Thanks for your response on the two types of morality in a CHAT framework.
I think that what you're calling critical morality/responsibility is one of
the things I was thinking of as a core issue. With our own kids, we've
tried for instance to routinely talk back at TV commercials and sometimes
at scenes in movies, cartoons, etc. where we're particularly concerned
about the messages embedded there.
And clearly, promoting the development of resources for cooperative action
(and I'd understand conflict and challenge as special and important cases
of cooperative action) would stand as a responsiblity.
I'm still left wondering about the issue of ends, though. J. Dewey worked
on this issue in terms of trying to distinguish the experience and learning
that initiated children into criminal gangs from the the experience and
learning that initiated children into ?more acceptable? forms of social
activity. He was trying to define the way a particular kind of learning
had ramifications on the quality of future experiences and growth (two
interesting, though clearly difficult criteria). I wonder if some kind of
evolutionary framework might be useful in dealing with issues of ends as
well as means?
________________
Paul Prior
U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
p-prior who-is-at uiuc.edu