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the do-gooder, the vain, the generous, and moral education

University of Akureyri

The virtue of generosity - at least generosity in the context of world poverty - is conspicuously absent from most curricula in the field of moral education. This article explores generosity and its educational ramifications. I start by characterizing two types of persons who may seem to be generous but who do not really possess generosity as a stable character trait. I do so by dint of fictional characters from two well-known novels - Nick Hornby’s How to Be Good, and Albert Camus’ The Fall - showing how the protagonists of both novels (‘the do-gooder’ and ‘the vain’) fall short of true generosity. I then consider Aristotle’s specification of generosity, and explain how Aristotle’s generous person morally surpasses both character types. I finally address didactic issues - how to teach generosity - by highlighting the quasi-Aristotelian method of ‘service learning’.

Key Words: Aristotle • generosity • service learning • vanity • world poverty • zealotry

Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, Vol. 1, No. 3, 267-282 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1746197906068124


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