Prototypes, virtues and the ethics of practice

Abstract

While in agreement with the broad coherentist approach of Evers and Lakomski, the position taken here is that coherentism, in itself, does not provide a sufficiently developed normative framework to underpin an ethics of educational administration. The coherentist approach to ethics is that the requirements of survival and social problem solving ensure the development of neurally‐based moral prototypes. Following writers such as Clark and Flanagan, argues that the normative resources of coherentism should be enriched by sententially expressed normative standards, and that the approach to such standards taken by virtue ethicists is fruitful. Virtue ethicists reject a rule‐based approach to morality and embrace the idea of moral prototypes. This is consistent with a naturalised epistemology, including the learning of ethical administrative practice.

Citation

Robinson, V.M.J. (2001), "Prototypes, virtues and the ethics of practice", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 39 No. 6, pp. 521-538. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000006051