The document presents an overview of educational ethics, defining its objectives, subject matter, and its importance in academia and social life. It emphasizes the need for disambiguation of key concepts in education and ethics and discusses the performative aspects of educational ethics, including its normative and meta-ethical dimensions. The value of educational ethics is outlined as theoretical, pragmatic, and intrinsic, highlighting its role in humanization and socialization.

1. Dr Neeti Singh
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy and Religion
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.
E-mail: neetisingh@bhu.ac.in
Educational Ethics

2. Objectives
• The meaning of "educational ethics"
• Its subject matter
• The worth or value it has in the realm of academics and social
life
Basically, the objectives of the discourse are two: disambiguation
of "educational ethics" as a study and the worth of the study in
civil life.

3. Disambiguation
• Philosophers generally agree to undertake disambiguation of key concepts in
philosophical discussion.
• There are numerous definitions and explanations of education and ethics that
confuse us most.
• To make a long list of definitions for meaning clarification should give way to find
out what things we do or what are the performatives under education and ethics.
• Mapping the contours of education, that is, the performatives of the enterprise
brings us closer to knowing unambiguously what we mean by education. Similar are
the cases with ethics and educational ethics.

4. Educational Performatives
• Educating is not merely teaching and training or at least not synonymous, both
teaching and training are valuable means to education, having intrinsic value.
• Education is extrinsically valuable, some of its worthy ends being, having pertinent,
knowledge of man qua man, that is, knowing humans as they really are - self-
knowledge as some of us say. This sounds like a realization of self or the real
being to grow as a civil citizen in the community of beings and things.
• To develop worth or value in humans, that is, to be a person of character or
virtuous disposition - man making so to say.

5. • Education is then a process to go beyond the dull enterprises of skill
development, disseminating a vast body of information and becoming
physically empowered beings. It is to motivate beings of free and
autonomous will to know things of worth and participate in the formation of
qualitative life and qualitative work-life.
• It is to know what things are of worth or value than disvalue and to
assimilate intentional, intellectual, psycho-physical, and other high values in
life so that one can attain freedom from the bondage of ignorance of the
truth, beauty, and good.
• Educational contour then covers the organizational process of cognitive,
conative, and affective aspects or dimensions that constitute human beings.
It suggests a way a man is made through humanization and socialization.

6. Ethical Performatives
• Ethics is also known as moral philosophy, that is, a philosophical
reflection of moral issues.
• Moral philosophy is a philosophical or rational logical inquiry into a
number of issues pertaining to morality.
• In dealing with different moralities across human cultures, we come to
know about traditional customs, habits, and beliefs about what is in a
particular culture good, right, just, and so on.

7. We can safely underline the ethical performatives as follows:
• The first order task of ethics is normative in nature, that is, to inquire
into the details and logical validity of a norm or standard or, norms or
standards, based on which we evaluate some human intentions,
decisions and actions as ethically valuable or right, good, just and so on.
This is done under normative ethics.
• The second order performative of ethics is meta-study of ethical
language, that is, the study of the language of ethical discourse for
meaning and truth. Further, to inquire into the logic or justification of
one normative theory over another one. This is done under metaethics.

8. • There are then value and virtue-related discussions in ethics, that is, to
discuss what things are of ethical value, what are the virtues vital for
humans, and the reason we say that such and such things are of value
and virtue. Furthermore, we also discuss the methods for basing or
inculcating virtues in humans. This is done under value and virtue
ethics.
• Finally, we have the applied or practical task of ethics, that is, we discuss
the nature of a range of value-loaded practical problems in our life and
suggest methods for resolving these problems. This is done
under applied or practical ethics, of which educational ethics is
an important branch.

9. Performatives of Educational Ethics
• Meta-normative study of the language of education that includes
analyzing the key concepts and conceptions of educational ethics. R.M.
Hare, for example, discusses at length the nature of "language of moral
education" as "prescriptive specific" than descriptive and emotive.
• Normative study of standards of ethical right, good, and just are brought
into the evaluation of educational enterprise for its worthwhileness or
value. We inquire into the logical validity of normative approaches
(authoritative, naturalistic, and rational) in educational ethics.

10. • Educational ethics takes on the task of value and virtue basing through
education, that is, what it amounts to. What is its pragmatic though humane
methods? What ought to be its goal? Which values need to be inculcated
following prioritization if needed?
• Furthermore, we discuss the nature of value-based education, that is, what
does it mean? In what ways such education should be imparted? And what, if
any, are these values based on which education ought to be?
• Finally in educational ethics, particularly for the professional educationists, we
discuss the nature of value-loaded practical problems that trouble them and
the citizens at large. Such as privatization in education, mixed schooling,
corporeal punishment, and many more. We discuss the viable methods to
resolve such ethical dilemmas in the educational profession.

11. Value of Educational Ethics
If something is of no value, it is even worse than disvalue. Educational ethics is not
value-neutral; nor is it a disvalue. Educational ethics, as we know it from nature
analysis, has the following worth or value:
• It has a theoretical value as far as it discusses meta-normative, normative, value-
based, and practical involvement of moral philosophical inquiries in association
with educational enterprises.
• It has pragmatic value as far as it is a means to man-making as well as needed for
quality of life and quality of work life. It is for humanization and socialization.
• It has intrinsic value in as far as even if somebody does not seek for educational
ethics having such and such external worth, it is still worth in itself - it is worth
seeking, irrespective of all things we get out of it.

12. Bibliography
Barrow, Robin, Moral Philosophy for Education, Allen & Unwin, London, 1975.
Downie, R.S. et al. (eds.), Education and Personal Relationships: A Philosophical Study, Methuen
& Co. Ltd., London, 1974.
Frankena, W.K., Ethics, Prentice Hall, New Delhi, 1989.
Frankena, W.K., Towards Philosophy of Moral Education, Hayward Educational Review, 28, 1958.
Guha, D, Educational Ethics, Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, 2007.
Hare, R.M, The Language of Morals, O.U.P., London, 1952.
Peters, R.S, Ethics and Education, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1974.
Ruhela, S.P. (ed.), Human Values in Education, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1986.

13. Thank You...
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