ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author aims to trace the western conception of the free will in character education – from an Aristotelian understanding of moral agency to a Kantian notion of the free will – and to trouble this tradition from within, as it were. Contemporary western models of character education, being clearly influenced by a more Kantian understanding of the will, have tended to focus less on the cultivation of character and more on the individual student's ability to make the right choices. Perhaps Benedict de Spinoza can even offer a way of reconciling the Aristotelian concept of virtue with a thoroughly naturalistic understanding of the will in an educational setting where the cultivation of a virtuous character need not be synonymous with personal decision-making. The shift in focus from assigning moral responsibility to improving the understanding of natural causation is what sets a Spinozistic model of moral education apart most markedly from other dominant accounts of moral education.
