The Good Life of Teaching extends the recent revival of virtue ethics to professional ethics and the philosophy of teaching. It connects long-standing philosophical questions about work and human growth to questions about teacher motivation, identity, and development.Makes a significant contribution to the philosophy of teaching and also offers new insights into virtue theory and professional ethicsOffers fresh and detailed readings of major figures in ethics, including Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and Bernard Williams and the practical philosophies of Hannah Arendt, John Dewey and Hans-Georg GadamerProvides illustrations to assist the reader in visualizing major points, and integrates sources such as film, literature, and teaching memoirs to exemplify arguments in an engaging and accessible wayPresents a compelling vision of teaching as a reflective practice showing how this requires us to prepare teachers differently

Chris Higgins is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is also Associate Editor and Review Editor ofEducational Theory. A philosopher of education, his work draws on virtue ethics, hermeneutics, and psychoanalysis. His scholarly interests include professional ethics and teacher identity, dialogue and the teacher-student relationship, liberal learning and the humanistic imagination, professional education and the philosophy of work.

Foreword byRichard Smith vii

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction: Why We Need a Virtue Ethics of Teaching 1

Saints and scoundrels 1

A brief for teacherly self-cultivation 2

From the terrain of teaching to the definition of professional ethics 9

Outline of the argument 10

Part I The Virtues of Vocation: From Moral Professionalism to Practical Ethics

1 Work and Flourishing: Williams Critique of Morality and its Implications for Professional Ethics 21

Retrieving Socrates question 22

Modern moral myopia 25

What do moral agents want? 31

From moral professionalism to professional ethics 35

2 Worlds of Practice: MacIntyres Challenge to Applied Ethics 47

The architecture of MacIntyres moral theory 48

A closer look at internal goods 55

The practicality of ethical reflection 61

What counts as a practice: The proof, the pudding, and the recipe 63

Boundary conditions: Practitioners, managers, interpreters, and fans 69

3 Labour, Work, and Action: Arendts Phenomenology of Practical Life 85

Arendts singular project 87

Defining the deed 92

Hierarchy and interdependence in thevita activa 99

Praxis in the professions 101

4 A Question of Experience: Dewey and Gadamer on Practical Wisdom 111

The constant gardener 113

The existential and aesthetic dimensions of vocation 119

Our dominant vocation 125

Practical wisdom and the circle of experience 130

The open question 134

Part II a Virtue Ethics for Teachers: Problems and Prospects

5 The Hunger Artist: Pedagogy and the Paradox of Self-Interest 145

A blind spot in the educational imagination 145

The hunger artist 154

The very idea of a helping profession 161

This ripeness of self 170

6 Working Conditions: The Practice of Teaching and the Institution of School 177

Aprima facie case for teaching as a practice 178

MacIntyres objection 190

Schools as surroundings 198

7 The Classroom Drama: Teaching as Endless Rehearsal and Cultural Elaboration 205

Education as the drama of cultural renewal 208

A false lead 214

Teaching as labour, work, and action 217

Education, shelter, and mediation 223

Teaching as endless rehearsal 227

Teaching as cultural elaboration 233

8 Teaching as Experience: Toward a Hermeneutics of Teaching and Teacher Education 241

Teaching as vocational environment 241

Batch processing, kitsch culture, and other obstacles to teacher vocation 248

The syntax of educational claims 254

The shape of humanistic conversation 258

Horizons of educational inquiry 266

Teacher education for practical wisdom 273

References 283

Index 305