Autonomy And The Ethical Status Of Comprehensive Education

On grounds of autonomy, is comprehensive education - an approach to education that attempts to facilitate the acceptance of certain beliefs and ways of life as being correct, and refuses to sympathetically expose students to contrary beliefs and ways of life - ethically suspect? Recently, Bryan R. Warnick has argued that it is. In this essay, Adam D. Bailey critically evaluates Warnick's argument, and contends that it is unsuccessful. In particular, he argues that Warnick's argument from necessity does not succeed. Bailey then addresses a potential response to his critique of Warnick's argument that of developing an argument from facilitation rather than necessity - and argues that, contrary to the argument from necessity, the argument from facilitation does provide support for the claim that comprehensive education is ethically suspect. However, Bailey attempts to show that even granting the facilitation argument, it is plausible to hold that, on grounds of autonomy, comprehensive education need not be seen as ethically suspect.