Moral education from Levinas: Another educational model

La educación moral a partir de Levinas: otro modelo educativo

Pedro Ortega Ruiz, Universidad de Murcia
Eduardo Romero Sánchez, Universidad de Murcia

DOI

10.22550/REP80-2-2022-01

Abstract

This work takes Levinasian ethics and anthropology as sources to inspire a new pedagogical discourse and educational praxis in the field of moral education. In this paradigm, the human being is a historical, situational being that is open to the other from its vulnerability. Accordingly, moral education becomes a compassionate, welcoming response to the other in its situation of special need. The authors highlight the close link between education and a particular conception of the human being and how it relates to others. To ask about education is to ask about the human. Levinasian ethics do not back setting specific guidelines for educational action; they only justify the creation of an educational climate (ethos) in classrooms that favours openness to the other through action in the following areas of intervention: pupils’ experience as a space of encounter; teachers’ testimony; attention to students in their context; the need to examine the sense of responsibilty further; and the pedagogy of donation. Moral education, based on Levinasian ethics, can serve to increase alerity and humanise the school and society.

Please, cite this article as follows: Ortega Ruiz, P., & Romero Sánchez, E. (2022). La educación moral a partir de Levinas: otro modelo educativo | Moral education from Levinas: Another educational model. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 80 (282), 233-249. 10.22550/REP80-2-2022-01

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Author Biography

Pedro Ortega Ruiz holds a doctor-ate in Pedagogy. He has studied pedagogy at the Università Pontificia Salesiana in Rome, the Universidad de Valencia and the Universidad de Murcia. He is a re-tired Professor of the Theory and History of Education at the Universidad de Murcia. He is co-author of books like: La enseñanza de actitudes y valores [Teaching attitudes and values] (1986); La educación moral del ciudadano de hoy [The moral education of the cit-izen of today] (2001) o A la intemperie. Conversaciones desde la pedagogía de la alteridad [In the open: conversations from the pedagogy of otherness] (2019). He holds the Education and Values Distinguished Chair at the Cetys-Universidad (Mexico) and is director of REDIPE (the Ibero-American Pedagogy Network).

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3882-0544

Eduardo Romero Sánchez is Professor in the Department of Theory and His- tory of Education at the Universidad de Murcia. He is a member of the Education in Values Research Group and coordinator of the Research Area of the Social Exclu- sion Observatory at the Universidad de Murcia. His principal academic contribu- tions focus on the following lines: the phi- losophical and anthropological dimension of education; Levinasian ethics and the pedagogy of otherness; and processes of social and educational exclusion. He holds the Education and Values Distinguished Chair at the Cetys-Universidad (Mexico). He is currently taking part in the Conste- llations of authoritarianism: memory and presence of a threat to democracy from a philosophical and interdisciplinary pers- pective research project with the Institute of Philosophy of the CSIC (Spain’s natio- nal research council).

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5090-0961

Citación recomendada | Recommended citation

Ortega Ruiz, P. & Romero Sánchez, E. (2022). La educación moral a partir de Levinas: otro modelo educativo | Moral education from Levinas: Another educational model. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 80 (282), 233-249. 10.22550/REP80-2-2022-01