Study On Virtue Education Theory Of Locke

Knowledge is virtue. It’s not any new idea, but a reiteration of the elements that have been significant in the concept of life in ancient Greece, or specifically, in Athens. Why humans are humans? Virtue is the most definite answer because it sets apart humans from other animals. However, according to Socrates’ s motto, Knowledge is virtue, virtue seems to be in the exclusive preserve of philosophers. However, virtue has never been an independent and self-contained realm in human community or civic politics. Perhaps,the consistency of Locke’s moral principle and practice principle suggests that the philosophy of morality has never been limited to the area of speculation because it has always been closely related to the practice. When empiricism emerged in 17 th century, philosophers, with Locke as the leader, criticized the view of innate ideas. Even before that, people had already resorted to education in order to cultivate qualified philosopher king or qualified citizen. For Locke, the ultimate acquisition of virtues, and of free and independent personality, i.e. the eventual cultivation and casting of virtue, consists in how education plays its role, or rather, how gentlemen education, as Locke put it, shapes the individual as a moral being.Locke sharply criticized the theory of innate ideas. For him, the content of virtue ideas is not endowed with and the human beings are not the animal with an instinct to acquire the virtue and avoid the evil. Instead, human nature will choose enjoy but avoid to suffer any pain.Thus, Locke reiterated the importance of training in the formulation of virtue. The individual’s body, mind and soul are successively affected by the environment. This is the process through which ideas are formulated. It is also the process in which education may eventually function and effect until the concept of virtue is formulated and the moral integrity comes infinitely close to virtue, with the power to resist any temptation of desire and pleasure. In this process of concept formulation in children, gentlemen education makes the mind and the soul begin to know what is valuable, what is suitable, what is pursuable for the individual and the community and helps the learners to maturate quickly to become a person of virtue.The education of virtues is not merely a process of one-direction impartment. The true gentlemen education has people’s inner mind as its greatest concern, which means to nurture and edify the learners at the level of mind and soul. According to Locke, the acquisition and formulation of virtues is the only path to happiness for individuals. Among all the talents of a man or a gentleman, virtue is foremost and indispensable. Thus, as an existence of virtue, the individual obeys the moral standards established by the human community and the civic politics as well as retain the significance of them. That is to say, people direct their life by rules of nature and rationality instead of simply living a life of order and virtue. Meanwhile, this also embodies the essence of human nature. In other words, a man without virtues does not deserve a life of happiness.