust the fundamental categories of morally good and evil and to interpret the world in an amoral approach. Such an attitude, Hildebrand observes, is not only mistaken but simply impossible, unrealistic. Unrealistic because it flees the “datum of reality,” and the issue of good or evil cannot be obviated. I will focus on Hildebrand’s concept of the “value response” and the “category of importance,” and then I will show that to educate it is necessary to approach reality without censoring its essence