Moral Education as Growth

: This chapter examines John Dewey’s concept of moral education as growth, emphasizing its implications for moral development beyond his earlier work. While Moral Principles in Education (1909) presents Dewey’s approach to moral education through social participation, it does not incorporate his later view of growth as the sole moral end. Waks points to the need for the reconstruction of Dewey’s moral education theory in light of Human Nature and Conduct (1922), where he defines morality as the expansion of conduct in meaning. As Waks illustrates, Dewey’s later theory of growth introduces a tension between cooperative participation and individual moral development. The chapter shows how, for Dewey, true moral growth requires openness to new experiences, creative problem-solving involving new ends and new means, and self-transformation, sometimes in conflict with established social norms and cooperative action. This challenges educators to cultivate both group cooperation and individual moral experimentation. Waks concludes that a reconstructed Deweyan moral education must balance social engagement and cooperation with fostering independent growth, requiring educators to create environments that encourage both communal participation and personal moral discovery.