ABSTRACT
The attempt to influence the young in respect of their morals is an exercise in indoctrination, an attempt to impose private preferences on immature minds. In order to make clear what is meant by the use of reason in morality it is important to make a distinction between the form and content of the moral consciousness. This chapter proposes to examine the structure of what has to be learnt in moral education. Bertrand Russell, who held a subjectivist view of morality, was uneasy in saying that in condemning bull-fighting in Spain he was just giving vent to a personal dislike. Jean Piaget is concerned with the development of a rational form of morality and Kohlberg particularly has views about the development of its form as distinct from the learning of its content. Evidence suggests, children are to develop sensibly to an autonomous form of morality as they require a consistent pattern of rules.
