Abstract:

Given the separation between disciplinary knowledge and moral norms and the long-standing neglect of their shared value foundation, neither focusing solely on content construction nor merely improving instructional forms can effectively integrate the two, resulting in subject moral education (SME) to be rigid or hollow. Human, by essence, is a free and creative being. The ultimate value foundation of moral norms lies in the realization of human essence, while knowledge is also the outcome of human’s self-conscious and active cognition, a manifestation of human essence, and also serves the realization of human essence. Human essence thus constitutes the shared value foundation of both disciplinary knowledge and moral norms, and it supports, respectively, the unification of their social value and individual value. Based on this shared value foundation, SME should take the realization of students’ essential power as its value orientation, organically integrating disciplinary knowledge with moral norms in content design and harmonizing individual and social values in the construction of instructional forms. In doing so, it can cultivate students’ value rationality and allow the truth-seeking inherent in knowledge learning and the moral striving toward the good to jointly converge in an aesthetic pursuit of personal wholeness.

Key words: subject moral education, value rationality, moral education