About The Author This retired Philosophy professor (whose study and teaching of Philosophy included Philosophy of Education) is reaching out ambitiously – with a proposal in plain, non-technical English, to everyone – not only his fellow Americans — for everyone’s education, including those devoted to peace as well as folks confident that violent political initiatives are needed in our time.

What I am presenting is a normative Philosophy of Education: In the first place, I’m recommending, (that is, I’m presenting as worthy of acceptance and trial), a general aim – a broad purpose or goal, to guide — in an ongoing, week-by-week, way — the teaching of people of all age-groups. 

This over-arching aim, or all-embracing aim – is certainly not intended to replace such important aims as teaching how to read and to calculate, how to prepare food, how to design, build, or repair a dwelling or a vehicle, or how to furnish or to beautify a home, or organize a business, or to convey a body of well-confirmed, well-established subject matter!  But it may well help reshape how folks pursue such important educational aims.

The overarching, all-embracing aim I’m recommending reflects and extends important Hebrew-Christian cultural roots.  Regrettably, in recent centuries, these ancient roots – which take the form of general imperatives and – earlier — Divine Commands — seem to have been widely forgotten and overlooked in both the Western and the Eastern hemispheres.

These Ancient Imperatives bear on many of our choices, and not only when we are acting as individuals.  They also apply, for example, to actions by a government, when it considers trading with – or invading — a neighboring country, or prepares to defend itself against an invasion.  And they apply to a business, when it considers how – or whether — to market an effective and highly profitable but addictive pain-killer.

These Ancient Imperatives provide important guidance to individuals and to all sorts of organizations and groupings that make decisions, make choices.

This pair of Ancient Imperatives calls upon us, as human beings, to love – that is, to seek to benefit . . . to care about, and not to harm — our fellow human beings — as we love – that is, seek to benefit, and not to harm — ourselves.

So these ancient imperatives reflect what has been scientifically confirmed in quite recent times:  We are born with the “instinctual roots” of both self–love and care about others.  See chapter 4.

Anyone who values intelligent – informed — self-care, as well as active empathy — being kind, and acting toward others with accurately informed good will — should find this philosophy of education attractive.  I’m encouraged that Fareed Zakaria in his CNN special The Divided States of America (1/31/2021 – about the 56th minute) subscribes to a “Treat others the way you’d want to be treated” orientation.

And News anchor Lester Holt’s request five nights a week on the NBC Nightly News “Please take care of yourself, and each other” reflects the content of those ancient imperatives.

Highly-regarded modern ethics philosopher, John Stuart Mill – not himself a religious person – praised these ancient imperatives in the highest terms (Utilitarianism, Chapter 2, paragraph 30).

Some readers may already be aware of the comparable ancient cultural roots –in Islamic thought (see, for example, Hadith 13), and in Confucian thought (Books 10 and 12 of The Analects) – that also foreshadow the overall aim I’m proposing in this Philosophy of Education.  Those similar roots are reasons for believing that the over-arching, all-embracing aim I’m urging is not provincial, not biased, not parochial, not culture-bound.

This over-arching aim is one that everyone can adopt in good conscience, whether they think of their own current outlook on life as religious or not.

I believe these recommendations – especially the attitudes and deliberative skills I’ll be recommending as objectives for all who teach — are highly promising . . . and likely to yield clearly helpful outcomes for people anywhere.

And beyond making these recommendations, I’ll be “making a case” for what I recommend.  Like anyone claiming the name of philosopher in these times, I’ll be providing well-considered reasons for regarding these recommendations as worthy of acceptance and trial.

I caution you not to expect a complete handbook full of details on how and what to teach.  This is not like a cook-book with nearly all the step-by-step instructions for baking a cake, nor like a complete guide for creating a vineyard.  But there will be details enough to enable many who study it — to judge for themselves, and to apply what I’m recommending.

Because this is philosophy, I will at times focus on certain terms or words – including “love,” “bullying,” “selfish,” and “agency” that are pivotal or key to what’s being considered, for the sake of making what’s vague or ambiguous more definite, making what’s less than fully clear, more clear.

And because this is philosophy, I will consider and carefully reply to objections –that is, to reasons that have been (or might be) given for rejecting, opposing, or dismissing what is being recommended. 

What follows illustrates that consideration of, and solid reply to, objections:

Objection:
“The Golden Rule – Treat your neighbor as you’d want to be treated — is an unreliable guide for conduct, because peoples’ tastes differ!”

The Nobel Prize winning Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw rejected the ancient imperative known as the Golden Rule for the reason that your neighbor’s tastes may differ from your own!    

(A character of Shaw’s – author John Tanner – sets forth that objection in his — Tanner’s — “Revolutionist’s Handbook and Pocket Companion.”)

So any thoughtful reader may well comment: Tastes do vary from person to person, and an individual’s tastes often vary overtime. And this old saying has a lot of truth in it: One man’s meat is another man’s poison.  Dr. Cox, Isn’t that good enough reason to dismiss that pair of ancient imperatives?

Reply:

Not really.  Consider a particular situation:  You and your friend do have different tastes:
You much prefer Norman Rockwell’s art while your friend prefers Rembrandt’s; and when it comes to fermented alcoholic beverages, you much prefer semi-dry Riesling table wine, while what your friend really prefers is his favorite craft beer.

The two of you have gone hiking in a remote scenic area that’s somewhat hazardous.  You fall and your arm is badly cut.

Isn’t it perfectly clear that, in such a situation, tastes – whether alike or not – are simply irrelevant, beside the point?
But obviously the Golden Rule regarding how to treat others, and the Love your Neighbor as you love yourself imperatives are not irrelevant.

And knowing the facts about how to safely stop serious blood loss is also just as relevant as the Golden Rule, and is crucial for applying that Ancient Imperative in this situation.

In such a situation what you desperately need in order to survive, is to have a tourniquet applied to your arm.

So, regardless of whether my tastes are the same as yours, or very different from yours, the fulfillment of your desire to survive, rooted in our shared, gene-based instinct of self-preservation, is crucial if any of your tastes are to be fulfilled in your remaining time this side of the grave!

Notice further that the Golden Rule and the Love your Neighbor as you love yourself imperatives also yield credible guidance in the very different situations where matters of taste are relevant:

In common circumstances, loving a close one as we love ourselves certainly will involve our acting to fulfill that person’s flavor-preferences or preferences in art, or other matters of taste.

Expressions of love for one’s spouse, and one’s family members and close friends, will often properly be guided by those taste considerations. This will include his or her particular combination of likes and dislikes when it comes to such matters as flavor- or color – or fragrance  –  or beverage  –  or leisure  – or entertainment  – or sports teams  – preferences, and the like – and it will not aim at fulfilling our own flavor preferences, or our own literary or artistic preferences, or similar likes – although it will result in fulfilling those in the happy circumstances when the tastes of spouses or friends coincide.

Doesn’t such conduct, that’s clearly called for by that pair of Ancient Imperatives, illustrate the way we want to be treated by our close ones, at least in normal circumstances?

*  *   *   *   *

Although I address several difficulties, reservations, and objections in the course of what follows, there are quite probably others that are not presented. (That’s just one reason for regarding Philosophy as unfinished, and subject to ongoing discussion.)

Because many people now have electronic access to virtually all sorts of information, this philosophic effort will be more down-to-earth with actual examples, both illustrating and confirming main points, than it would have been in pre-internet days.

This quite new electronic access also extends to the immense quantity of scholarship worldwide, from centuries past and from the present.  But not everyone has such access; I think just now especially of those living in the Russian Federation and the

People’s Republic of China, but there are many others.

At this time when hostility and hatred towards many groups of people are widespread, intense – and deadly — I hope to speak to all manner of people – regardless of their educational “level,” regardless of their national and religious (or non-religious) ancestry and current status, their youth or advanced years, their political party (if any), their skin color, their gender, their wealth or lack of wealth – small-town and rural folks, suburban folks and city folks – everyone (philosophers, theologians, and lawyers included) — whether among some fortunate “elite” or not, and regardless of the economy where they live, and how they’ve spent their years to this point.

I’ll try to emphasize only what’s evident and clear, and I’ll try to avoid jumping to conclusions, although such hasty leaps in thinking are common among all of us when we’re alarmed, as well as among those who are rigidly traditional, or bullishly science-minded (or anti-science-minded), or bullishly religion-minded (or anti-religion-minded), or among folks who suspect or fear (or who now know) they’ve been deceived, misled, lied to, even swindled or “fleeced.”

I’m also writing for folks who know that they and their region or community have been largely left behind, neglected because of sweeping social changes, including those resulting from industrialization (or from de-industrialization), or from the digital revolution, and from profound climate change.

Parents, everyone who teaches, and students in their teens and beyond – as well as clergy, (and, in the Western world, perhaps even some late-night TV social critic-entertainers) may find it of real interest.

I respectfully ask all to read patiently, thoughtfully, and persistently.  The upshot should prove personally attractive and credible, and worth acting on  — putting into practice. . . . Perhaps you’re already doing that.

What I’m writing is not a course of study, or a program.  But organizations and individuals who do design and who do revise courses, curriculums, and programs and units of study – and, I believe, anyone who teaches — will find this Philosophy of Education to be of practical interest.  Without the cooperation of those practical efforts, these philosophical efforts will prove much less than fully fruitful.

about the author: GrandpaGrape

Our contemporary helper

To help ensure that what follows is readily accessible to folks who’ve never taken a Philosophy course, my beloved wife of more than three decades, Shirley, (a devoted mother and highly respected retired teacher– who has not taken even one Philosophy course)
has agreed to go over every section for readability, clarity, common-sense-reasonableness, and the like.  Her encouragement has been important, and her comments have led to significant improvements. 

As I was doing the writing, comments by others (mainly non-philosophers) on various portions have helped in those same ways.

Acknowledgments

Because it’s certainly not entertainment, this philosophical voyage won’t be a casual “pleasure cruise,” but it will provide its own intellectual satisfactions. Like many a substantial voyage, it will call for some sustained, thoughtful involvement.  Perhaps you’ll choose to pursue additional internet searches for still images and videos related to its topics on your own; some of them could prove richly rewarding.

We both trust that you, friend Reader, will find this educational voyage genuinely interesting and mind-engaging, and we both hope you’ll travel along with us.  The challenge at this point is to build the foundations of a Philosophy of Education, and that will require sustained, reasonably paced, attention that avoids straying into side-channels or “weeds.”

The two Ancient Imperatives about to be examined offer insightful and powerful guidance to just about anyone – not only to people with a higher education, or specialized legal, or philosophical, or scientific, or theological training.  

The guidance these Ancient Imperatives offer is both for intelligently taking a principled stand against the diverse harms and evils that we human beings encounter, and for intelligently, wisely, pursuing human lives that are fulfilling – lives of human happiness . . . flourishing . . . thriving.

Please keep in mind the sort of world that I’m urging for us all to aspire to, and take steps to help bring about:

As people put them into practice, these two Ancient Imperatives will be giving shape to a world where people will not be indifferent to the well-being or to the suffering of their fellow human beings – near or far.

Instead, in this ideal world worth working for, people will be inclined to understand and to care constructively about others, choosing to treat one another as they would want to be treated – both individually, and through their various organizations and groupings – from couples and families acting together, to recreational and sporting groups, educational programs and institutions, businesses of all sizes, and not-for-profit organizations, to religious denominations, and political parties, varied community groups, state and national governments, and such international organizations as the European Union, NATO, the United Nations,and others, that will contribute to Mutually Assured Disarmament for the sake of that world of human lives that are fulfilling – lives of human happiness . . . flourishing . . . thriving.