The importance of the right to education reaches far beyond education itself. The right to education is recognized, promoted and protected at all levels— from local to global. The concept of each human right constitutes a dual perception—human rights are personified and there are particular duty-bearers, most often the states, which have certain obligations to preserve and protect those rights. This article summarizes governmental obligations, foreseen in international and regional legal human rights’ instruments, corresponding (...) to the right to education in its entirety. The conceptual framework for the content and scope of the right to education is established by different human rights institutions and judicial bodies and implicates the concept of quantitative and qualitative measures, expressed by four guidelines—availability, accessibility, acceptability, adaptability. (shrink)

I M M Gregory; The Right to Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 7, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 85–102, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.197.

The overall aim of the article is to analyse how the universal right to education have been built, legitimized and used. And more specifically ask who is addressed by the universal right to education, and who is given access to rights and to education. The first part of the article focus on the history of declarations, the notion of the universal right to education, emphasizing differences in matters of detail—for example, the meaning of (...) ‘compulsory’, ‘children’s rights’ or ‘parents’ rights’—and critically examining the right of the child and the right of the parent in terms of tensions between ‘social rights’ and ‘private autonomy rights’. Despite differences in detail, the iterations of the universal right to education do share to the full in the idea of education as such. In the second part the attempt to scrutinize the underlying assumptions legitimizing the consensus on education, focusing again on the notion of the child. In conclusion I argue that a certain notion of what it is to be a human being is inscribed within the circle of access to rights and education. These notions of what it means to be a child, a parent, a citizen or a member of the ‘human family’ are notions of enlightenment and humanity and, to my understanding, aspects of how democracy is configured around freedom, equality and fraternity. (shrink)

Working from a concept of politics of education that encompasses legal,ethical and pedagogical levels of analysis, this paper presents theresults of a field work project on the meaning and current state of theright to education with a larger philosophical discourse. Talk ofeducation as a human right presupposes taking part in a horizon ofinterpretation. Projected is a view of person as a subject, i.e., assomeone not only placed in a specific context, but also as someone whois capable of (...) distancing him/herself from local and culturalconditioning. (shrink)

The article analyzes preconditions of realization of the right to religious education in Lithuania during the period of compulsory education. The article consists of two parts. The essence of the freedom of thought, religion and conscience and their relation to religious education is discussed in the first part. The second part of the article analyses national legal framework related to compulsory education in the light of freedom of thought, religion and conscience. The states are required (...) to ensure education of children according to religious convictions of their parents and needs of the children themselves. The Lithuanian legal regulation, however, allows certain ambiguities as to how effectively may the right to religious education be realised. (shrink)

Lack of understanding about the relationship between federal and state educational institutions brings confusion into discussions of democracy, equity and equality in schools. The 'right to education' continues to be espoused by American society as a birthright, yet it does not figure in federal documentation. This matter has repeatedly come to the attention of legislative courts, who have insisted that the question of education as a fundamental right be addressed. Numerous court cases have attempted to bring (...) closure on this issue, on the basis of such abstractions as national rights, equal access, opportunity and economic disparity among the petitions. However, legal judgments remain inconclusive, reiterating that education remains a state legislative issue. This paper explores the implications of a fundamental right to education through an examination of federal and state legal litigation, discussing the philosophical and ideological roots of discussion of rights and democratic values, and evaluating how federal and judicial participation contributes to overall misunderstanding regarding public schooling. (shrink)

The article reveals the Ukrainian experience of the transition from an exclusive to a democratic model of the implementation of the right to philosophical education. While the first model provides limited access to philosophy in the interests of the ruling state-party groups, in the second one, citizens are guaranteed an equal right to study philosophy as potential subjects of philosophizing. The coverage of this transition is conducted in the light of research and recommendations of UNESCO and relevant (...) international experience. The current state of Ukrainian philosophical education is analyzed and evaluated. Existing obstacles in ensuring equal access to philosophy are identified and, accordingly, conceptual guidelines for the formation of a democratic model of the implementation of the right to philosophical education in contemporary Ukraine are determined. (shrink)

In most cases, discussions on the right to education focus on the way access to education can be warranted for all and which aims should be pursued in rather abstract terms. This article approaches the topic starting from the case of Roma people. The particularity of their living circumstances raises the question what it is that we are aiming at when trying to realize a universal right to education for them. After confronting their social practices (...) with the education system, three suggestions are made how to make sense of a right to education. First, the need for a holistic approach towards human rights is expressed. Second, the right to education is thought of in terms of a right to qualification. Finally, an open dialogue of social practices is proposed, as a fixed idea of what the school should look like is not desirable in a multicultural society. (shrink)

"Is higher education a right, or a privilege? This author argues that all citizens in a free and open society should have an unconditional right to higher education. Such an education should be costless for the individual and open to everyone regardless of talent. A readiness and willingness to learn should be the only qualification. It should offer opportunities that benefit citizens with different interests and goals in life. And it should aim, as its foundational (...) moral purpose, to help citizens from all walks of life live better, freer lives. Using concepts and ideas from liberal political philosophy the author argues that access to educational goods and services is something to which all citizens have a right over a full life. Such goods, it is argued, play a key role in helping citizens realize self-determined goals. Higher education should therefore be understood a basic social institution responsible for ensuring that all citizens can access such 'autonomy-supporting' goods. The book examines the implication of this justification of the right to higher education for questions of educational justice, political authority, distributive justice, civic education, and personal autonomy"--. (shrink)

O presente artigo discute a educação de pessoas jovens e adultas privadas de liberdade como um direito humano. Analisa as principais normas nacional e internacionais que fundamentam esse direito e discute o modo precário como ele vem sendo implantado no Brasil, tomando por base empírica a pesquisa realizada pela organização nãogovernamental Ação Educativa e parceiros em quatro penitenciárias e quatro centros de detenção provisória do Estado de São Paulo. As informações levantadas entre os meses de outubro e novembro de 2012 (...) buscaram traçar um diagnóstico sobre as condições físicas para o funcionamento das atividades educativas, as expectativas da população carcerária acerca dos estudos, além de procurar compreender o envolvimento de funcionários com as práticas educativas. Os dados foram analisados tomando-se as dimensões propostas por Tomasevski, ex-relatora da ONU para o direito à educação, com base na noção de educação como um direito humano: disponibilidade, acessibilidade, adaptabilidade e aceitabilidade. O material empírico e as análises apontam para, por um lado, oreconhecimento legal do direito à educação da população encarcerada, seja ela formal ou não formal, e por outro, a precária condição de oferta desse direito. Baseado no conceito “prisão pós-disciplinar” de Chantraine, o texto conclui que o direito à educação tem sido utilizado muito mais como mecanismo de controle das populações encarceradas, estando distante do seu reconhecimento como um processo de promoção humana e reinserção na sociedade. Palavras-chave: Educação nas prisões. Educação de jovens e adultos. Educação como direito humano. Educação escolar. Educação não formal. (shrink)

The study of the place and role of religious education in the post-secular world is undoubtedly increasing. First of all, this is due to the loss of religion of its influence on modern society, the growth of globalization processes, and attempts to preserve national and cultural identity. At the same time, we are talking not only about the problems inherent in whole countries and peoples, but also about the right of an individual to his own worldview and moral (...) choice - freedom of conscience, and most importantly - the possibility of realizing this choice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Justifying the Right to Music EducationMarja HeimonenIn this study I will explore legal philosophical questions related to music education.1 I will begin by asking, "Is there a right to music education?" and move on to consider what constitutes a right and what kind of music education is at issue. My argument is that there is a right to music education and (...) to a certain kind of music education in terms of content.In the Nordic countries, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway, the right to general music education is based on law. All these countries belong to the Nordic legal culture. They are part of the Continental civil-law system consisting of enacted statutes with abstract norms. Case- and judge-centered common law that develops from decision to decision is used in Anglo-American societies such as the United States and England.2 The law usually leaves the contents of education more or less open.This study explores music education in the light of the ideas of Aristotle and some of his modern followers.3 Philosophers of music education significantly influenced this study, in which I argue that the principal aims of education are connected not only to musical skills, but also to virtues, moral philosophy, and the education of the human being as a whole. My objective is to make the differences [End Page 119] between the aims and content of music education in various societies more explicit and understandable.The right to music education is closely connected to its justification. In practice, music education is justified in terms of internal goods (in other words, by self-justifying values emphasizing personal well-being and self-expression) and external goods (favoring the effective training of future professionals, for instance). I will suggest that external goods should be subordinate to internal goods, and that an optional balance between the two is needed. This balance is achieved through continuous debate in a living tradition that focuses on the holistic view of the aims in music education.However, deeper arguments are needed in justifying the right to music education. According to Estelle Jorgensen, a dynamic and dialectic process characterizes music and education, both of which are part of the changing society and the culture that surrounds them: transformation is ongoing all the time.4 I will argue that music education has an important role not only for the individual, but also for society as a whole, since music could be regarded as an instrument in the teaching of virtues.The question that follows is: what kind of virtues? This essay explores the role of music education in developing one of the fundamental virtues in society, the sense of justice. The role of the music teacher could be compared with that of the judge: to build cases in real practical situations in the framework of general principles, which may be both written (such as law and curricula) and unwritten (tradition). Theory and practice have to go hand in hand—general principles always have to be adapted to individual situations (and not vice versa)—when music educators are acting in the present society.The ApproachThe right to music education includes not only the question of the right of every child and adolescent to receive a certain number of music lessons or to attend a music school. It also involves aspects related to values, aims, and contents. To clarify the complexity of rights in this context, we might think of several levels. The first level of ideological options comprises training for a professional career for which the notion of legal philosophy leans on analytical legal positivism. The second level of ideological options refers to artistic self-expression and the notion of law for this is outlined in terms of "law as culture" and natural law philosophy. The third level consists of the maintenance of societal or cultural values through music education and its notion of legal philosophy is given in terms of the historical school of law and natural law philosophy. A child's rights to music might be regarded as a negative freedom right, with protection against illegal interference on the part of the state, a positive welfare right (an [End... (shrink)

The ideal of personal autonomy enjoys considerable support in educational theory, but close analysis reveals serious problems with its core analytical and psychological components. The core conception of autonomy authorizes individuals to employ their imaginations in troubling and unhealthy ways that clash with sound ideals of moral character. Lucas Swaine argues in this essay that this gives grounds to deny that the core conception of autonomy should be promoted in democratic education. What is more, according to Swaine, young citizens (...) appear to have no right to be educated, in public schools, for the purpose of becoming autonomous individuals of the kind he describes and criticizes in this account. (shrink)

Opposition to university fees is often framed as a defence of higher education as a 'right' rather than a 'privilege'. However, the basis and nature of this right is unclear. This article presents a conceptual exploration of the question, drawing on an initial analysis of international law. An argument is put forward for a right to higher education seen as one of a number of possible forms of post-school education, restricted only by a requirement (...) for a minimum level of academic preparation. (shrink)

The right to teach at university is a distinctive philosophical and legal conundrum but a largely unexplored question. Drawing on Humboltdian principles, the legitimacy of the university teacher stems from their continuing engagement in research rather than possession of academic and teaching qualifications alone. This means that the right to teach needs to be understood as a privilege and implies that it is always provisional, requiring an ongoing commitment to research. Yet, massification of higher education systems internationally (...) has led to the disaggregation of the academic profession with teaching-only positions now increasingly common. University teachers employed to both teach and research face a narrowing set of performative expectations with respect to how ‘research-active’ is defined. This paper challenges these contemporary understandings and, drawing on historical evidence, argues that a broader definition of research and scholarship needs to underpin the basis of the right to teach. (shrink)

In The Right to Higher Education, Christopher Martin develops a powerful, autonomy-based argument that there is a moral right to access to higher education. I raise three concerns about whether this argument succeeds. The first is a concern about the conception of autonomy at the heart of Martin’s argument; the second is a concern about possible overgeneralizations of the argument; and the third is a concern about whether Martin’s view is consonant with judgments about fairness.

In Badges and Incidents, Michael J. Kaufman undertakes an interdisciplinary investigation of American education law and pedagogy. By weaving together the invaluable insights of law, education, history, political science, economics, psychology, and neuroscience, this book illuminates the ways in which the design of the American educational system does not reflect how human beings live and learn. It examines the principles of the nation's Founders and demonstrates how a distorted presentation of the Founders' views curtailed the development of a (...) truly democratic educational system. The influence of this distortion on several critical Supreme Court decisions is exposed, and these decisions have largely failed to facilitate the educational system the Founders envisioned. By placing contemporary challenges in context and endorsing social constructivist pedagogy as the best path forward, Kaufman's study will prove invaluable to advocates of equity in education, helping them navigate a contentious political climate with an eye toward future reform efforts. (shrink)

This review provides a summary of the argument made by Christopher Martin in his book “The Right to Higher Education: A Political theory.” It outlines how Martin makes a unique and in many ways compelling argument, but argues that a significant weakness of the book is that there is a lack of clarity around the concept of ‘higher education’ as Martin conceives it.

In pleas for the recognition of cultural minority rights, claims to educational authority often figure as concrete examples. The right to educational authority is said to be an exemplary minority right. This is striking, for of all minority rights this is one which is impossible to justify. Difficulties invovled in recent attempts to reconcile cultural minority rights with liberal democracy demonstrate that educational minority rights in particular cannot be justified without underestimating civic and liberal risks and ignoring the (...) complicated nature of the relationships between communities and ‘their’ children and between parents and ‘their’ children. (shrink)

This article is dedicated to the intersection between the literary politics and the educational ideas of the German New Right. Focusing on two authors from the context of Antaios publishing, the first part deals with New Right educational concepts and the second part with a New Right pedagogy of literature, mimetic reading practices, and the figure of the reading mother.

In Jean Baudrillard and Radical Education Theory: Turning Right to Go Left, the authors argue that Baudrillard has been underappreciated in philosophical and theoretical work in education. They introduce him here as an important figure in radical thought who has something to add to theoretical lines of inquiry in education. The book does not offer an introduction to Baudrillard. Rather, his corpus is mined in order to describe how it functions as a counter to the code (...) of education, rational thought, critical reason, etc. In effect, they establish that Baudrillard advocates for a counter-path to thinking that can shake us out of our ready-made thoughts and realize the radical potential for change. (shrink)

When times are hard and governments are looking for ways to reduce expenditure, a book like Anarchy, State, and Utopia is about the last thing we need. That will be the reaction of some readers to this book. It is, of course, an unfair reaction, since a work of philosophy that consists of rigorous argument and needle-sharp analysis with absolutely none of the unsupported vague waffle that characterizes too many philosophy books must be welcomed whatever we think of its conclusions. (...) The chances of Gerald Ford reasoning his way through Nozick's book to the conviction that he ought to cut back the activities of the state in fields like welfare, education, and health are not high. The book will probably do more good in raising the level of philosophical discussion than it will do harm in practical politics. (shrink)

The present paper argues that as basic schools become more pluralistic, it is important to (re)discuss the value base on which education should be built. Many see human rights as a universal principle of Western democratic societies and thus a universal value base of education. However, human rights seem to be insufficient – first, because many question their universality, and second, because they are understood mainly as legal rather than ethical principles. The concept that is known to ethically (...) support human rights is the global ethic. And from one of the main pillars of the global ethic we derive the universal value base of education – the responsibility for the other, understood as care for the other, being for the other, treating and approaching the other with respect. To this end, teachers should encourage social interactions, based on active listening and exotopy. (shrink)

In this article Sarah Stitzlein highlights an educational right that has been largely unacknowledged in the past but has recently gained significance given renewed citizen participation in displays of public outcry on our streets and in our town halls. Dissent is typically conceived of as a negative right—a liberty that guarantees that the government will not interfere with one's public self-expression. Stitzlein argues that, insofar as the legitimacy of the state depends on obtaining the consent of the governed, (...) the state must allow the lively proliferation of dissent. Attending to this negative rights perspective, Stitzlein explores the educational implications of reframing the right to dissent as a positive right. This includes discussing the state's obligation to cultivate the skills of dissent in its young citizens and, correspondingly, student entitlement to this training. These educational implications, especially for civics education, are far more substantial than the thinner implications of the negative right to dissent. (shrink)

Richard Peters pioneered a form of philosophical analysis in relation to educational discourse that was criticised by some at the time and is today somewhat out of fashion. This paper argues that much of the objection to Peters' methodology is based on a misunderstanding of what it does and does not involve, that consequently philosophical analysis is often wrongly seen as one of a number of comparable alternative traditions or approaches to philosophy of education between which one needs to (...) choose, and that, partly consequentially, there is a relative lack of philosophical expertise among today's ‘philosophers of education’. Furthermore, his methodology vindicated, it can be said that Peters was indeed ‘nearly right about education’, perhaps more so than he has subsequently come to believe himself. (shrink)

For Martin, the right to free higher education may be claimed only by those ready and willing pursue autonomy supporting higher education. The unready and unwilling, among whom may be counted carers, disabled, and devout, are excluded. This is unjust. I argue that this injustice follows from a tension between three elements of Martin’s argument: (1) a universal right to autonomy supporting higher education; (2) qualifications on entitlements to access this right in order to (...) preserve the value of higher educational goods; (3) luck egalitarian motivations in Martin’s distributive ethics. I consider options for avoiding such injustices and their implications for Martin’s argument. (shrink)

Within the framework of a new interdisciplinary scientific scientific field – epistemological urbanism – the authors develop the idea of the human right to their city and show the epistemological nature of this right, which is explained by the fact that it is conditioned by the processes of cognition and scientific communication. Three main provisions are substantiated. Firstly, the city is an intelligent system. “The right to your city” is a specific right to scientific and intellectual (...) production and consumption. Such a right is not realized in every locality designated as a city, but only where there are conditions for intellectual dynamics – where art, education and science are developing. Secondly, the intellectual system of the city has autonomy. Each city has its own intellectual resource. Realizing the right to their city, citizens are involved in the activity of the city's scientific and intellectual autonomy. In other words, a city where there are opportunities to realize the “right to the city” generates an autonomous scientific school or a set of scientific schools. Thirdly, cities how research centers form a scientific network. Not a scientific consortium with common ideas and goals, but a network based on the principles of proliferation. The authors insist on the decentralization of science not for the purpose of its enclavization, but for the purpose of developing the potential, multi-vector and intellectual self-realization of urban communities themselves. It is shown that the development of science as a whole can be ensured by the heterogeneity of science itself : integration and differentiation give rise to an integration scientific and communicative process. (shrink)

One of the distinctive features of Anna Julia Cooper’s political philosophy and philosophy of education is the frequency with which she uses corporeal and organicist imagery to support her analyses...

Rights to compensation are much invoked and much disputed in recent liberal debates. The disputes are generally about supposed fundamental rights to compensation, whose recognition and legal enactment would transform some lives. For example, special treatment in education or employment are claimed as compensation for past denials of equal opportunity; special consideration for Third World countries in aid and trade terms is claimed as compensation for the injustices of the colonial past. We can make ready sense of the idea (...) of legal rights to compensation. Legal rights to compensation guarantee recompense for damage suffered. The damage for which compensation is given may or may not be produced by wrongdoing; it may also be negligent or accidental or due to natural causes. In law, compensation is not always contingent upon the victim having suffered injury as well as harm, nor upon saddling a wrong-doer with the costs of compensation. Insurance policies standardly cover damage due to accident and neglect. Legal rights to compensation may provide for payments to victims of violent crime, to those whose property is requisitioned or damaged, to victims of libel or malpractice, and even to victims of natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes. Legal rights to compensation are a standard way of dealing with the predicament of those who become victims, whether of others' action, of their own negligence, or of natural catastrophe. None of this shows that there are fundamental rights to compensation. Legal rights to compensation may lack moral grounding: and if they are morally grounded, they may rest not on fundamental rights to compensation, but on background positions in which rights are derivative or inessential. (shrink)

In this essay Bryan Warnick explores how rights to religious expression should be understood for students in public schools. Warnick frames student religious rights as a debate between the conflicting values associated with the Free Exercise Clause and the values associated with the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. He then asks how the special characteristics of the school environment should guide us in prioritizing those values. The overall weight of the considerations, particularly concerns about civic education, leads (...) to a two-pronged approach to religious rights. The first prong involves a robust protection of student religious exercise; the second involves an equally robust regime of school disassociation from student religious exercises. (shrink)

Among the rights of workers articulated in Catholic social thought is the right to associate or the right to form associations of working persons. This right has been discussed in Church documents since the time of the publication of Rerum Novarum in 1891. It is this right that is addressed in this paper.

This paper offers four arguments against a moral human right to health, two denying that the right exists and two denying that it would be very useful (even if it did exist). One of my sceptical arguments is familiar, while the other is not.The unfamiliar argument is an argument from the nature of health. Given a realistic view of health production, a dilemma arises for the human right to health. Either a state's moral duty to preserve the (...) health of its citizens is not justifiably aligned in relation to the causes of health or it does not correlate with the human right to health. It follows that no one holds a justified moral human right to health against the state.Education and herd immunity against infectious disease both illustrate this dilemma. In the former case, the state's moral duty correlates with the human right to health only if it demands too much from a cause of health; and in the latter, only if it demands nothing from a cause of health (that is, too little). (shrink)

This paper provide the first extended discussion in the philosophical literature of the epistemic significance of the phenomenon of “being known” and the relationship it has to reparations that are distinctively epistemic. Drawing on a framework provided by the United Nations of the “right to know,” it is argued that victims of gross violations and injustices not only have the right to know what happened, but also the right to be known—to be a giver of knowledge to (...) others about their own experiences. It is shown that such victims can suffer epistemic wrongs by being rendered invisible, vilified or demonized, or systematically distorted, and that these ways of not being known demand epistemic reparations. While there are traditional reparations that are epistemic in nature, such as memorialization and education, it is argued that there is a prior and arguably more important epistemic reparation—knowing victims of gross violations and injustices in the sense of bearing witness. The paper concludes with a sketch of an epistemological picture to underwrite this notion of epistemic reparations, one that significantly expands the traditional picture by including epistemic duties that are imperfect in nature and concern actions in addition to beliefs. (shrink)

Human values and core principles of societies like self-respect, dignity, fairness, equality, dignity, non-discrimination and sharing have long been discussed and valued all over different societies and communities around the globe. These universal core principles are a reflection of the human rights; so the common skeleton of framework, philosophy and concept of human rights should be worldwide or universal. This implies that the recognition of human rights is supposed to be the goal of every state. Other than this central point, (...) can we actually know the concept and dimensions of human rights? This basic question brings out the subject of education of human rights & human rights in education. Keeping in view this context the main objective of author is to study the perception/concept & practices of Teacher Educators about Human Right Education & Human Right in Education. The population in this study comprised of Teacher Educators of Department of Education & teacher education of public universities of Sindh, where target population was Department of Education / teacher education of three randomly selected public universities. The target sample was sixty percent Teacher Educators from each department which were selected by random sampling. The research was descriptive in nature & qualitative & quantitative by method. A questionnaire with open and close ended questions was used to collect data and the data was analyzed with the help of percentages& theme analysis to inquire the concept & practices. Visualized findings sum-up the concept and practices about the theme with a few recommendations for practitioners and policy makers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Marja Heimonen, “Justifying the Right to Music Education”Hermann J. KaiserFirst of all I would like to thank Marja Heimonen for her paper on a central problem not only for music education as practice but also for the theory of music education. She gives a very clear and convincing answer to a permanently irritating question: How do we justify music education within (...) an ensemble of competing subjects struggling to get a place within the school curriculum. And she does it in a rather uncommon way, that is, by means of legal philosophy. I think her arguments provoke several questions worthy of serious discussion. Some of these questions I shall try to indicate.The first question relates to the right to (music) education. Referring to the Nordic countries she states, "Their legal systems are based on enacted acts and statutes not only protecting the citizens against criminal acts but also securing their rights to receive a certain amount and standard of services the state is obliged to provide" and she continues: "Education is one of the basic rights in Nordic societies." I am interested very much in the wording by which these constitutions declare the right to education respectively to music education. The German constitution, for example, says only, but very bluntly that the entire schooling system stands under control of the state. That means, in connection with compulsory schooling, education at school means no right but a compulsion. (I shall come back to this point later.)The second question relates to the issue of internal versus external goods or instrumental versus self-justifying aims. In her attempt to justify music education Heimonen makes a distinction between internal and external goods, instrumental and self-justifying aims. I wonder if this distinction—though it is very common in theories of action and of value—really refers to different facts; perhaps [End Page 213] it is only a difference in perspectives. I will transform this problem into a question thus: Are aims and values emphasizing a person's well-being really not instrumental with regard to this person? The well-being aims look to me to be necessarily connected to self-justifying aims. Aims, values, activities, facts, situations, and so on, generating well-being, are always instrumental with regard to a person's well-being. What else should they be?On the other hand, are so-called external goods and instrumental aims not self-justifying aims as well, again from the point of view of the person concerned? Are not aims which favor the training of a future professional (so called instrumental aims) self-justifying with regard to this person since they contribute very much to his or her well-being? Thus music educators should not hesitate to demonstrate the real individual, social, economical, and so on, benefit of music education to the society concerned very energetically.The third question arises around the implicit theories of the teacher, the school, and the function of music education as set forth by Heimonen in her paper. Heimonen compares the structure of the (music) teacher's situation with that of a judge. She says:The judge has to operate between the tensions of different interests in the framework of the law consisting of written regulations and the tradition of previous cases that have been solved.... The judge works within a "legal puzzle" just as the music teacher operates in a "musical puzzle": both of them have to think holistically as they try to achieve the best possible solutions in a particular situation, and both of them have to act innovatively and creatively in their practice.Here the question arises as to whether the "musical puzzle" is really the corresponding moment to the "legal puzzle" or whether it is the "music-pedagogical puzzle." I think it is the latter. But the teacher does not have—like the judge "his" legal system—a framework of written regulations and he never is in the situation just to apply rules on different cases. That is to say, one cannot reduce educational activities to making decisions on the basis of right or wrong, good or bad. But even if one would acknowledge an identical structure of the... (shrink)

Five leading thinkers on the concept of 'rights' in an era of rightlessness Sixty years ago, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, deprived of her German citizenship as a Jew and in exile from her country, observed that before people can enjoy any of the 'inalienable' Rights of Man--before there can be any specific rights to education, work, voting, and so on--there must first be such a thing as 'the right to have rights.' The concept received little attention at (...) the time, but in our age of refugee crises and extra-state war, the phrase has become the center of a crucial and lively debate. Here five leading thinkers from varied disciplines, including history, law, and politics, discuss the critical issue of the basis of rights and the meaning of radical democratic politics today. (shrink)

Completing the translation of Derrida’s monumental work Right to Philosophy (the first part of which has already appeared under the title of Who’s Afraid of Philosophy?), Eyes of the University brings together many of the philosopher’s most important texts on the university and, more broadly, on the languages and institutions of philosophy. In addition to considerations of the implications for literature and philosophy of French becoming a state language, of Descartes’ writing of the Discourse on Method in French, and (...) of Kant’s and Schelling’s philosophies of the university, the volume reflects on the current state of research and teaching in philosophy and on the question of what Derrida calls a “university responsibility.” Examining the political and institutional conditions of philosophy, the essays collected here question the growing tendency to orient research and teaching towards a programmable and profitable end. The volume is therefore invaluable for the light it throws upon an underappreciated aspect of Derrida’s own engagement, both philosophical and political, in struggles against the stifling of philosophical research and teaching. As a founding member of the Research Group on the Teaching of Philosophy and as one of the conveners of the Estates General of Philosophy, Derrida was at the forefront of the struggle to preserve and extend the teaching of philosophy as a distinct discipline, in secondary education and beyond, in the face of conservative government education reforms in France. As one of the founders of the Collège International de Philosophie, he worked to provide a space for research in and around philosophy that was not accepted or legitimated in other institutions. Documenting and reflecting upon these engagements, Eyes of the University brings together some of the most important and incisive of Derrida’s works. (shrink)

Despite the undeniable ethical dimensions of paid occupations — trades and services — other than the traditional professions, it is still natural to associate courses of professional ethics with medicine, law, nursing or teaching, rather than auto‐repair, supermarket assistance or window‐cleaning. Indeed, it seems plausible to hold that if there is anything more to the traditional distinction of professions from trades or other services than considerations of social and economic status, it might well reside in the distinctive ethical or moral (...) character and implications of such occupations as medicine, law and education. This paper undertakes to explore, via examination of some of the commonly suggested criteria of professionalism, the nature of such implications and the extent to which they justify continued deployment of a distinctive occupational category of ‘profession’. On the assumption that they do, however, the paper is also concerned to examine critically the consequences for education in professional ethics of any such distinctive ethics of profession. (shrink)