道德教育全球化

Educational Philosophy and Theory, V ol. 42, No. 4, 2010

doi:10.1111/j.1469-5812.2008.00487.x

Moral Education in an Age of

Globalization

N el N oddings

Stanford University

Abstract

Care theory is used to describe an approach to global ethics and moral education. After a brief

introduction to care ethics, the theory is applied to global ethics. The paper concludes with

a discussion of moral education for personal, political, and global domains. Keywords:caring, global ethics, moral education

Moral education has been traditionally conducted with reference to the norms of

local or religious communities. Indeed, a major responsibility of parents has long

been to shape children so that they will be acceptable to the community in which

they will live (Ruddick,1989). In the past, when communication with diverse

groups was relatively rare, parents could concentrate on the inculcation of the

values espoused by their own community and the protection of their children from

any bad inﬂuenceswithin the community.

T oday we live and work regularly with people whose values may differ from our

own, and we may communicate instantly with people all over the world. Moreover,

growth in the world’spopulation and the corresponding growth in consumption of

resources have raised new and pressing moral problems. How should moral education

respond to these new conditions? I suggest that care ethics may provide us with

a powerful approach to ethics and moral education in this age of globalization.

Elements of Care Theory

In care theory, relation is ontologically basic (Noddings,1984/2003).Human

beings are born from and into relation; it is our original condition. This basic

feature of care ethics is important for global ethics because it starts with neither

the collective nor the individual. In rejecting those starting places, care ethics

shares the relational perspective of Martin Buber (1965).If we start with the

collective, we may derive a powerful communitarian ethic (MacIntyre,1984;

T aylor, 1989), and this can give us essential guidance in the traditional tasks of

moral education, but it can also blind us to problems within our own communities

and make it more difﬁcultto appreciate the views of outsiders. If we start with

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Moral Education in an Age of Globalization 391

the individual, we may develop and advocate a form of traditional liberalism

in which the emphasis is on freedom, autonomy, and the rights of individuals

(Rawls,1971). The danger here is that we may suppose and act on the notion that

all peoples desire freedom and individual rights as we do, and then we may see

our task as an almost evangelical one—tospread our treasured values over the

entire globe.

Approaching the world through the relational ethic of caring, we are more likely

to listen attentively to others. In a caring relation, the carer is ﬁrstof all attentive

to the cared-for, and this attention is receptive; that is, the carer puts aside her

own values and projects, and tries to understand the expressed needs of the

cared-for. In describing such non-selective attention, Simone Weil comments that

‘thesoul empties itself of all its own contents in order to receive into itself the

being it is looking at, just as he is, in all his truth’(1977,p. 51). Of course, we

cannot really empty ourselves of the norms and values that have become part of

us, nor should we do so. But we can put them aside in order to listen. If the

cared-for’sneeds do not clash with our most deeply held moral convictions, we

may experience motivational displacement.

In motivational displacement, our motive energy ﬂowstoward the needs or

projects of the cared-for. We put our own projects aside for the moment in order

to help. If, as sometime happens, the expressed need or project of the cared-for

does clash with our moral beliefs or is thought to be unwise, motivational displace-

ment takes a different form. We cannot help in his project, but we can nevertheless

try to establish or maintain a caring relation. We can explain our position and

attempt to persuade him of its validity. Or we can accept irreconcilable differences

and still pledge ourselves to work together on mutually acceptable projects.

Next the carer must act either to satisfy the expressed need or to suggest an

alternative goal. The chosen act is guided by the expressed need but also by the

values of the carer, the resources available, and competence of the carer. An ethic

of care requires the carer to seek increased competence continually because her

activities depend so heavily on the needs of others. In teaching, for example, the

carer is not governed by a pre-speciﬁedcurriculum and an unshakable theory of

pedagogy. Because she must evaluate and respond to a wide range of expressed

needs, she must expand the breadth of her competence (Noddings,1999).

Care ethics is perhaps unique in giving a special role to the cared-for in caring

relations. Emphasis is on the relation , and, by deﬁnition,at least two parties are

involved. In order for the relation to be properly labeled caring , the cared-for must

somehow recognize the efforts of the carer as caring . This response completes the

relation. The response of the cared-for is an act of reciprocity, but it is not the

contractual reciprocity so familiar to us in traditional Western philosophy. The cared-

for usually cannot do for the carer what the carer can do for the cared-for, nor

must he promise payment of some kind. The act of recognition is itself a form

of reciprocity—completingthe relation and providing conﬁrmatoryevidence that

the carer is on the right track. Anyone working in one of the so-called caring

professions knows the power of the cared-for’sresponse. T eachers need the

response of students, nurses that of their patients, social workers that of their

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clients. Without the reinforcing response of the cared-for, carers suffer empathic

exhaustion and burnout.

The caring relation is colored throughout by sympathy—anattitude of solicitude

toward the cared-for and a willingness to listen and be moved. T oday writers often

use empathy instead of sympathy (Hoffman,2000; Slote, 2007), but that move

requires justiﬁcation,and careful analysis shows that empathy so construed

includes sympathy—afeeling with or for the other.

Global Application

Now a question arises how an ethic of care can be applied globally. As I have

described it, caring-for is located in relations that require address and response. It

is dependent on face-to-face encounters. Institutions cannot directly care-for anyone;

people must do the caring-for. However, institutions and large groups can create

the conditions under which caring-for can ﬂourish,and their attempts to do so

should be guided by the spirit of caring as laid out in care ethics. We might say

that nations and other large organizations can work under a care-driven conception

of justice. What would this look like?

The ﬁrstpoint to be made is that there are several theories of justice, and the

concept differs not only across cultures but, to some extent, even within cultures

(MacIntyre,1988). A care-driven approach recognizes these differences and does

not attempt to universalize any one version. We start with a somewhat vague notion

that people committed to justice are dedicated to doing right by everyone.

Care and justice are often contrasted, and a substantial literature describing the

contrast has emerged. Virginia Held captures the contrast as it is popularly

construed:

An ethic of justice focuses on question of fairness, equality, individual

rights, abstract principles, and the consistent application of them. An

ethic of care focuses on attentiveness, trust, responsiveness to need,

narrative nuance, and cultivating caring relations. (2006,p. 15)

Sometimes theorists locate the salient difference in domains of application—care

properly dominant in face-to-face interactions or relations and justice dominant in

larger public domains. Even those who take this position—asI did in earlier work—

acknowledge that the two ways of thinking interact. We may want justice in the

sense described by Held, but we want it tempered by care. And care theorists speak

often of ‘balancedcaring’(Slote,1998), by which they seem to mean a balance

between caring-for those close to us and caring-about those at some distance.

In Starting at Home (2002b)and in the preface to the second edition of Caring

(2003),I suggested that caring-about may be thought of as the motivational

foundation for justice. This means, of course, that caring-for underlies our thinking

about justice and, more generally, about morality. I do not claim, however, that

caring-for is the only conceptual starting point for a theory of justice. Clearly, one

could make a good case for self-interest and prudence as viable starting points, and

I do not want to claim that caring necessarily underlies every conception of justice.

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Moral Education in an Age of Globalization 393

Rather, I am interested in developing an approach to justice that does build on

fundamental concepts of care.

We properly care-about the needs and sufferings of people with whom we are

unlikely to meet face-to-face. We might use the word justice to name a system

through which our caring-about responds effectively to the needs of others. A ﬁrst

step is to establish lines of communication—tolisten attentively to the needs

expressed, and to learn something about how these others conceive of justice. It

should be an assigned task of every overseas agency to maintain and strengthen

such lines of communication. If we, as a nation, plan to conduct affairs of any sort

in another country or culture, we should be sure that the people of the other nation

can participate in any plans for their future. The economist, Joseph Stiglitz, makes

this point at the beginning of his discussion of globalization:

Those whose lives will be affected by the decisions about how

globalization is managed have a right to know how such decisions have

been made in the past. (2002,p. xvi)

I would prefer to use need rather than right in this context, because ‘right’already

suggests a conception of justice that may not be embraced by the other group. Our

task is to work together to forge a concept of justice that both can accept, or to

reach an agreement that allows the groups to hold different views of justice without

breaking off dialogue.

There are certainly views that we (mostcitizens of liberal democracies) cannot

endorse. We cannot endorse slavery as consonant with justice, nor can we accept

ofﬁcialdiscrimination against women. We are uncomfortable with ofﬁcially

sanctioned female genital mutilation. It is not possible that a collaboratively deﬁned

concept of justice should include practices that are anathema within our own. But

we can reject the temptation to impose our views on the other—toapply sanctions

or other coercive measures to convert others. Instead, we should persist in dialogue,

explain continuously why we ﬁndsome practices unjust, and increase opportunities

for ordinary people in both countries to become acquainted and work together on

common projects.

In a care-driven system of justice, we would be unlikely to isolate those who

disagree with us on the meaning of justice. Notice that Stiglitz’sadvice on including

in conversation all those whose interests are at stake is compatible with Western

views of justice. We believe in both rights and participation. But we also must deal

with people whose views are very different and even with those whose practices

violate our sense of justice. The response most often invoked is to isolate the

offender, withdraw our citizens from the offending nation, and apply sanctions of

some sort. An alternative, suggested by care-driven justice, is to invite more visitors

from that nation and send more of our citizens to live and work in their land. At

the present time, for example, we should invite more Iranian students to study in

the United States, and we should send more of our students to study in Iran. We

should also increase cultural exchanges at every level—inthe arts, crafts, building

industry, medicine, and every other walk of life where common interests can be

identiﬁed(Saunders,1991). The idea is to saturate the other with our presence,

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to establish relations of care and trust as part of preparation for diplomatic

negotiations aimed at reconciling difﬁcultpolitical differences.

Wealthy nations, banding together, could accomplish much to improve the

conditions of people living in impoverished nations. Besides insisting that every

agency involved should engage in dialogue and encourage cooperative activity, they

should establish a coordinating agency that would assess conditions throughout the

nations to be helped and evaluate the success of their combined efforts. At present,

there are organizations whose purpose is to solve one great problem, such as the

elimination of AIDS or malaria. This is entirely appropriate for certain speciﬁc

organizations. But it is not appropriate as an overall approach. A coordinating

group must look at the entire web of care and see how various problems impinge

on the lives of the people affected. It is good to eliminate disease by vaccination,

for example, but such efforts should be accompanied by improved living conditions—

clean water, adequate food and housing, universal elementary schooling, and all

those features of life that contribute to the sustainability of individual improve-

ments. The coordinating agency should continually look for and encourage

completion—forgenuine caring relations.

In the approach to justice advocated here, we do not deny our differences, and

we certainly do not shrug off abhorrent practices with ‘it’sjust their way’.But we

pursue common values and shared projects not only to accomplish important ends

but also to know one another better and to set the stage for frank discussions that

may lead to the abandonment of practices we ﬁndunjust. We hope that, through

closer contact and cooperative activity, groups and nations that might otherwise be

shunned may recognize the values of liberty, rights, and participatory democracy.

But we may also come to appreciate values we now reject or misunderstand. A

care-driven approach to justice will rarely authorize coercion. It will operate by

establishing the conditions under which caring relations can come to completion.

Moral Education

From the perspective of care ethics, the primary aim of moral education is to

produce people who will engage successfully in caring relations. We want our

students to be prepared to care-for those they encounter directly and to care-about

the suffering of people at a distance. We try to accomplish this through modeling,

dialogue, practice, and conﬁrmation(Noddings,2002a).

Every form of moral education relies to some degree on modeling. T o teach

virtues, teachers must exhibit the virtues or, more often, ﬁndmodels in history,

biography, and ﬁction.T o teach moral reasoning, teachers should demonstrate valid

reasoning in both their subject matter and in the context of moral problems. But no

approach to moral education depends more directly on modeling than care ethics.

T eacher-carers demonstrate their caring in everything they do. They cannot rely

on pointing to others, on sermons or preaching, or on the mere validity of a chain

of reasoning. Every lapse of caring in their own practice represents a potential

failure in moral education. In handling a case of bullying, for example, a teacher

must show her care for both victim and perpetrator. The victim’ssafety and

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Moral Education in an Age of Globalization 395

well-being are at stake; the perpetrator’smoral development is at stake. People

often react to such cases by insisting that we must be ‘onthe side’of the victim,

but the caring teacher must be on both sides. Both need help. By showing how this

can be done, a teacher is helping students to develop the attitude of care so

desperately needed on a global level.

Dialogue accompanies modeling. In regular episodes of caring, carers help those

receiving care to grow in their capacity to hear and understand the expressed needs

of others. In dialogue, teachers help students to understand the difference between

rules that encode moral principles and those that represent mere conventions. We

might notice that the moral principles designed to keep us from hurting one

another are, for carers, not really necessary. If we do not want to hurt others, if

we want to help others, we do not need these rules. And if we are so angry that

we do want to hurt others, we can quite easily ﬁndreasons why the rules should

be broken. This understanding, too, is essential at both personal and global levels.

Becoming prepared to care requires practice. Students must be given opportunities

to care. In today’sschools, group work has become popular, but the cooperative

motive that inspired it is often corrupted. Groups are encouraged to compete

against each other, and team members often criticize others for doing less than

their share of the work. This criticism is sometimes nasty. T eachers concerned with

the development of people prepared to care must remind their students that they

are working in groups to help one another and to accomplish a common task.

Moral education from the perspective of care ethics also puts great emphasis on

conﬁrmation.As I’veinterpreted it (Noddings,1992/2005),conﬁrmationis an

attempt to assure another that his questionable act may have had a better motive.

We attribute the best possible motive consonant with reality. Conﬁrmationis not a

strategy or recipe; it is not based on ﬁctionor fantasy. T o conﬁrmanother, we need

to know him quite well. Then we can attribute a better motive to an act of which we

disapprove. For example, in the bullying case, we might say to the bully:I know you

wanted to show that you are strong, but that is not the way to do it. Y ou are a better

person than that. Conﬁrmationis among the loveliest of moral gestures. Instead

of condemning the other, it points him upward toward his better self. Obviously,

conﬁrmationshould be welcome at personal, political, and global levels.

References

Buber, M. (1965)Between Man and Man (NewY ork, Macmillan).

Held, V . (2006)The Ethics of Care:Personal, political, and global (Oxford,Oxford University Press).

Hoffman, M. (2000)Empathy and Moral Development:Implications for caring and justice (New

Y ork, Cambridge University Press).

MacIntyre, A. (1984)AfterVirtue (NotreDame, University of Notre Dame Press).

MacIntyre, A. (1988)Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (NotreDame, University of Notre Dame

Press).

Noddings, N. (1984/2003)Caring:A feminine approach to ethics and moral education (Berkeley,

University of California Press).

Noddings, N. (1992/2005)The Challenge to Care in Schools:An Alternative Approach to Education .

Advances in Contemporary Educational Thought series, vol. 8(NewY ork, T eachers

College Press).

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Noddings, N. (1999)Caring and Competence, in:G. Grifﬁn(ed.),The Education of T eachers

(Chicago,National Society for the Study of Education), pp. 205–220.

Noddings, N. (2002a)Educating Moral People (NewY ork, T eachers College Press).

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Rawls, J. (1971)A Theory of Justice (Cambridge,MA, Harvard University Press).

Ruddick, S. (1989)Maternal Thinking:Toward a politics of peace (Boston,Beacon Press).

Saunders, H. (1991)The OtherW alls (Princeton,NJ, Princeton University Press).

Slote, M. (1998)Caring in the Balance, in:J. G. Haber &M. S. Halfon (eds),Norms &V alues

(Lanham,MD, Rowman &Littleﬁeld),pp. 27–36.

Slote, M. (2007)The Ethics of Care and Empathy (NewY ork, Routledge).

Stiglitz, J. (2002)Globalization and Its Discontents (NewY ork, W . W . Norton).

T aylor, C. (1989)Sources of the Self (Cambridge,MA, Harvard University Press).

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