Moral Self-improvement Research Articles

THE FEATURES OF STUDENTS’ INTRODUCTION INTO THE UNIVERSITY EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

The article analyzes students’ adaptation to the socio-economic conditions, new education systems at university, as well as personal processes related to forming professional competence. The peculiarities of students’ attitudes to university training were examined with the survey conducted among students. The revealed peculiarities of university training were related to characteristics of the students’ personal, psychosocial and professional development. Students’ main activities include their professional training, self-affirmation, intellectual development, moral and physical self-improvement. The conclusion is made that it is important to ensure the link between general and professional education, socially useful work. The centre of cognitive interest is thinking, so, the problem-based learning, which activates students’ mental activity, has a positive effect on their emotional sphere. Such intellectual feelings as a feeling of something new, curiosity, surprise contribute to students’ mental activity. If there is a space for manifestations of intelligence, students become active; boredom appears if there is no place for intelligence. Anyone can give an example, when it was difficult to reproduce the content of a listened lecture, a read book or a watched movie, because mental activity was not encouraged. The peculiarity of cognitive interest lays in an individual’s desire to delve into the essence of cognized objects. From this point of view, a cognitive interest can become a motive for learning, which is the basis of students’ positive attitudes to higher education, to knowledge that, in turn, evokes positive experiences of mental work with a constant desire to obtain deeper knowledge on some learned subjects. Existing cognitive tasks that require a person to be active, exploratory or creative are important prerequisite for appearance of cognitive interest.

ПРОБЛЕМА СКІНЧЕННОСТІ ЛЮДСЬКОГО ІСНУВАННЯ В УКРАЇНСЬКОМУ ФОЛЬКЛОРІ

The article analyzes the existential problems of life, death and immortality in Ukrainian folklore (based on Ukrainian fairy tales). In the corpus of Ukrainian folk tales there are widely used topics, which in European philosophy and literature are called "tragic foundations of human existence" - awareness of the inevitability of death in the earthly existence of man, the search for forms of individual immortality. In Ukrainian fairy tales there is a dual attitude of the individual to the inevitability of his own death. On the one hand, there is the motive of reconciliation with the fate of human destiny, and in order to relieve the painful feeling of one's own finitude, the instruction on the higher meaning of the existence of death is forced. Death is justified because it appears as the prevention of the absurdity of infinite human existence or as an obstacle to the debauchery of the whims and dangerous wishes of the individual, or ultimately as the punishment of people for violating the commandments of the Supreme Spiritual Creature. In other words, death appears in a number of fairy tales as the expression of the highest world justice. At the same time, death mostly appears in fairy tales as an objectified pagan idea of Death as a concrete living creature with its whims, sympathies and weaknesses. The problem of finding ways to achieve immortality is traced in Ukrainian fairy tales in two ways. Most often, this search unfolds in the plane of the victory of the hero of the fairy tale over death, or through the imprisonment of death, or through the marriage of the hero to a divine being. This is a very common motive in the tales around the world. Less common is the motive of achieving immortality through the moral self-improvement of the hero, his compliance to the moral commandments of God. This is already a reflection in fairy tales of the influence of Christianity on the spiritual world of the ancestors of modern Ukrainians.

“To Think and to Suffer” as the Meaning of Life

This article analyzes the philosophy of Alexander Pushkin through the prism of his formulation “to think and to suffer.” The material for this analysis is Pushkin’s lyric poetry, his novel in verse Eugene Onegin, and his cycle of plays The Little Tragedies. Pushkin’s works contain a tragic world view embodied in the deep structures of his texts, which therefore remain hidden to the general reader in their general tone of “light sadness.” The irresolvable contradictions of life are reflected in his work as suffering, which requires the author and his protagonists to solve and overcome it in their consciousness (a comprehension of the tragic nature of being). The transformation of suffering into thinking about suffering is a universal mechanism for “relieving” suffering and a stimulus for an individual’s moral self-improvement, for him to discover the meaning of life and human dignity. At the same time, the suffering that belongs to the world of “low truths” can, through philosophical reflection, rise to the level of universal human issues: socioeconomic, moral-aesthetic, spiritual-erotic, and existential. Once comprehended, suffering thus extends beyond the trials of a particular individual and reveals the overall pattern of the global universe.

Trying to Be Good (with Bad Results): The Wouldbegoods, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and Ivy and Bean: Bound to Be Bad

Trying to Be Good (with Bad Results):The Wouldbegoods, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and Ivy and Bean: Bound to Be Bad Claudia Mills (bio) Ever since its origin in both rationalist and religious moralizing texts, children's literature has been pressed into the service of character formation, charged with the overt or covert task of helping children learn to be good. Or, that is to say, learn to become what the adult moral arbiters of each period believe goodness to be. So it is striking when texts written for children explicitly problematize the project of aspirational goodness, the enterprise of self-consciously and explicitly aiming at goodness itself. What interests me is the phenomenon of stories—forming a distinctive micro-genre of sorts—in which children join together in a collective effort at moral improvement that conspicuously backfires, where it is the very attempt to be good itself that leads to the bad behavior. While of course stories abound in which attempts at moral improvement fail and good intentions go awry, in the stories I highlight the failure is directly produced by the children's own attempts at moral improvement and the formation of their good intentions. Because they seem so clearly structured to problematize the didactic project, stories of this peculiar form are especially well suited, I argue, to offer insights on didacticism in children's literature. I propose for examination, as central examples of this micro-genre, The Wouldbegoods by E. Nesbit (1901), the chapter "Being Good" in Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace (1941), and the fifth Ivy and Bean chapter book by Annie Barrows, Bound to Be Bad (2008). Various other texts share certain features of this phenomenon (i.e., texts demonstrating the problematic effects of aspirational goodness), but in my view illustrate it less clearly. For example, the "Good-Conduct Club" chapters of Rainbow Valley by L. M. Montgomery (1919) present another failed collective attempt at goodness, but this aspect of her story seems to be deployed with a different purpose and to a different effect (to show the ill results of a lack of maternal guidance, thus helping to advance the romantic plot of a widowed father's remarriage).1 In Enid Blyton's The Put-Em-Rights (1946), the children create a club focused not on moral self-improvement, but on the righting of wrongs. But while Blyton amply demonstrates the moral unattractiveness [End Page 149] of appointing oneself the corrector of others' misdeeds, her story nonetheless shows the Put-Em-Rights achieving moral growth (i.e., amending their own moral faults) by virtue of their crusade, and so, despite its ultimate termination, the book closes with the rallying cry, "Here's to the Put-Em-Rights all over the world! … Good luck to them, whoever they are, and wherever they live. Here's to everyone who tries to put things right!" This hardly counts as a resounding rebuttal of aspirational goodness.2 The three focal books were published over the course of a full century—Nesbit's at the dawn of the twentieth century, Lovelace's in the mid-twentieth century (but set in the period of Nesbit's), and Barrows's at the dawn of the twenty-first, so we can see them as both expressing continuity in concern about the pitfalls of aspirational goodness and revealing evolving attitudes toward the didactic enterprise. On their surface, all three could be read as poking gentle fun at children's comic misunderstandings of the requirements and rewards of the moral life. But on a closer reading, the texts satirize, not silly childish errors about morality, but the counterproductive ways in which adult authorities—including earnestly moralizing adult authors—communicate morality to children. I argue that these three texts provide material for a more far-reaching critique of the problematic ways in which we, as adults, present the enterprise of morality to children—and to ourselves. If children's literature is, as Perry Nodelman has argued, fundamentally "a discourse about what children are, about how they are different from adults, and about the relative merits of the different qualities" (22), these texts complicate this picture by blurring the distinction between adult and...

Asian educational discourse: construction of ontological security

This article considers the problem of ontology security through Asian educational discourse, which is structurally determined by the process of moral self-improvement. Considered are trends in improving the management of educational system by developing the culture of quality, which is considered as the next stage of the Asian education systems development after the “quality of education” stage. We suggest an approach for assessing the vitality of educational process and its product based on monitoring trainees’ aptitudes system and school capabilities in developing and maintaining this system. In this study we refer to the concept of vitality and viability when describing the general theory of viability in connection with the core principles of Asian educational discourse. We outline main trends in the development of modern educational system in Asian university given the process of globalization and its impact on educational reforms in the Asia-Pacific region. Thus, the category of education quality in Asian system of higher education and narrative monitoring of Chinese students’ cognitive structures viability at Altai State University are introduced.

Knowing Yourself and Being Worth Knowing

AbstractPhilosophers have often understood self-knowledge's value in instrumentalist terms. Self-knowledge may be valuable as a means to moral self-improvement and self-satisfaction, while its absence can lead to viciousness and frustration. These explanations, while compelling, do not fully explain the value that many of us place in self-knowledge. Rather, we have a tendency to treat self-knowledge as its own end. In this article, I vindicate this tendency by identifying a moral reason that we have to value and seek self-knowledge that is independent of the reason that we have to value the beneficial ends that it helps us achieve. I argue that we are in an inescapable relationship with ourselves that requires both self-love and self-respect. Self-love gives us a noninstrumental reason to know ourselves, while self-respect demands that we take this reason seriously. To pursue a project of self-discovery carefully and for its own sake, then, is part of what it is to stand in a loving and respectful relationship with ourselves.

КСЕНОФОНТ О ЕРОСУ И ФИЛИЈИ

У раду се на основу Успомене о Сократу и Симпосиона разматра коју улогу erōs и philia заузимају у Ксенофонтовој етичкој и политичкој мисли.

ЖІНОЧІ ОБРАЗИ У ПРОЗІ МИКОЛИ УСТИЯНОВИЧА

It is researched the originality of the female characters in prose works of the writer-romanticist Mykola Ustiyanovych (1811–1885), such as «The revenge of verhovynets», «The Holy Thursday», «The Permission of God», it is disclosed the specific ethnic features of female types of the Carpathian Boikos, it is analyzed the means of their romanticizing in the article.Mykola Ustiyanovych revealed a number of specific features of social life, the customs of Boikos. The writer emphasized their sincerity, kindness, willingness to help the disadvantaged, stressed on the compassion and respect of mountain people to widows, in particular to the widow Nalyvaichyha. The researchers of everyday life of Boikos tend to believe the Christian morality as the main factor in the compassion attitude of community to the widows.In the story «The Permission of God» the great attention is paid to the question of parenting and mother's appointment. In the author's story are inserted the authorial exclamation intonations in which Mykola Ustiyanovych enjoys sincere maternal love, teaches mothers, promotes the faith in God and moral self-improvement through the atonement and punishment.The women images in prose works of Mykola Ustiyanovych endowed with the romantic features, the writer used the figurative means which are inherent to the romanticism. In his work we see the tendency to solve problems of education and high calling of mother in typical to Boikivshchyna didactically-moralistic and religious-Christian plan. All of this, of course, prepared the aesthetic basis for the creation of a new image system, absolutely new types of women, who later clearly detected themselves in the works of Ivan Franko, Olha Kobylianska and other Ukrainian writers.

"Czy może być co dobrego z Nazaretu?"(J 1, 46) w perspektywie zwrotu etycznego

This article undertakes a reflection on selected aspects of biblical ethics. A parallel reading of the Nathanael (Jn 1,43-51) and the Zacchaeus (Lk 19,1-10) pericopes presents the ethical disposition not as a desire of moral self-improvement, but as openness, freedom from prejudice and readiness for changing the existing concept of good (Nathanael undermines tradition, Zacchaeus shares his wealth). Messianic ethics – not focused on cultivating personal virtues but radically relational, social, and secular – seems to inspire very diverse ethical philosophers (from Levinas or Bonhoeffer to Badiou), and its present-day form is political concern for responsibilization of the global market.

Promoting Healthy Competition Using Modified Rules and Sports from Other Cultures

A great controversy around the concept of competition exists, not only among researchers but also among teachers, parents, and even the participants themselves. An overemphasis on competitive sports and unhealthy competition has overshadowed the positive benefits of sport participation, including character and moral development and self-improvement, which are traditionally associated with competition. An increasing number of educators argue that collaborative skills, rather than competitive skills, are more essential in today's society. Cooperative learning is promoted as a suitable approach to prepare students for the demands of the 21st century. On the other hand, there are those who believe competition is a big part of adult life in any culture and that it should therefore be incorporated into the educational system. This article looks at the original meaning of “competition” and how it has evolved to the present day. It presents ideas for modifying rules and implementing activities from other cultures, which can intensify the benefits of competition while reducing the potential negative effects.

Playground of the Century

Playground of the Century: A Political and Design History of New York City’s Greatest Unbuilt Park presents a microhistory of one of the last substantial open spaces in metropolitan New York, the Gerritsen tidal marsh of Brooklyn. Spared from development on the recommendation of Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett, the Gerritsen estuary was an ecological treasure that nonetheless became a “clean slate” upon which a succession of heroic plans was projected. The greatest of these was Charles Downing Lay’s 1,800-acre Marine Park, intended to be the largest urban playground in the world. A vast space for exercise and sport that won its designer a silver medal in the 1936 Olympics, Marine Park was the anti–Coney Island, an engine of moral fitness and self-improvement as focused on physical activity as Prospect Park was on promenade and contemplation. It remains a rare example of progressive park design in the conservative “Country Place” era of the 1920s. Designed in the neo-Renaissance idiom then popular for private estates, Marine Park was a vast formal garden for the people. In this article Thomas J. Campanella explores the ironic turn of events by which Robert Moses later dismissed the Lay plan in favor of a less invasive park scheme that preserved the salt marsh and enabled its recent ecological restoration as one of New York City’s Forever Wild nature preserves.

Archibald Campbell's views of Self-Cultivation and Self-Denial in context

This paper discusses the accounts of self-cultivation and self-denial of Archibald Campbell (1691–1756). It analyses how he attempts to make room for moral self-improvement and for the control of the passions in a thoroughly egoistic psychological framework, and with a theory of moral motivation that focuses on a specific kind of self-love, namely the desire for esteem. Campbell's views are analysed in the context of his criticisms of both Francis Hutcheson's benevolence-based moral philosophy and of Bernard Mandeville's version of an egoistic psychology. The paper explores the key role of Campbell's distinction between true and mistaken self-love, and it discusses how his account of self-cultivation reflects both his optimistic view of human nature as being naturally disposed to virtue and his moral rehabilitation of self-love – two points on which he is in conflict with the period's orthodox Calvinism.

Chiang Kai-shek's reading: an inquiry based on Chiang's diary, 1920s–1940s

At different times of his life, Chiang Kai-shek entertained three different images of himself: saint, hero and revolutionary guru. The orientation of his reading roughly corresponded with these roles: to be a saint, he emphasized moral learning and self-improvement; to be a hero, he stressed military strategy and politics; and to be the guru for a revolution, he had an enduring interest in the histories of revolutions in other nations. He seldom took an interest in books about knowledge, leisure or entertainment, which had little connection with these three roles. Chiang was closer to a traditional Chinese intellectual than to his predecessor Dr. Sun Yat-sen in his knowledge structure, value orientation and behaviour codes. Although Mao Zedong was as devoted to old Chinese books as Chiang, Mao preferred history and classical literature while Chiang preferred Confucian classics. Mao read old books from a historical materialist point of view, whereas Chiang synthesized “Three Principles of the People” (Sanmin zhuyi) with Confucian doctrines.

The Effects of Commitment to Moral Self-improvement and Religiosity on Ethics of Business Students

Using survey methodology we examined the relationships between commitment to moral self-improvement (CMSI), religiosity, ethical problem recognition, and behavioral intentions in a sample of 242 business students. Results of the study suggest that CMSI predicts ethical problem recognition and behavioral intentions. Our findings also suggest that CMSI is positively related to religiosity. The study provides some evidence of CMSI being a mediator in the influence of religiosity on ethical problem recognition and behavioral intentions. Compared to religiosity, CMSI turned out to be a better predictor of perceived importance of ethics, ethical problem recognition, and ethical behavioral intentions. The results of the study have implications for increasing understanding of ethical decision-making, future studies of business ethics, and business ethics education.

Intellectual, Social, and Moral Development: Why Technology Cannot Replace Teachers

Information technology is changing people's thinking as profoundly as printing press changed course of history more than five centuries ago. The advent of information technology, particularly computer and World Wide Web, was hailed as having the potential to revolutionize education and improve (Dede, 1998, p. v). Futurists quickly envisioned virtual where spend a great deal of time learning from their computer-as-teacher. This article argues that as student use of computers increases, teachers will be more indispensable than ever to guide intellectual, social, and moral development of children. To illustrate this position, article describes intellectual, social, and moral issues that one teacher has faced in a technology-rich, 21st Century School. Her experiences demonstrate why technology cannot replace teachers and exemplify how computers in schools anywhere can be both a blessing and a burden for teachers. Educating for Intellectual, Social, and Moral Development Goals of education in United States have changed little over last 300 years and generally fall into four categories: academic (intellectual), vocational (responsibility as a productive citizen), and civic (socialization into a democratic society), and personal (self-development) (Goodlad, 1984). Goals for high schools are no exception. Wilson and Rossman (1993) noted that usual mission of high schools is to challenge and help to grow intellectually, personally, and socially, [but that] ... primary responsibility.., is to promote intellectual growth of ... students (p. 162). Intellectual growth was defined as the ability to reason, to imagine, to value, to decide (p. 162). Goodlad (1984) also found that cultivation of cognitive abilities is paramount in secondary schools (p. 47), but that for some students, academic intrudes into personal and social aspects of their lives (p. 78-79). The literature indicates that adolescence represents a strong growth period in intellectual and development. As adolescents develop cognitive capacity to reason, think symbolically, make judgments, and engage in formal operations, they also become interested in relationships and issues (e.g., Chang, 1992; Oppenheimer, 1990) as well as values and moral issues (Bloom, 1956; Heath, 1994). Recent constructivist theories of learning help explain relationship between intellectual and development of children; that is, norms and interactions play a powerful role in all learning, especially in learning to communicate and empathize with and behave in culturally acceptable ways (Vygotsky, 1978; also see Dewey, 1938). Adolescents tend to learn behaviors and values from role models and from experiences that personally involve them rather than from direct instruction (Dewey, 1909/1975; Gardner, 1963/1981; Hartshorne & May, 1928). Thus, in schools, teachers' actions speak louder than words. The links between intellectual and moral development have been less explored than intellectual/social connections. On intellectual side, Dewey (1933/1960) argued forcefully for active and engaged learning that involves inquiry, insisting that on intellectual side we must have judgment (Dewey, 1909/1975, p. 51). However, he also argued that the development of character is end of all school work (p. 49). Inquiry, judgments, and character all involve values and therefore fall into realm of moral education. Additionally, all represent a search for knowledge as well as careful thinking and reflection throughout process. Thus, teaching, if it is a reflective enterprise, is necessarily an ongoing effort at moral self-improvement. And moral self-improvement is impossible without continued quest for self-knowledge and knowledge of others (Katz, 1999, p. …

Working the Rough Stone: Freemasonry in Eighteenth Century Russia by Douglas s> Smith (review)

i6o SEER, 79, I, 2001 for his usefulappendix of manuscriptsourcesfor the instructionsof the sejmiki between I773 and 1788. There is little doubt, however, that Lukowskisits squarelyin the pessimist camp. He is particularly good at exposing the enlightened cant of the partitionersfor the specious humbug it undoubtedlywas, yet the eye he turns on Polish politics is at times a triflejaundiced. It is true that examples of political stupidityor treacherousdouble-dealingarenot hardto come by, and that many Polesproved naive in the extreme, especiallyin theirdealingswith that arch-cynic Frederick II. It is also important to avoid the misty-eyed nostalgia with which so many have viewed the Four Year Sejm and the Constitution of 3 May. Nevertheless, if Lukowski'sshrewd and hard-headed judgements on Polish politics in the late eighteenth century are often wellfounded , his view of the Commonwealth is relentlesslynegative. As a state it was farmore than a 'failedexperiment'(p. I89), and for much of its existence it was farfrom 'ungovernable'(p. 8). Lukowskitakesno account of historians such as Jacek Staszewski and J6zef Gierowski, who have done much to reinterpret the eighteenth century. Gierowski's recent survey, translatecl rather unevenly into English by Henry Leeming (T-hePolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth intheXVIIIthcentury. From anarchy towell-organised state,Rozprawy WydzialuHistoryczno-Filozoficznego,og6lnego zbiorutom 82, PolskaAkademia Umiej?tnogci, Krak6w, I996), while by no means uncritical,provides a much more positive and optimistic assessment.There is no doubt, however, that Lukowski's arguments are well-considered and well-supported, and teachers will welcome the fact that their students can now read such widely differinginterpretationsfrom two distinguishedscholars. Department ofHistory ROBERT I. FROST King'sCollege London Smith, Douglas. Working theRoughStone- Freemasony in Eighteenth Century Russia.NorthernIllinoisUniversityPress,De Kalb, IL, I 99. x + 257 pp. Bibliography.Index. ?27.95. THE title of this book, 'Workingthe Rough Stone', on eighteenth century Russian freemasonry has been chosen in order to indicate the purpose attributed to the movement at the time, namely to refine and purify the thoughts and actions of those who became masons by means of a process of conscious moral self-improvement.The book is based on a Ph.D. thesiswhich has been considerablyexpanded and deepened. In his introductionthe author rightlystressesthe internationalsignificance of the many differingforms of masonry, a movement which, as far as Russia was concerned, was part and parcel of the westernization of society. After accepting cameralism and the Polizeistaat, followed by the Enlightenment from the West, Russian educated men (and it was primarily a movement reserved for men) sought a spiritualdimension of greater or lesser depth to anchor their strivingfor a moral content, a reform of heart and manners in their attitude to social issues, and in many cases for mystical experiences beyond thefrontiersof the RussianOrthodox Church.Belongingto a masonic REVIEWS i6i order was also a key to acceptance in the wider society of the Republic of LettersthroughoutEurope. The authorhas been able to make use of unpublishedmaterialproducedby the Russian scholar, A. I. Serkov, which has given considerable body to his book. He describeslife in the lodges in the context of the development of civil society, particularly striking in the last third of the century. He rightly challenges some of the assumptionsmade about the passivityof the Russian public but is himself perhaps too liable to accept au pied de la lettrethe fashionablejudgement of political sociologiststo the effectthat 'centralto the development of the "public"throughoutEuropewas the rise of the absolutist state'. England? The United Provinces? Maybe the 'public' would have emerged earlierin Russia if it had escaped the gripof absolutism. That there was a Russian public by the end of the eighteenth century is indisputable, and one might suggest that as elsewhere it developed step by stepwith the introductionof printingon a commercialscale.It isthiseducated public, both noble and non-noble, which was attracted to the masonic movement, and Smith gives a competent account of the numbers of lodges, the particulartype of freemasonrypractisedin them and their relationshipto the European-widemovement. Obviously farmore is known about the noble membersof the lodges who travelledwidely and were in intimatecontactwith leaders of the movement in differentcountries than about the more humble membersofthe merchantestate,andthe numerousmembersoftheembryonic non-noble intelligentsiaandthe craftsmenwho neverthelessplayeda considerable partin it. Smith also analysesthe attitudeof the Russian government to the masonic...