In this blog I look at the “Ethics” section of the proposed “Education about Religious Beliefs (ERB) and Ethics” curriculum which is intended for primary schools. I ask whether it is compatible with faith-based instruction in denominational schools. The previous blog examined this issue in the context of the “Education about Religious Beliefs” (ERB) component (available here, while the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment’s (NCCA) consultation paper on the proposed new curriculum is available here.)

A key to understanding the NCCA’s position on the teaching of Ethics is the concept of “pluralism”. As my previous blog on ERB and Ethics pointed out, pluralism in the context of the ERB component suggests that all belief systems are of equal truth value and therefore appears at one level to be uncontroversially “neutral” but in reality is relativistic (in other words, it is so deeply neutral as regards the different belief systems that it sees no difference in truth value between them).

Pluralism in the context of the NCCA’s Ethics component does not pretend at neutrality, however. The NCCA doesn’t suppose that all moral systems are fundamentally equal. Instead it takes a very definite stand in favour of an ethical system which promotes “a personal commitment to the dignity and freedom of all human beings, the importance of human rights and responsibilities, the place of justice within society, and the service of the common good” (p. 37 of the NCCA consultation paper).

On its face, no one could object to such a course. Yet (as the NCCA acknowledges) no subject or teaching is entirely neutral or value-free (p.22), and there are many diverse and even incompatible ways of understanding the precise meaning of human dignity, human rights, justice, and the common good. The philosophies of such diverse thinkers as Plato, Aquinas, Hobbes, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Arendt, Rawls and MacIntyre (to name but a few) are testament to this.

So what philosophical tradition does the NCCA situate its course in?  A fairly clear answer is provided, “Ethics education contributes to the development of autonomous individuals, capable of exercising critical judgment, while also fostering dialogue and community life in a pluralist society” (p. 20). This is the ethics of contemporary liberalism, of thinkers like John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin.

In answering this question it becomes clearer what pluralism means for the NCCA and why it is deployed in a slightly different manner in the respective contexts of ERB and Ethics teaching.

For religion, the NCCA’s commitment to pluralism entails an agnostic neutrality; for ethics, it entails a strong prioritisation of individual moral autonomy (or choice); for both, the NCCA’s invocation of a “pluralist epistemology” applies, whereby there is a “right to the existence of contradictory truth claims or worldviews” (p. 39).

Ethics according to the NCCA’s approach is incompatible with some core elements of a faith-based ethics. When all is said and done contemporary liberalism sees only one supreme good: the good of individual autonomy in moral decision making. It reduces human dignity and human rights to autonomy and autonomy rights, and interprets the common good as nothing more than the conditions necessary for autonomous moral choice. Christianity has a different approach, one that sees many equal kinds of human good, each both serving and being a reflection of the supreme goodness of God. Autonomy, while important, is not an end in itself. Christianity sees freedom as a “freedom for” more important goods, rather than, as contemporary liberalism sees it, a “freedom from” moral constraint.

Those liberal theorists who have thought through these matters acknowledge the existence of some deep incompatibilities between contemporary liberalism and Christian moral teaching. The NCCA seem entirely oblivious to this (pp. 7, 29), and that should cause concern.