THOUGHT PIECE 03

To ask the three great Greek philosophers what should be the goal of education,

Aristotle convinced me most. A person should not be educated solely to his intellectual

and reasoning capacity, but by virtue. People could not be political one if not educated in

virtue.1 I firmly believe that, in order to have a better and prosperous society, the

members must be virtuous in themselves. Education provides different learning

experiences but most of them primarily capture reasoning and intellectual growth.

I do not deny intellectual growth in education, but sometimes because of this high

intelligent quotient a person has, he tends to forget to perform virtuous actions. He

reasonably justifies for the sake of himself. He forgets to act morally in the guidance of

virtues. Virtues help a person to establish moral relationship to other people where

education even nowadays ignores. A relationship that is established from virtues gives

birth to a well-educated society.

A society with virtuous members and at the same time a virtuous leader knows

how to reach out to one another. Decision- making is not hardly made among them

because it was done out from moral decision. Reason and intellect are acknowledged as

well, but in the influenced of the power of virtues.

Thus, I earnestly seek more on Aristotle’s view especially in our present situations;

pandemic. We should be virtuous to one another. The decision of the state must protect

the life of the people. Safety protocols are made and implemented but actually some of

them ignores the welfare of the public, particularly the vulnerable. For instance,

education should aim for virtuous goals rather than cognitive goals. In order to have right

reasoning and intellectual application, first to consider if it is virtuous. Because even until

the end of everything, in crisis or not, in success or downfall of humanity, the morality of

the people and virtuous relationship to one another matters most. It’s like as precious as

diamonds.

1
Notes from previous discussion, Philosophy of Education (August 20, 2020)