Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics and Children's Flourishing: Connecting Key Concepts Toward a MacIntyrean Account

Abstract

I contribute to discourses on character education, virtue ethics, childhood goods, educational goods, and children’s flourishing by analyzing literature, outlining different kinds of accounts of children’s flourishing based on the concept of childhood goods, and describing a MacIntyrean view of children’s flourishing. I show that accounts of children’s flourishing are shaped by positions on the philosophical question of what is good for children and whether it is unique to or for them. Pursuing children’s flourishing in educational programming and policy thus also depends on this issue. I conclude any party trying to help children flourish through education should ground their view in a philosophical account of how children flourish on pain of being arbitrary and aimless. I also sketch a MacIntyrean view of children’s flourishing based on a relevant virtue ethics. My goals are therefore argumentative and descriptive.