The Introduction challenges three limited approaches to ethical education, that is, the teaching of moral values as a subject matter, as the fostering of cognitive moral reasoning, or as the cultivation of virtues or character traits. We argue that ethics does not consist solely in informational propositional knowledge, but instead, it requires cultivating sensitivities that constitute caring in a relationship; ethics is rooted more deeply in the social and emotional aspects of human relationships than in the cognitive reasoning of moral principles, which will not awaken the need nor enliven the ability to appreciate the differences in others; ethics cannot be reduced to a list of virtues. We further argue that these three approaches are limited not only in their capacity to enable young people to overcome challenges in relationships with and feeling for others, but also in these being situated within an instrumentalised conception of education. This conception tends to ignore the importance of living human relationships within a school community as intrinsically valuable, hence missing out a core ingredient in ethics. To overcome these limitations, this book proposes that ethics should be understood primarily in terms of engaging with others in human relationships that consist in caring and mutual appreciation.

What does it mean for a relationship to be ethical? Chapter 3 will provide two answers to this question and show how they are related. First, an ethical relationship requires that both parties appreciate and treat the other person as a being of equal non-instrumental value. Second, an ethical relationship requires that both parties are disposed to understand each other well in a specific way. This requires overcoming an epistemological asymmetry by reading the intentions of others according to the idea that they primarily will do some good. The two claims are related as follows: an important way of not respecting a person is to fail to understand her by succumbing to the epistemological asymmetry. It will examine this asymmetry in practice by showing how people typically misunderstand each other. Finally, this chapter will briefly explore the implications of these conclusions for relationship-based ethical education within the existing school system. These include creating spaces for sharing in which young people can feel safe, private and not judged, and where the educators can engender an appropriate atmosphere for listening and dialogue.