Progress in moral education depends chiefly on the rejection of fantasy. The philosophical basis must be understood: it involves (a) a non-partisan approach, and (b) grasp of moral methodology– we are to show pupils how to get the right answers. Research and development require a linear structure, beginning with (and controlled by) conceptual enquiry, then involving psychology and social science, and finally issuing in practical development. Moral education periods are needed in the school timetable. Education in morality must be distinguished from the avoidance of social disorder. The fragmentation of those concerned with moral education into different partisan groups is disastrous: it is not a political issue, but one to be forwarded by scholarship and common sense. Having directed research in moral education since 1965, and acted as a consultant for many people from many countries who are interested in establishing some effective programme of moral education, I may perhaps be able to say something useful about what this enterprise requires and what the major obstacles to it.are. But I write with some hesitation, inasmuch as most of the difficulties are (I believe) of a subliminal nature � that is, a matter of unconscious prejudice and resistance, rather than of a more overtly intellectual, practical or political kind. In other words, I do not think our chief need is to be more clever, or to have more practical experience, or to develop more political cunning: it is to become more sane � to recognize and put into action truths which (as I see it) are in themselves tolerably obvious. My hesitation, then, is not due to any grave doubts I have about the truths: it is due to my lack of qualifications and insight into the sorttof mental and emotional blocks and fantasies which hold up the subject. Ideally this article should be written by a competent psychiatrist who had studied the area and had a reasonable degree of philosophical competence: in default of such, I will do my best. I should add, by way both of apology and defence, that I have enlarged elsewhere on this general thesis1, and on most of the points made below2. © 1979, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
