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On the Nature of Moral Consciousness and Moral Education
43
R.S.Peters (1965, 1966) uses the term education in a wider context and distinguishes it from other processes like training or instruction or even indoctrination etc. According to analysis made by him education is concerned with developing of autonomy of the individual, whereas the other processes do not have any such aim. When we wish to train or instruct somebody we simply do not have any consideration of individuals's autonomy in view. And in some situations considerations of autonomy may just be irrelevant and inappropriate, asin training some one in driving a car. The processes of conditioning and indoctrination are still more irrelevant to the concept of autonomy. In these processes there is a deliberate attempt to stifle the individual's autonomy. A man indoctrinated or conditioned in some respects stops thinking for himself in that area. When people. for example. are indoctrinaled into a particular social or political system they blindly accept these. Attempts so made are deliberate in nature which aim at discouraging and preventing people to question the validity of these systems.
In the process of education, however, what is important is the development not only of knowledge but also of understanding - a kind of cognitive perspective" and also the development of critical awareness. To be educated, therefore, means not only the acquisition of autonomy but also the capacity to use that autonomy effectively. Further, one can become capable of using the autonomy effectively only when one has obtained sufficient awareness and depth of understanding on the subject. Mere acquisition or providing of freedom of thought does not qualify a person to be called educated unless one is adequately informed also on the subject. So education implies an attempt not only to develop in pupil the ability to form their own opinion but also to improve the quality of those, o
The direct implication of this analysis on the issue of moral choices is that we should develop in people greatest possible knowledge and understanding which can enable them to reach autonomous moral choices in a particular situation. The job of moral education, therefore, is to teach pupil how to think instead of what to think of moral issues. In this process he should promote discussions assuming for himself a neutral position and should not thrust upon them one's own views. But at the same time, as a leader of the group he should consider his responsibility to promote the quality and standards of discussion on such issues.
In order that children may develop in them moral autonomy, what Kohlberg (1996) calls the "self accepted moral principles" we should keep in mind the manner in which children come to hold their moral beliefs. Piaget, Kohlberg and other congnitive developmental theorists, on the basis of their empirical findings have revealed that children must pass through certain stages of such development before they reach the final stage of moral autonomy. These theorists have suggested that to begin with, in the early childhood the children are in state of **anomy" in which the follow no rules. They pass to the state of “heteronomy".
January March 1993
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