The unloveliness of moral education

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book expresses that a central aim of moral education – that of bringing it about that children subscribe to moral standards and believe them to be justified – is defensible and realisable. There is a set of conflict-averting and cooperation-sustaining standards to which full moral commitment can and should be cultivated. The book addresses the worry that moral education is a rather unpleasant business. It offers two kinds of response to this worry. The first is to admit that the accusation of unloveliness has some force: the ugliness of some moral emotions is a bullet that has to be bitten by the defender of rational moral education. The second response, though, is to put up some resistance to the charge: notwithstanding the prominence it gives to guilt and blame, rational moral education is not nearly as unlovely as White suggests.