Introduction

The focus of this chapter is the interrelationship of personal and professional ethics in education, and the effect of differing political contexts on the development of the ‘moral self ‘ of teachers. In line with the aims of Part Five (see Figure 1.1), this is done in the context of two countries as case studies, namely Finland and England. The authors define ‘ethics’ as being the values that direct decision making and behaviour. The chapter considers the degree to which the values governing ethical decision making and behaviour in education are ‘out there’, a reality to be discovered through reasoning and attention to experts in the field, to be viewed in terms of skills learned and objectively applied. The opposing position, that ethical values in education are personal constructs central to all thought and action, is also explored.

The chapter considers these positions through the application of Bourdieu's (1990) concepts of ‘habitus’ and ‘field’ to Rest's (1986) four dimensions of moral development – moral sensitivity, moral judgement and moral motivation leading to moral character – to suggest a framework for considering teacher identity as moral self. The discussion is illustrated with reflections on the authors’ lived experiences in England and Finland (see also Chapter Five).

According to Max Horkheimer, modern societies are concentrating on content at the expense of form. In his Eclipse of Reason the analysis is clear and sharp:

Horkeimer's perspective reflects that of the philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, who, writing over 50 years earlier, describes the state of humanity as degradation: people are not interested in common things but act principally for their own self-interest. According to Arendt (1958), consumption had conquered the public sphere, without being public, because the nature of consumption was private and did not require justification. It was easy to lose ethical perspective because humans lived in a world where there was no need to talk.