ABSTRACT
In the previous chapters we have reviewed some of the significant research and theory on the moral development of the human person. By placing the studies of the moral development of young people within the larger scheme of human development across the life span, we have been able to appreciate how the work of young people in the slow construction of a personal identity integrates the learnings of a moral order in human life into the ordering of a consistent and coherent human persona, whether male or female. Seen against the geography of life-span human development, we can understand how the overarching concern with self-development (again, differentiated by gender, but united in promoting growth of the human) during the first twenty or so years of a person’s life can be seen as a pre-ethical period during which the foundation for an ethical life is constructed. During those years, engaging the developmental challenges of trust, autonomy, initiative, and industry are steps in the construction of a personal identity. That identity incorporates the acquired dispositions to trust, to own oneself and one’s choices, to explore the possibilities and parameters of one’s cultural and social environment, and to develop and master a variety of social, physical, cultural, and intellectual skills into a growing sense of self-confidence and self-worth that enables the choice and embrace of a journey and a future as this person. That choice is not made in a locked closet; rather, it is a choice made with an acquired sense of the world one lives in, deeply influenced by one’s socialization, by one’s class and cultural inheritance, and by the historical presuppositions and world views and social imaginaries in one’s life world. With the advantages and disadvantages these influences contribute to the young person’s sense of the world, and assuming a relatively healthy response to the challenges leading up to and through the formation of identity, that person is reasonably ready to step into the adult world and engage that world responsibly. That is, the person is ready for ethical engagement, for the mutuality that living an ethical life requires. In this chapter, we will explore the journey of young persons through the formal learning process during the first twelve or thirteen years of schooling, and how that learning process might be both an intellectual and a moral journey, a journey that prepares those young persons for the transition into ethical lives.
