Moral perception through aesthetics: Engaging imaginations in educational ethics

Abstract

Moral "seeing" - the ability to take in the particulars of a moral encounter, and to interpret and imagine its implications - is analogous to aesthetic perception. This article defends and explores the use of aesthetic experiences in educational ethics classrooms as a way to enhance students' abilities to perceive and imagine moral situations and possibilities in their practice. Professional ethics pedagogy making use of aesthetic experiences and inquiry helps to engage students in critical, creative, and imaginative searches into moral situations, into their own moral thinking, and into social and cultural contexts that shape who they are and how they live. Aesthetic experiences can play an important role in helping educators to develop their own - and to see the importance of developing, in their students - qualities of perception and imagination in connection with moral events or situations.