RETHINKING CIVIC EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY

摘要

In the age of biotechnology, civic and citizenship education must attend to the fact that the present generation has the power to shape future generations' prospects. It follows that the present generation must employ such power with prudence and caution. The reformulated concepts of moral intuition, the social contract, and epistemic responsibility discussed here can play significant roles in reshaping our understanding of egalitarian and just intergenerational relations. Moral intuition does not exist in a social vacuum; our present seemingly indifferent attitude toward future generations demonstrates the urgent need for a principle of intergenerational justice. The social contract is a moral metaphor intended to stress the importance of moral impartiality as well as human sympathy. Thus, it is not justifiable to discount the present generation's responsibilities to future people on the grounds that subsequent generations will not be able to reciprocate our caring for them. Further, given the interrelatedness of ethics and epistemology, we may conclude that the educational enterprise must be reoriented to recognize human fallibility in the examination of knowledge claims and cultural values in formal educational settings and beyond — even for the next seven generations.