This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Kristjánsson, K. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

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

References

• Aristotle (1985) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett .
• Aristotle (1991) On Rhetoric, trans. G. A. Kennedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
• Camus, A. (2000) The Fall, trans. J. O’Brien. Harmondsworth: Penguin .
• Cottingham, J. (1991) The ethics of self-concern . Ethics, 101(4), 798-817 .[CrossRef]
• Cottom, C. (1996) A bold experiment in teaching values . Educational Leadership, 53(8), 54-58 .
• Engel, M. (2005) Taking hunger seriously. Online: http/sun.soci.niu.edu/%7Ephildept/faculty/Engel.htm (accessed November 2005).
• Hornby, N. (2001) How to Be Good. Harmondsworth: Penguin .
• Kahne, J. & Westheimer, J. (1996) In the service of what? The politics of service learning . Phi Delta Kappan, 77(9), 593-599 .
• Kristjánsson, K. (2002) Justifying Emotions: Pride and Jealousy. London: Routledge .
• Nickel, J. (2005) Human rights. Online: http:/plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human [accessed November 2005].
• Quinn, P. L. (1991) Hell in Amsterdam: Reflections on Camus’s The Fall . Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 16, 89-103 .
• Singer, P. (1972) Famine, affluence, and morality . Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1(1), 229-243 .
• Solomon, R. C. (2004) Pathologies of pride in Camus’s The Fall . Philosophy and Literature, 28(1), 41-59 .
• Unger, P. (1996) Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusions of Innocence. Oxford: Oxford University Press .

CiteULike

Connotea

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Technorati

This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Kristjánsson, K. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?