The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice

What sort of work is teaching, and how does teaching shape the teacher? And why exactly do these questions matter within a ?helping profession? where altruistic talk of service dominates? In addressing these questions, this book offers not only a new statement in the philosophy of teaching but also an important advance in professional ethics. Drawing on recent developments in virtue ethics, Higgins demonstrates why an ethics of teaching must prioritize the question of the teacher?s own self–enactment and self–cultivation, considering how the practice of teaching presents opportunities and obstacles for the teacher?s own growth. By examining the major theories of practical philosophy on the terrain of teaching, this book sheds light on long–standing philosophical problems about self–interest and altruism, personal freedom and social roles, and practical wisdom and personhood. With the use of close reconstructions and vivid illustrations, he offers a fresh appreciation of a variety of neo–praxis philosophers including Hannah Arendt, John Dewey, Hans–Georg Gadamer and Alasdair MacIntyre. A rigorous and accessible work of practical ethics, The Good Life of Teaching connects questions about the nature of teaching, teacher motivation and teacher education with more general questions about the relation of work to human flourishing. It offers a compelling vision of what it means to be a teacher, an indictment of the forces that compromise the practice of teaching, and a valuable account of how teaching can become a sustainable and self–fulfilling vocation.