Redefining moral education

by Kathryn Ross Wayne

In her thought-provoking study, Redefining Moral Education, Kathryn Wayne explores the role of education in developing a new ecological morality. Using two novels by Ursula Le Guin, The Word for the World Is Forest (1972) and Always Coming Home (1985), Dr. Wayne explores how language plays an essential part in our apprehension of the relationship between nature and culture. Tracing the history of ecological thought in the Western world, Kathryn Wayne analyses how Le Guin's work relates to recent works by deep ecologists, social ecologists and ecofeminists, as well as leading influences in moral theory and education - Karl Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, Carl Rogers and Nel Noddings - and how Le Guin uses metaphors to highlight cultural behaviors and practices, thus giving a unique character to her contribution. Kathryn Wayne demonstrates how Le Guin's use of language to create the ecocentric worlds of her novels can be held as an example from which we can redefine morality in terms of our en