533 THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONDITIONS OF MORAL EDUCATION: THE NOTIONS OF RATIONALITY AND OBJECTIVITY REVISITED Katariina Holma Department of Education University of Helsinki Abstract. The crucial epistemological question for formulating the principles that underlie moral education concerns the status of rationality and objectivity in ethics and education. In this essay Katariina Holma argues that the intertwined understanding of the concepts of education, ethics, rationality, and objectivity is built into our language and our thinking. She begins by delineating epistemologically adequate interpretations for the notions of rationality and objectivity. In light of these interpretations, Holma contends that the two main contemporary philosophical arguments against the possibility of ethical objectivity — the argument that derives from cultural relativism and the argument that derives from the scientific worldview — fail to refute this possibility. The epistemological notions of rationality and objectivity, as Holma interprets them in this essay, prepare the way for a moral education that combines the appreciation of personal and cultural plurality with the possibility for critical thinking and the pursuit of better understanding in the ethical realm. Introduction The justification for moral education confronts problems peculiar to this realm of education. These problems arise particularly from two conflicting con- ceptions often accepted by educators. First, from the practical point of view, moral education (the teaching of conceptions about right and wrong, good and bad, and so on) is taken to be necessary, because it is held that to grow up without a moral education leads to both personal difficulties and problems with society. Second, accepted values and ethical principles are taken to be subjective or culturally relative matters, and thus educators are puzzled by whether they are justified in transmitting any of their own ethical beliefs and accepted values to the younger generations. The issue of how to justify moral education is an urgent problem in contemporary multicultural society, where the value systems and ethical beliefs of different cultures confront each other also in educational situations. The nature of the question demonstrates, among other things, the straight- forward connection between the problems confronted in everyday educational practice and the problems considered by academic philosophy of education. Edu- cators, in reflecting on issues that they face in their work, are asking the same questions as moral philosophers and epistemologists: Is it possible to achieve improved understanding of (appropriate) values? Is it possible to have justified eth- ical beliefs? Is ethics rationally approachable? Is there any possibility of objectively assessing various moral conceptions? If the answer to these kinds of questions is negative, what could be a justification for transmitting to younger generations the ethical beliefs and value judgments educators themselves hold to be worth accepting? The crucial epistemological question for formulating the principles underlying moral education is that of the status of rationality and objectivity in ethics and EDUCATIONAL THEORY Volume 61 Number 5 2011  2011 Board of Trustees University of Illinois