Aristotle, Emotions, and Education

205 Pages·2007·2.1 MB·English

by  Kristjan Kirstjansson

ARISTOTLE, EMOTIONS, AND EDUCATION
What can Aristotle teach us that is relevant to contemporary moral and educational
concerns? What can we learn from him about the nature of moral development,
the justifiability and educability of emotions, the possibility of friendship between
parents and their children, or the fundamental aims of teaching? The message of this
book is that Aristotle has much to teach us about those issues and many others.
In a formidable display of boundary-breaking scholarship, drawing upon the
domains of philosophy, education and psychology, Professor Kristjánsson analyses
and dispels myriad misconceptions about Aristotle’s views on morality, emotions
and education that abound in the current literature – including the claims of the
emotional intelligence theorists that they have revitalized Aristotle’s message for the
present day. The book proceeds by enlightening and astute forays into areas covered
by Aristotle’s canonical works, while simultaneously gauging their pertinence for
recent trends in moral education.
This is an arresting book on how to balance the demands of head and heart: a
book that deepens the contemporary discourse on emotion cultivation and virtuous
living and one that will excite any student of moral education, whether academic or
practitioner.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my friend and benefactor
Professor Terence H. McLaughlin (1949–2006).
Aristotle, Emotions,
and Education
KRISTJÁN KRISTJÁNSSON
University of Akureyri, Iceland
© Kristján Kristjánsson 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Kristján Kristjánsson has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Kristján Kristjánsson
Aristotle, emotions, and education
1. Aristotle 2. Emotions (Philosophy) 3. Moral education
4. Ethics
I. Title
170.9'2
ISBN: 978-0-7546-6016-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kristján Kristjánsson.
Aristotle, emotions, and education / Kristján Kristjánsson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-6016-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Aristotle. 2. Ethics. 3. Emotions.
4. Education--Philosophy. I. Title.
B485.K75 2007
185--dc22
2006034415
ISBN 978-0-7546-6016-3
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Contents
List of Tables vii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction: Fusing Heart and Head 1
1.1 Aristotelianism and Moral Education 1
1.2 Is Aristotle but a Ventriloquist’s Dummy? 4
1.3 Plan of the Book 10
2 Aristotelian Moral Development 15
2.1 Aristotelian Basics 15
2.2 Stages of Moral Development 19
2.3 Some Points of Emphasis 25
3 Aristotle and the ‘Paradox of Moral Education’ 31
3.1 A Paradoxical Account? 31
3.2 Conflicting Interpretations of Aristotle’s Account 33
3.3 How Can the Psychological Paradox Be Resolved? 35
3.4 The Moral/Political Paradox 43
3.5 To Dwell among the Appearances 46
4 Aristotle on the Non-Expendability of Emotions 49
4.1 Expendability or Non-Expendability? 49
4.2 ‘Negative’ Emotions? 50
4.3 Aristotle’s Account Reconstructed 53
4.4 Individuating Emotions and Virtues 57
4.5 Normative Regimentations 61
5 Teaching Justified Anger the Aristotelian Way 67
5.1 Three Questions about Anger 67
5.2 The Conceptual Issue 68
5.3 The Psychological Issue 71
5.4 The Moral Issue 74
5.5 The Educational Issue 77
6 Emotional Intelligence versus Aristotle 83
6.1 Chip off the Old Block? 83
6.2 The Claims of Emotional Intelligence and Some Common
Objections 84
6.3 Emotional Intelligence versus Emotional Virtue 86
vi Aristotle, Emotions, and Education
6.4 Educational Implications 94
6.5 Untapped Source 96
7 Emulation: An Aristotelian Virtue for the Young 99
7.1 The Method of Role Modelling 99
7.2 Problems of Role Modelling in Character Education 100
7.3 Aristotelian Role Modelling 103
7.4 How Does Aristotle’s Account of Emulation Solve the
Methodological and Moral Problems? 108
7.5 Aristotelian Role Modelling in Practice 111
8 Aristotelian Friendship between Parents and Children 113
8.1 Three Types of Friendship 113
8.2 The Value and Nature of Aristotelian Friendship 114
8.3 Structural Barriers to Friendship? 116
8.4 Moral Barriers to Friendship? 122
8.5 Jointly Produced Sensibilities 123
9 What Can Aristotle Teach Us about Generosity? 125
9.1 ‘What Have You Done?’ 125
9.2 The Do-Gooder and the Vain 129
9.3 Aristotelian Generosity 132
9.4 Cultivating Generosity through Service Learning 134
9.5 Generosity and Civility 136
10 Aristotelian Agreeableness and Teaching 139
10.1 Manners versus Morals 139
10.2 An Aristotelian Notion of Agreeableness 140
10.3 Two Potential Face-Savers and Why They Fail 142
10.4 Objections and Rejoinders 147
10.5 Practical Example 152
11 Is Teaching an Aristotelian Praxis? 157
11.1 What Is the Phronesis-Praxis Perspective? 157
11.2 Aristotle as Anti-Method, Anti-Theory? 159
11.3 An Unproblematic Codification of Techné? 164
11.4 A Particularist Interpretation of Phronesis? 166
11.5 Teaching as Praxis? 169
12 Conclusion 175
12.1 Five Types of Fusion 175
12.2 Aristotle and Five Mantras of Liberalism 177
Bibliography 181
Index 191
List of Tables
2.1 Aristotelian moral virtues discussed in the Nicomachean Ethics 16
3.1 Conflicting interpretations of the Aristotelian habituation process 35
3.2 Generalist versus particularist interpretations of Aristotle’s ethics 39
6.1 Comparisons between emotional intelligence and Aristotelian
emotional virtue 87
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgements
I started and completed work on this book during two sabbatical semesters as Visiting
Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge University. I am grateful to the past and
present Masters at St. Edmund’s, Sir Brian Heap and Professor Paul Luzio, for their
invitations, and to my dear friend, Professor Terry McLaughlin, for introducing me
to College life. Terry’s untimely death in March 2006 was an irreparable loss to the
philosophy-of-education community at large – and to me, personally. This book is
dedicated to his memory.
I am indebted to the friends and colleagues who read earlier versions of some
of the chapters in the book and offered salutary comments that prompted numerous
improvements: Vilhjálmur Árnason, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Randall Curren,
Howard Curzer, Carol Dahlstrom, Claire Foster, Guðmundur Heiðar Frímannsson,
Atli Harðarson, David Konstan, Barbara B. Nelson, Robert C. Roberts, James A.
Russell and Stein Wivestad. Special thanks go to Nina Lee Colwill who carefully
language-edited the entire manuscript prior to submission. I also thank Paul Coulam
and his colleagues at Ashgate for taking this project on board and following it with
care through the publishing process. Furthermore, I gratefully acknowledge the
contribution of audiences at various conferences and seminars, whose questions and
comments made me rethink many salient issues: Conference in Honour of Rector/
Philosopher Páll Skúlason, University of Iceland, 2005; Philosophy of Education
Society of Great Britain Conference, Oxford, 2005; Conference on Kant’s Moral
Philosophy (‘Roots of Morality’), University of Akureyri, 2005; St. Edmund’s
College Conversazione, 2006; London Institute of Education Research Seminar,
2006; Association for Moral Education Conference, University of Fribourg, 2006.
I am grateful for permissions to reprint material from the following articles:
‘Smoothing It: Some Aristotelian Misgivings About the Phronesis-Praxis
Perspective on Education’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 37 (2005); ‘Can
We Teach Justified Anger?’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 39 (2005);
‘Agreeableness’, Journal of Value Inquiry, 39 (2005); ‘Emotional Intelligence in the
Classroom? An Aristotelian Critique’, Educational Theory, 56 (2006); ‘Habituated
Reason: Aristotle and the “Paradox of Moral Education”’, Theory and Research in
Education, 4 (2006); ‘Emulation and the Use of Role Models in Moral Education’,
Journal of Moral Education, 35 (2006); ‘Parents and Children as Friends’, Journal
of Social Philosophy, 37 (2006); ‘The Do-Gooder, the Vain, the Generous, and
Moral Education’, Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 1 (2006); ‘Expendable
Emotions’, International Philosophical Quarterly, 48 (2008).
And to my beloved Nora and Hlér, thank you for being there.