Essays on Religion and Education

R. M. Hare is one of the most widely discussed of today's moral philosophers. In this volume he has collected his most important essays in the related fields of religion and education, some newly published and others now inaccessible. The book starts with an exposition of his ideas on themeaning of religious language. There follow several essays, theoretical and practical, on the relations between religion and morality, which have deep implications for moral education. The central question addressed in the rest of the volume is how children can be educated to think forthemselves, freely but rationally, about moral questions, and the effects on society of failure to achieve this. Professor Hare argues that those who want to dispense with morality are in effect resigning from a vital educational task. Attitudes to euthanasia and to equality of educationalopportunity are taken as examples of how our thinking can go wrong.

R. M. Hare, FBA, was White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1966 to 1983, and Graduate Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Florida, Gainesville, thereafter.