Herman draws on Kant to address both timeless issues in ethical theory and those arising from current moral questions, such as affirmative action and the costs of reparative justice. Challenging orthodoxies, he offers a view of moral competency as a complex achievement, governed by rational norms and dependent on supportive social conditions.

"A great resource for beginning ethics courses. The book is short and yet it richly embodies the methods of ethical thinking about practical moral problems that are hard for students to learn unless they see them in action. McGinn perspicuously sets out a small set of basic principles and then attacks the problems of our treatment of animals, abortion, sex, censorship, and so on, with a masterful blend of attention to real-life cases and imaginary thought experiments. McGinn hardly claims to have the last word on the complex issues he discusses, and students will find many exciting problems and points to take up." —Owen Flanagan, Duke University

A distinguished moral philosopher and a leading interpreter of Kant's ethics, Barbara Herman draws on Kant to address timeless issues in ethical theory as well as ones arising from current moral problems, such as obligations to distant need, the history of slavery as it bears on affirmative action, and the moral costs of reparative justice. Challenging various Kantian orthodoxies, Herman offers a view of moral competency as a complex achievement, governed by rational norms and dependent on supportive social conditions. She argues that the objectivity of duties and obligations does not rule out the possibility of or need for moral invention. Her goal is not to revise Kant but to explore the issues and ask the questions that he did not consider. Some of the essays involve explicit interpretation of Kant, and others are prompted by ground-level questions. For example, how should we think about moral character given what we know about the fault lines in normal development? If ordinary moral life is saturated by the content of local institutions, how should our accounts of moral obligation and judgment accommodate this?

In this important new book on literacy and teaching practices, education scholar and former schoolteacher Rebecca Powell argues that the decisions we make about literacy in a pluralistic society are fundamentally moral ones, either supporting inequitable power relationships, or seeking to transform them. Powell explores the underlying ideological assumptions of Oschooled literacyO and examines the ways teaching practices create tensions in the lives of students—tensions that often result in alienation and educational failure, particularly among those whose cultural knowledge and language tends to be marginalized in our nationOs schools. While primarily ground in critical theory, this volume also draws from multicultural and holistic perspectives in the teaching of written and oral language and addresses the link between whole language and critical pedagogy. Thus, the text is both theoretical and practical. Powell effectively argues that literacy instruction should encourage social responsibility and civic action, should enable students and teachers to understand the transformative potential of language, and should nurture a culture of compassion and care.

The digital era has brought many opportunities - and many challenges - to teachers and students at all levels. Underlying questions about how technologies have changed the ways individuals read, write, and interact are questions about the ethics of participation in a digital world. As users consume and create seemingly infinite content, what are the moral guidelines that must be considered? How do we teach students to be responsible, ethical citizens in a digital world? This book shares practices across levels, from teaching elementary students to adults, in an effort to explore these questions. It is organized into five sections that address the following aspects of teaching ethics in a digital world: ethical contexts, ethical selves, ethical communities, ethical stances, and ethical practices.

What makes a moral person moral? Who decides what morality means? What makes leadership practice moral? In today’s schools, what stands as moral leadership? These are questions that reflect the complexity integral to the calculus of human morality, especially in a world that is defined daily by its variant meanings of morality, its acts of immorality. The school as an educational setting is or should be a decidedly moral center of the society; it is the natural intersect between the family and the multi-dimensional nature of public life. Educational Leadership and Moral Literacy addresses these questions, situating the reader in a conversation that examines the meaning and nature of moral leadership through the lens of moral literacy and the dispositional aims of moral leadership in educational settings. The contributing authors extend an argument that the work of leader educators and practitioners alike must continuously be re-articulated around the dispositional aims aligned with a moral, democratic education. Educators must be concerned with developing the moral, intellectual, and aesthetic dimensions of the educational leader as a “moral person.”