The Dismantling of Moral Education

American educators have consistently splintered our humanity into pieces throughout higher educationΓÇÖs history. Although key leaders of AmericaΓÇÖs colonial colleges shared a common functional understanding of humans as made in GodΓÇÖs image with a robust but vulnerable moral conscience, latter moral philosophers did not build upon that foundation. Instead, they turned to shards of our identity to help students find their moral bearings. They sought to create ladies and gentlemen, honorable students, and finally, good professionals. As a result, fragmentation ensued as university leaders pitted these identity fragments against each other inciting a war of attrition.
As the war of identities raged, its effects spilled out beyond the bounds of the curriculum into the co-curricular dimension that struggled with moving beyond being en loco parentis. The major identity they cultivated was that of being a political citizen. Thus, the major identity and story of studentsΓÇÖ lives became the American political story of democracyΓÇöwhat I call Meta-Democracy. In higher education guided by Meta-Democracy, students lose their autonomy to administrators who reduce the student identities they try to develop along with the range of virtues that comprise the good life. The Dismantling of Moral Education: How Higher Education Reduced the Human Identity explains why and how we arrived at diminishing ourselves.