Taking Children’s Moral Lives Seriously

Creativity as Ethical Response Offline and Online

Bibliographic Data

ID16901437
AuthorsKate Ott (0009-0005-8208-3480, Drew University, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume10
Issue9
Pages525
Publication date2019-09-12
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel10090525
OpenAlexW2973086824
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited14

Core Christian ethics concepts are affected by assumptions related to the primary subject or moral agent and the social context in which moral encounters take place. This article asks: Are children full moral agents? If so, what can Christian ethics, which predominantly focuses on adult subjects, learn from a focus on children? A small group of Christian ethicists has asked this very question in conversation with psychologists, child development theorists, educators, theologians, and philosophers. Centering children requires attention to age and ability differences and inclusion of their voices. Children as ethical subjects focus attention on issues of particularity, a decentering of rational individualism, and debunking linear moral developmental assumptions. The research on children’s moral lives points toward ethics as creativity in forms of play or improvisation. Given children’s digitally saturated lives, their creative use of critical digital literacies also helps Christian ethics begin to map a response to the impact of digital technologies

Conversation · Creativity · Epistemology · Improvisation · Individualism · Moral development · Moral disengagement · Social cognitive theory of morality · Sociology · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious Education and Schools · Social Psychology · Values and Moral Education

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access