Peace Education: Exploring Some Philosophical Foundations

Peace education has been accepted as an important aspect of social education over the past three decades, although as yet there been little attention within the critical literature and within official documents towards developing and articulating philosophical foundations for peace education. This essay explores the possibility that such foundations might be located within 1) virtue ethics, 2) consequentialist ethics, 3) aesthetic ethics, 4) conservative political ethics, and 5) the ethics of care. Each of the above is important, although ultimately a thorough basis for peace education can only be established through an integrative approach to the above foundations, an approach that mirrors much of the emphasis within UN and UNESCO initiatives to encourage a culture of peace. The importance of peace education is often accepted as given by those committed to peace education, although the development and articulation of the philosophical rationale for peace education remains an important task for the future